Jews are religious believers too. At least the ones who are not atheists.
Rumor has it that there are more atheist Jews in Israel than religious Jews.
And thank G-d Jews in the US aren’t allowed to vote.
“The Skeptical Zone” is decidedly anti-Christ.
Is it equally anti-Jewish?
If not, why not?
I certainly find Judaism to be ridiculous. And Christianity. And Islam. And Scientology. And Zoroastrianism…
To me it seems that the “Old Testament God” tends to be the bigger “Biblical” target overall. That hardly exempts Judaism from criticism.
Glen Davidson
Mung,
What is the point of a thread like this? Did you really think we’d say, “Oh no, we aren’t critical of Judaism. Judaism makes perfect sense”?
Haven’t you caught on yet?
keiths,
Martyr complex ?
Rich,
Could be. Whatever it is, it isn’t rational.
Maybe you should tell us what you do not find to be ridiculous. Probably a very short list.
I caught on here:
keiths and his imaginary friends.
You can extract the list from first principles: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I don’t know whether Kieths considers me a friend, I don’t know him well enough for me to consider him a friend. But I agree, so he’s not alone with that statement.
I actually started out as a believing christian (or more correctly, was raised to be one at the age of about 5), then eventually stopped believing because it didn’t hold up to scrutiny.
So Kieths is right, christianity being false is a conclusion to a long investigation, not an assumption.
You and who else?
Can you link to all the threads of yours where the title starts with:
“Questions for Jews” or “Questions for Muslims”
Why don’t you actually answer his question? I sense some trolling going on in you Mung. What is the point of this thread?
When I have some time, I might post on how a truly secular society guarantees the rights of religious groups to free thought and conscience.
Jews are religious believers too. At least the ones who are not atheists.
Deeply misleading; Judaism is an orthopraxic religion, not an orthodox religion.The concern is with correct conduct (obeying the commandments) rather than with accepting any doctrine. There is exactly one creedal statement in Judaism: “the LORD is our God, the LORD is one”.
Rumor has it that there are more atheist Jews in Israel than religious Jews.
And it’s a false rumor — 41.5% of Israel Jews are secular, 38.5% are observant, 19.9% are Orthodox, and 8.2% are ultra-Orthodox.
Do they not have Wikipedia in your part of the Internet?
And thank G-d Jews in the US aren’t allowed to vote.
I don’t know understand why Mung thought this was supposed to be funny. It really isn’t.
“The Skeptical Zone” is decidedly anti-Christ.
False, unless being skeptical of the assertions made by some Christians is sufficient to count as “anti-Christ”.
We’re 0 for 4.
Shut it down, we’re done.
KN,
Tell that to Maimonides:
The Thirteen Principles of Jewish Faith
And tell it to these members of the Orthodox Jewish community who have to hide their atheism or risk severe repercussions.
Yes, but Maimonides’s Aristotelian-Jewish rationalism was never binding on other Jews as a condition of belonging to the community. That’s what I meant by a creedal faith. There’s no Jewish equivalent to the Nicenean Creed or the Apostolic Creed or any other others. Maimonides is just an honored sage, like Rashi and Gersonides and all the rest. His views are not binding on others, in part because there’s no centalized mechanism of enforcement and in part because conduct is more important than bare assertion.
I think that’s a very modern phenomenon that again has to more do with conduct — is one going to live in the Chasidic world or the secular world? — than assent to a proposition.
There are non-creedal sects of Christianity too: Quakers and Unitarians, for instance. Of course some Christians would say they are “not Christians”. But then some Christians reject other creedal sects as being “not-Christian” too.
Perhaps the key is: do any Jewish sub-groups reject other sub-groups as “not Jews”?
I didn’t even get Mung’s “joke”, so naturally didn’t find it funny either.
Let’s ration OP’s.
I also start with the assumption that the veracity of Christianity is unknown. I have thus far been presented with no reason to think it might be true, and the numerous contradictions in the Christian Bible inspire little confidence.
I find the OP question offensive. Not unlike asking if there are any African Americans who do not like watermelon.
But taking the question at face value, I am a nonbeliever. That is a passive rather than an active stance. I only have an active stance toward people who attempt to control other people through laws or through social pressure.
I don’t see a point to this thread.
To be honest, I also don’t see a point to the anti-Christian threads that some have posted. I’m not convinced that the question “Is Christianity false” is even meaningful.
Mung: Let’s get this straight. Over the last few months your OPs have included the following:
Presuppositions of Science
“When critics object to the [Christian] Logos as a presupposition and offer instead 10 other presuppositions, Ockham’s Razor flies out the window…”
Munging Hell
“I am one of those Christians who underwent a true “born again” experience…”
Angry at God
“The “consensus” view among atheists seems to be that atheism is reasonable and that religious beliefs are not…”
Reliance on Testimony to Miracles
“Sadly, some commenters here at TSZ believe that Coyne’s “way to knowledge” is “the only way to knowledge”….”
A Minimal Materialism
“But if you’re an atheist what else do you have?…”
Postlude to Philosophy
“More specifically, what is the value of philosophy for an atheist? …”
The Cosmological Argumen
“I’d like to explore how the cosmological argument for the existence of God is presented in the book…”
Is Religious Belief Natural?
“Could it be that it is atheism that is unnatural? Is it the denial of religious instruction to children that is the real child abuse?…”
Now you are wondering why your Christian views have been the object of discussion and challenge:
Sabbath for Skeptics
“The Skeptical Zone” is decidedly anti-Christ.”
I detect the return of I.D. Mung.
Do you have any evidence (at all) for the validity of that first principle? If not why do you hold it?
peace
Do you have any evidence (at all) for the veracity of that assumption? If not why do you hold it?
peace
FMM:
FFM, I think we can also put to bed your tiresome complaint that you’re only discussing your Christian beliefs because others are pestering you with questions. How bored you are!
None of the above comments were addressed to you, yet you’ve inserted yourself anyway. Please do – but please, no more pissing and moaning about the direction the discussion takes.
BTW, Mung indicated somewhere previously that he believes that the second coming of Christ occurred in 70 AD. Some disturbance in Jerusalem, IIRC.
FFM, do you agree?
Generally yes. I’m a partial preterist.
I would make sure to qualify that Christ’s coming in judgement in 70 AD is not the final word on the matter
peace
Actually the comments were expressions of presuppositions. This was after the explicit claim in the other thread that you all had none. That is why I “inserted myself”. I did it in the interest of consistency and because I had a minute
I probably should not have.
carry on
peace
Who are the “all” there?
FMM:
I never stated that I (or we – although I probably shouldn’t speak for others) hold no presuppositions. What I stated is that I hold no presuppositions analogous to your presupposition that there is “real truth” and you have access to it through the Logos (as a component of your presupposition that “Christianity is true.”) My presuppositions do include those that undergird knowledge that enabled the placement of Curiosity on Mars, and the notion that much of that body of knowledge can be regarded as “true” independent of Christianity.
Ultimately, you added that you know what you know and that you know that you know it through revelation. I take your citation of revelation as tacit acknowledgment that the bare presupposition “Christianity is true” doesn’t really get you very far in establishing your access to “real truth.”
ETA: reference to Curiosity.
The “all” would not include you. I don’t recall you ever making such a claim
I think I remember Neil and Keiths and Patrick explicitly saying as much. It was a general vibe for others as well. This was especially prominent at the beginning of the thread.
I would like to see a comprehensive list of the presuppositions that you all hold and a justification for why you hold each of them.
I think that given my patient sharing of my presuppositions it would be polite for folks to reciprocate and to subject theirs to the same scrutiny.
peace
You use it every day in your ordinary life. When you ask your coworker if they have seen where you put your coffee cup because you forgot and they answer “I saw it in the spirit dimension Xenaflablag where it was teleported by the transdimensional crystal being OOmahaxx” – you don’t take them seriously, because it is much more likely that you must misplaced it and forgot where than their nutty story is true.
When somebody tells you they have a car, you probably believe them merely on their say-so, because it is an ordinary and even mundane claim to make. Millions of people own cars. If they claim they own a new BMW but work as a diswasher, you might want a little more evidence than their “testimony”, for example you might be convinced if they show you a picture on their cellphone of them driving it.
If they claim to own a Lamborghini Aventador, you might want to actually see them driving it before you believe them, or their registration of ownership (or whatever other documents).
If they claim to own an interstellar trans-lightspeed going vessel, you probably think they’re either lying or crazy(or taking the piss in jest), so you’ll want to not only see the vessel, you’ll want to see it fly, have it confirmed by an independent 3rd party and have some kind of rigorous verification that it can, in fact, fly faster than light and travel between the stars.
So I don’t have to show you it is “valid”, you already know it to be valid and you have operated on that principle your entire life.
What criteria did you use to determine “You use it every day in your ordinary life” is a valid reason for adopting it as a first principle?
peace
It does what it is supposed to accomplish. Your question is like asking “how do you know that because a shovel can be used to dig holes, that digging holes is a valid use of a shovel?”
What is it supposed to accomplish exactly?
How exactly do you know it does what it is supposed to accomplish?
IOW
What criteria do you use to make that determination?
peace
I would think that after a finding out that no one shares or accepts your presuppositions, that would have been a good time to conclude there is no basis for a meeting of the minds.
When can we expect the final word on the matter?
Kantian Naturalist,
The English Wikipedia article, as of today, says this:
Link: http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.651616
You should feel in good company then, KN, as a declared secular (atheist) Jew in USA. Do you nevertheless qualify according to the Israeli ‘law of return’ too?
As it seems, you are both un-orthopraxic and unorthodox, is that true? Philosophistic, however, that’s quite obviously your professional tune, composed even from Paris here at TA/SZ.
The rest of the OP is just Mung’s quasi-Christian angry superficial spasmodic. Sad and not funny. Imo, the thread should be guano’d. What good could come of it?
I’m not looking for a meeting of the minds I’m looking for a comprehensive list of the presuppositions that you all hold and a justification for why you hold each of them.
peace
Corporately I have no idea. Individually probably sooner than we think.
peace
Anyone out there think FMM is ever going to address the OP?
Hint: the author used the category ‘Jew/Jewish’ 5 times and ‘Israel’ once.
FMM seems confused, as if this is still the presupposition thread.
I would point out that modern Jews have no ability to deny being Jewish. Religion has nothing to do with it. The Nazis made sure that Jewishness was hereditary, and that all-consuming antipathy would follow everyone descended from Jewish ancestors.
Now we have DNA, so the next wave of Nazis can use GATTACA technology to feed the ovens.
Read the survey again, a little more closely. Notice the part “Israelis say…”? Thus, your point is empty. Pleaese don’t go Nazi talk on this like typical under-educated USAmerican tradition.
The principle is supposed to tell you what to believe and what not to believe based on whether it has sufficient evidential justification to justify belief. It’s a guide for how to use evidence. As such, it is just a matter of definitions, a principle we set up. It is not something that itself needs some kind of external justification.
You cannot bring evidence to show you that you should care about evidence if you don’t already, you either agree (which we know you do, you’ve used it your entire life) or you don’t. All your questions are rather moot, it’s like your’re asking them just to have something to ask and you don’t know where you are going with it.
Go study some foundationalist philosophy, you severely need it.
FMM:
Why?
Gregory, to petrushka:
Gregory’s superior education did not bestow the ability to write coherent sentences, apparently.
I thought it was an above average effort for Gregory.
Well, it’s predictable that keiths is going to be typically rude, ungrateful and anti-religious simply because he can as a norm at TA/SZ amongst atheists like Lizzie & KN.
Notice that he gave no HT to me for the link he added above, which I shared here a not long ago and that he acknowledged then. But one doesn’t get the feeling based on his ‘performance’ here that ‘keiths’ as a person is much of a sharer. He sounds much too egotistic and self-centred for that.
The phrase in question was clear enough; petrushka chose to ‘go Nazi talk’ simply when Jews are a topic, as in the OP. It shows how USAmerican education is highly under-developed (whether evangelical Christian, agnostic or atheist), distant or rather just skewed on this topic. It is doubtful that petrushka (or keiths) knows much about Judaism (but still unsurprisingly keiths goads himself to try to ridicule it anyway) or Israel.
Uh, hello, if you’re Jewish, if you’re a ‘modern Jew’, then you’re Jewish! This isn’t going to collapse into an A does not = A thread, is it?
Are you suggesting that Jewish matrilineality started in the 1930s & 40s in Germany, petrushka? And could they not possibly be “God’s chosen people” from time immemorial? Try Deuteronomy 7: 6 contrast with 1 Peter 2: 9 or Colossians 3: 12, you don’t even need to have an actual paper book Scripture in your home in the internet era.
Only christianity matters in influence in mankind and in numbers whether in the past or present. Thats why Christian ideas on origins or anything are the target.
Other faiths are not important in the western world.
so yes yoiu will find more “sensitivity” to avoid offending other faiths because their faiths are seen as close to their identities. Christian faith is seen as just a religious faith these days. In canada it would be racist to insult Islam or any other faith while using the same words is fair game in critiquing Christianity.
Evangelical christianity is the historic and still number one faith for influence in society in the western world. America was created by these people.
Probably most israelis are not religious as nobody from european nations are or have been for centuries. Thats why they messed up more.
Being jewish is unrelated to religion. Its a identity. No different then Polish or russian or English or Italian. Actual breeding issues is beside the point. pOles and russians are the same race and almost the same people yet are different identities.
in christian circles the best phrase is PEOPLE GROUPS> this is found important because of missionary effeorts and finding different people groups within the same boundary but are not the same people. Very important. Ususally don’t like each other and usually both have good points.