It's a term I've heard on a number of occasions, but never by a person I would consider an authority. I assume it's a former Jew turned atheist, but that's only my struggling attempt to make sense of what seems like a potential oxymoron. It works if Jew is defined as a nationality, but I think that it's meant to mean something more. What got me wondering about the special designation is that I have never heard someone say, "He's an atheist American," because the two descriptors are so unrelated that there is no reason to put the two together. And you would never hear someone say, "He's an atheist Christian because the descriptors would be mutually exclusive. But atheist Jew sounds like a term that is necessary to describe something extraordinary, but how or why? Why not just say he is an atheist?
I guess I could have looked it up first... duh!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism
QuoteJewish atheism refers to the atheism of people who are ethnically and (at least to some extent) culturally Jewish. Because Jewish identity encompasses ethnic as well as religious components, the term "Jewish atheism" does not inherently entail a contradiction.
For such Jews traditional practice and symbolism can still retain powerful meaning. They may continue to engage in Jewish rituals such as the lighting of Shabbat candles and find meaning in many aspects of Jewish culture and religion. For example, to an atheist Jew, the Menorah might represent the power of the Jewish ...
The majority of Jews today, are secular. That may or may not equate to atheist. Depends on what Jew, secular and atheist mean. Well, we all know how multivalent secular and atheist are. Let me give you some recent history.
In the past of course, the majority of Jews were religious. Jewish people lived in segregated ethnic patriarchal enclaves in the Muslim or Christian states. Like Gypsies, only not moving around much, and more sophisticated, and Biblical instead of pagan. When Jewish people were in migratory conditions, it might be hard to tell them apart, in pre-modern society. Both Jews and Gypsies were "other". Gypsies are mis-named ... being not from "Egypt" as Jews are from (by Biblical legend), but from India. But they got to Europe thru Egypt, over the Indian ocean apparently. Even in Medieval times of course, there were several major kinds of Jewish people, and not all of the same congregation ... per colloquial language used. Jewish-Arabic, Jewish-Spanish, Jewish-Germanic etc. Though most educated Jewish men also studied Hebrew and Aramaic. There were many Jews still living in these traditional conditions in E Europe, as recently as 1939. From about 1750 many Jews in W Europe, had left the ghetto and entered Gentile society. They were called the Haskalim. by 1900 this modernism had reached E Europe. A 100 years earlier, A Portuguese-Dutch-Sephardic Jew, Baruch Spinoza, was one of the inventors of modernity. Around 1750 in E Europe, there was the latest "back to basics" movement of the modern Hasidim. Orthodox Jews or Mitnagdim were opposed to both movements. By the late 19th century, due to European anti-semitism, and a revival of Zionism, many Jews emigrated to Palestine. Most of these weren't religious, they were secular. Late 19th century E European secular Jews were Bund aka secular and socialist. Many of these who didn't go to Palestine, came to the US, before 1920. This fueled a socialist movement in the US lasting until the 1970s. The 1960s were a drastic time of change in the US ... as were the 1970s in Israel.
So here we are today. The majority of Jews in the US, in Israel and elsewhere are secular. How goes synagogue attendance? 50% in Britain, 73% in Israel and 87% in the US are secular. How many of these practice ethnic customs? How many don't practice ethnic customs? Among those who do attend synagogue, how many do so regularly, vs only on High Holy Days? Among those who do not attend synagogue, how many of those are anti-religious vs simply irreligious?
In my case I am a theist, but I don't practice any ethnic customs, I do attend synagogue, and do so regularly. My ethnicity is Gentile. I have mixed genetics, but then most Jews do, if you examine their gene pool.
Quote from: SGOS on January 15, 2018, 12:14:15 PM
I guess I could have looked it up first... duh!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism
All true. But Baruch Spinoza was the most famous modern atheist Jew, and one of the inventors of modernity and atheism. This was particularly influential thu Leibniz, and the German university system of the 1700s to 1800s. From that point forward ... Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche took hold.
Quote from: SGOS on January 15, 2018, 11:41:16 AM
It's a term I've heard on a number of occasions, but never by a person I would consider an authority. I assume it's a former Jew turned atheist, but that's only my struggling attempt to make sense of what seems like a potential oxymoron. It works if Jew is defined as a nationality, but I think that it's meant to mean something more. What got me wondering about the special designation is that I have never heard someone say, "He's an atheist American," because the two descriptors are so unrelated that there is no reason to put the two together. And you would never hear someone say, "He's an atheist Christian because the descriptors would be mutually exclusive. But atheist Jew sounds like a term that is necessary to describe something extraordinary, but how or why? Why not just say he is an atheist?
Why not just say he is an atheist? Only if there is no ethnicity involved, but to be a Jew, is to be ethnic. Americans have no ethnicity or religion. Our civic religion binds us, in our relative multiculturalism. They are not Biblical in origin, but mostly European and post Columbus.
As far as nationality goes, I don't believe that most Jews in Israel today, are even Jewish. Muslims are correct about this, though of the wrong reasons. Few Jews are of Kazar (Turkish) ancestry, just as the majority of Muslims aren't Arabs, though they all like to claim they are, because of greater prestige.
So yes, some Jews today, are formerly religious. Though many were raised that way starting around 1750. Most Jews are as Gentile as any other secular person in the West. Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews are mostly genetically Gentile too.
See "The Vanishing American Jew" by Alan Dershowitz. That documents what happened in the US over the last 50 years. Mr Dershowitz is a formerly orthodox Jew. But some go the other way, back to orthodoxy. They are "baal teshuvim".
General religious POV in GB ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Giv_XmOTr0w
So 3.6% are problematic, because they are both strongly theistic, and strongly puritanical ...
Or course if they are either Muslim or Hindu ... they are "other", are more scary than the more traditional kind like Guy Fawkes.
Of course events like the English Civil War, was an example of religious fundamentalism ... aka extreme right-wing politics in the guise of religion.
Quote from: SGOS on January 15, 2018, 11:41:16 AM
And you would never hear someone say, "He's an atheist Christian because the descriptors would be mutually exclusive.
Well, there's
Christian Atheism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism), and also
Atheists For Jesus (http://www.atheists-for-jesus.com/). But I admit, it seems rather oxymoronic.
So a atheist jew is a jew that thinks they are better than all of us.
No, they know they are...
Quote from: Unbeliever on January 16, 2018, 02:41:06 PM
Atheists For Jesus (http://www.atheists-for-jesus.com/)
Why would you support a man who feels so entitled he curses fig trees just for not being ripe when he wishes? Sort of a jerk, isn't he?
Yeah, I thought he was a jerk for that, even when I was a Christian!
Quote from: Draconic Aiur on January 16, 2018, 03:18:04 PM
So a atheist jew is a jew that thinks they are better than all of us.
Not funny. Tribal Jews of course think they are better than all Gentiles. That is part of all tribalism, including nationalism and speciesism. A theist Jew knows better than that, if they are actually religious, not just ethnic and virtue signaling. Atheist Jews have no restraint on their chutzpah. Just ask Karl Marx.
Quote from: Unbeliever on January 16, 2018, 03:28:25 PM
Yeah, I thought he was a jerk for that, even when I was a Christian!
Its symbolic, but a cruel joke anyway. It presages the destruction of the Jewish people.
Quote from: Draconic Aiur on January 16, 2018, 03:18:04 PM
So a atheist jew is a jew that thinks they are better than all of us.
The atheistic ashkenazi jews sure do.
Quote from: Gilgamesh on January 16, 2018, 08:11:37 PM
The atheistic ashkenazi jews sure do.
Sephardic or Mizrahi?
The prejudice is that Gentiles are inferior, mentally ... because Gentile persecution raised the average IQ for Jewish people, not that we wanted to be smarter. The cost of 5000 years of oppression and murder, are too high.
Quote from: Baruch on January 17, 2018, 01:46:57 AM
Sephardic or Mizrahi?
The prejudice is that Gentiles are inferior, mentally ... because Gentile persecution raised the average IQ for Jewish people, not that we wanted to be smarter. The cost of 5000 years of oppression and murder, are too high.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say I agree.
If I subscribed to a ethnist ideology I'd be in favour of Jews and perhaps the upper ability level of East Asians constituting the master race. Speaking as a white person, white people simply don't make the cut.
Quote from: omokuroi on January 17, 2018, 11:53:54 AM
I'm going to go out on a limb and say I agree.
If I subscribed to a ethnist ideology I'd be in favour of Jews and perhaps the upper ability level of East Asians constituting the master race. Speaking as a white person, white people simply don't make the cut.
Don't ever accept "averages" as meaningful with people. There are many dumb Jews and smart Gentiles. And being smart isn't the be-all-and-end-all except for us geeks. And yes, I don't know what East Asians attribute their distinguishing advantages to. But I suspect that it is racism from their POV. I think it is historical Confucianism. Jews and Confucians would get along well together.
Racism is simply the application of what is inapplicable ... applying averages favorable to oneself, even if you aren't even near the average, and being similarly dis-favorable to others. I try to enjoy people as they are, lice picking and all ;-) An individual is an actual person, the "average" person in any group, isn't real. Applying what doesn't apply is bad enough, applying something at isn't even real, is ... a Darwin award.
@Baruch Well, sure. But that's why I'm not an ethnist.
Quote from: Baruch on January 17, 2018, 01:46:57 AM
Sephardic or Mizrahi?
The prejudice is that Gentiles are inferior, mentally ... because Gentile persecution raised the average IQ for Jewish people, not that we wanted to be smarter. The cost of 5000 years of oppression and murder, are too high.
ashkenazi jews are mutually exclusive from shepardi jews. Some would argue that ashkenazi jews aren't even jews at all. The majority of 'jews' in the US are ashkenazi. And in 2018 there is no reason to split shepardi and mazrahi into different subsets.
Quote from: omokuroi on January 17, 2018, 02:39:05 PM
@Baruch Well, sure. But that's why I'm not an ethnist.
I would be a cosmopolitan, but I don't like women's magazines ;-)
I identify one way, but that doesn't mean I exclude others from the messy business of humanity. I simply can't identify with humanity as a whole, it is too big and diverse. So I do a little fan fiction with the Bible etc. Would you try to go into a comic book store, see all the manga, and tell yourself ... I am going to read and embody all that?
Quote from: Gilgamesh on January 17, 2018, 05:07:55 PM
ashkenazi jews are mutually exclusive from shepardi jews. Some would argue that ashkenazi jews aren't even jews at all. The majority of 'jews' in the US are ashkenazi. And in 2018 there is no reason to split shepardi and mazrahi into different subsets.
Unfortunately you have drunk the kook-aide but hopefully will survive Jonestown.
Genetically, the Ashkenazi and Sephardi are nearly the same, just some small identifiable differences. Both are mostly Gentile. Mizrahi Jews are closer to Egyptians and Arabs in genetics, but those count as Gentile too. Only the Kohanim are pure, sort of. Intermarriage is a reality, all thru Jewish history. So if we can't go on genetics, we only have religion. But atheist or agnostic Jews have abandoned that. They are nobodies ... just Gentiles mostly, with a kosher fetish. That is why the Hasidim actively court them, to bring them back to religiosity. Of course this is ironic, because of the genetic reality.
Yes, some of the terminology is pre-1950. Today, most Jews are Americans or Israelis. Which isn't Jewish at all ... both are mostly secular, mostly mixed genetics. And I believe that the Kohanim are a foreign Canaanite element. There never was a true Jew, or true Scotsman for that matter.
Sephardim are Gentile Jews who spoke a Spanish dialect (Ladino), as Ashkenazi are Gentile Jews who spoke a German dialect (Yiddish). Mizrahi Jews prior to 1950, spoke various Jewish Arabic dialects.
But for some Gentile or even Arab to diss Jewish genetics? That i the pot calling the kettle black that is!
Quote from: Baruch on January 17, 2018, 06:45:35 PM
Unfortunately you have drunk the kook-aide but hopefully will survive Jonestown.
Genetically, the Ashkenazi and Sephardi are nearly the same, just some small identifiable differences. Both are mostly Gentile. Mizrahi Jews are closer to Egyptians and Arabs in genetics, but those count as Gentile too. Only the Kohanim are pure, sort of. Intermarriage is a reality, all thru Jewish history.
Literally no literature that I've ever read on the subject says anything even close to this. So, I'll ask, do you have any literature to provide that does?
Quote from: Gilgamesh on January 17, 2018, 06:49:57 PM
Literally no literature that I've ever read on the subject says anything even close to this. So, I'll ask, do you have any literature to provide that does?
The latest from Eupedia.com/genetics ... see section on Y-chromosome and X-chromosome genetics of Europeans (and near neighbors).
For example, see the middle of this page ...
https://www.eupedia.com/europe/european_y-dna_haplogroups.shtml
And the main table of this other page ...
https://www.eupedia.com/europe/european_mtdna_haplogroups_frequency.shtml
Apparently in X-chromosome, Ashkenazi and Sephardi are indistinguishable from each other, and mostly from neighboring Gentiles (in areas of origin). But there must be some small distinguishing characteristic about the Y-chromosome, between the two. This is most clear (see other references) concerning Kohanim.
So I am basically G2a in my Y and H3 in my X ... the deep genes are Neolithic male from the Middle East, and Mesolithic female from the Russian steppes. A small Ashkenazi marker apparently is present in my spectrum of the other 44 (autosomal) genetics. But what is important to me, is the ancient POV that Judaism embodies in some respects. Memetic evolution for me trumps genetic evolution. Otherwise I would be doing New Stone Age agriculture in S Britain (Stonehenge) and Middle Stone Age mammoth hunting in N Russia (homes made from tusks). Clan Of The Cave Bear came 30,000 years earlier than that.
PS - Jewish or Muslim ideology, would more closely identify historical Jews with Arabic or Egyptian ancestry ... and this is still a political dividing line, between Egyptian and Saudi Muslims to this day. The immediate family of Muhammad, as determined by family traditions, is clearly Arabic, but modern Arabs aren't the pure thing on average either. Kohanim do match the ideological framework from Jewish tradition (they didn't marry out much). The Arabic equivalent of the Kohanim, are the Hashemites (descendants of immediate family of Muhammad). The monarchies of Jordan and Morocco claim this.
In myth, Abraham is the first Jew or first Arab. But in fact, that is not what the Bible says, regarding Abraham. It says that Jacob's sons were the first Jews, and the Joseph branch of Jacob's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, were cross-bred to Egyptians. Judaism as we know it today is less than 2000 years old, less than half the time back to Abraham. Arabs claim that Abraham is the first Arab/Muslim ... but Islam is at most only 1500 years old. Abraham and the other patriarchs were Semites, but that goes back maybe 15,000 years, not 4,000. The actual origins of Judaism and Islam are obscured deliberately. Christianity has been pretty much a non-Semitic show for 1700 years ... again with a deliberately obscured origin.
You can be atheist. Or religious. Not both. If you are an atheist of jewish ancestory, you are atheist. If you are an atheist of English or Chinese or African, etc, you are atheist.
No one is both religious IN ANY SENSE and atheist at the same time.
Quote from: Cavebear on January 18, 2018, 06:30:15 AM
You can be atheist. Or religious. Not both. If you are an atheist of jewish ancestory, you are atheist. If you are an atheist of English or Chinese or African, etc, you are atheist.
No one is both religious IN ANY SENSE and atheist at the same time.
Secular Jews can, they keep and eat their cake at the same time ;-)
Quote from: Baruch on January 18, 2018, 01:57:17 PM
Secular Jews can, they keep and eat their cake at the same time ;-)
I really doubt that "secular jews" are. It is more a fiction that some people maintain.
Quote from: Cavebear on January 18, 2018, 03:22:36 PM
I really doubt that "secular jews" are. It is more a fiction that some people maintain.
I would say the same thing to them, but then I am a heretic.
Quote from: Baruch on January 18, 2018, 09:28:02 PM
I would say the same thing to them, but then I am a heretic.
It is good to see you agree with me, the world continues to revolve and rotate in shock...
Quote from: Cavebear on January 27, 2018, 08:34:38 AM
It is good to see you agree with me, the world continues to revolve and rotate in shock...
We didn't agree for the same reasons. So no revolution today.
Quote from: Baruch on January 27, 2018, 09:24:17 AM
We didn't agree for the same reasons. So no revolution today.
Well we wouldn't, would we? That would be sort of Petticoat Junctionish. I'm more Paladin and Adam Cartwrightish...