81–82 of 82 posts
First there are a lot of programmers who come to CL to debate. They read, they study, and then they complain. I've sat in #lisp since about 2007/8 and there have been numerous nicks that show up just to ask a few rather philosophical questions and debate the merits and technical decisions that went into CL. They usually end up leaving and writing blog posts about how terrible a language CL is and how caustic the comm…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your disbelief stems from your fundamental lack of understanding of what you're talking about. You imagine that every religion is basically fundamentalist Protestantism. Your loss, I suppose.
Actually, I was raised in a lukewarm catholic environment, in France. There was no "coming out" as an atheist for me, it was quite… ordinary. My rejection of relativism spurred more heated discussions that my rejection of God, actually. Anyway, every catholic I met believe in God and in the Immaculate Conception. And I think they also believed it was an important, if not fundamental, part of being catholic. Not to me…
What makes someone a "bad Jew" is failing to practice Judaism. But there's no incentive to conduct a witchhunt over it, so there's no incentive for rhetoric about the importance of belief. I belong to a Conservative synagogue and I have never heard a sermon about the importance of believing in God. It isn't important. Ethical behavior is, and that is the content of our sermons.
It may be difficult to see a point to practicing if you don't believe in God, but, again, I know people who find value in the symbolism and the ritual and the religion's capacity to shape ethical behavior despite not believing in a supernatural being or origin. The entire Reconstructionist movement teaches that Judaism and the Bible were created by mankind. It may be a small movement, but it is real thing, and I know Conservative Jews who are atheists but still get value out of the practice.
I'm sure you will be able to find a marginal rabbi (probably "Orthodox", a self-applied label by a movement younger than the Reform) who will activate your confirmation bias. But I assure you, things are different outside your experience.