The double life of Hasidic atheists • Hacker News Board

Re: The double life of Hasidic atheists

#41

Post by cactusface » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:15 AM UTC

davemel37 wrote: post #27

ars wrote: post #3

One interesting thing is that even if they did tell people they were Atheist, but continued observing Judaism with action, nothing much would happen. They would not be shunned or anything. Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought, it's also more concerned with this world than with heaven. There is a saying from the Talmud that "a person who acts without belief will eventually come to believe". Meaning…

"Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought" This is at best an out of context understanding and at worst a complete distortion of the Jewish faith. "Service of the heart" is the core obligation of Judaism. Every single morning and evening Jews say the Shma which states the primary commandment of Judaism is to "Love G-d with all your heart, all your soul(personality), and all your resources..." Maimonid…

> All that being said, a well rounded, Torah observant Jew, regardless of their denomination will have a healthy balance of faith, moral compass, and action that leads to living an optimal, healthy, happy, meaningful life to the fullest.

Why can't I say the same about hardline atheists modulo the stuff about the Torah and faith?

Re: The double life of Hasidic atheists

#42

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:16 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: The double life of Hasidic atheists

#43

Post by _urga » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:17 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #17

I find myself jealous of these people. For the price of a little hypocrisy, you get to be part of a very supportive community. You get structure for your life, a large number of social gatherings, and a big pool of potential friends and romantic partners. I almost considered going to church just for that reason (back when I was in college and friends with a lot of devout Christians), but I couldn't stomach the hypocr…

As you say, I don't think you can have true fellowship if it does not have its basis in the truth.

I know of someone who was studying neuroscience in England, and when he thought through the ramifications of his atheist beliefs he was depressed at where it was leading for his life. He wondered if perhaps there was not something of the truth which he might have missed and I think it made him less hostile to considering the points of views of others.

Fellowship means loyalty, faithfulness, partnership, a sense of belonging, love for one another, very much like Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring. And fellowship in Christ's church can't be had outside of fellowship with the eye witness historical accounts of Jesus. John Zebedee writing from the 1st century puts it like this:

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched - this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete."

If we believe that people like John, who suffered tremendously for what they considered to be the truth, were actually telling the truth about historical events, then we can have fellowship with the apostles, and we can have fellowship with God himself.

Re: The double life of Hasidic atheists

#44

Post by martin1975 » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:23 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #17

I find myself jealous of these people. For the price of a little hypocrisy, you get to be part of a very supportive community. You get structure for your life, a large number of social gatherings, and a big pool of potential friends and romantic partners. I almost considered going to church just for that reason (back when I was in college and friends with a lot of devout Christians), but I couldn't stomach the hypocr…

You sound like you'd be an excellent leader of the modeless cult. ;) Whatever you do, I urge you to not touch Unitarian Universalists even with a 50 foot pole who are wolves in sheep clothing, a gathering of hypocrites, nothing more.

Re: The double life of Hasidic atheists

#45

Post by sliverstorm » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:26 AM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #34

JesperRavn wrote: post #5

>[Athiests who reveal themselves] risk losing their children, especially in New York State, where custody is often given to the more religious parent. Interesting, I wonder why that would be? Is it because American courts are biased towards religious people in general? But in that case, wouldn't a liberal state like New York be less biased? Could it possibly be because of bias of courts in New York towards the Jewish…

In courts all around the (Western) word custody courts are heavily biased towards the mother. It would be very surprising if religiousness where a more important factor in New York State. I think the article is plain wrong on that point and that the religious level of the parents doesn't make any difference at all.

They could be correlated. On the whole, women are more religious than men, so we should expect that if custody is biased towards the mother, custody is biased towards the religious.

Re: The double life of Hasidic atheists

#46

Post by _urga » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:29 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #39

davemel37 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought" This is at best an out of context understanding and at worst a complete distortion of the Jewish faith. "Service of the heart" is the core obligation of Judaism. Every single morning and evening Jews say the Shma which states the primary commandment of Judaism is to "Love G-d with all your heart, all your soul(personality), and all your resources..." Maimonid…

I don't know if this is your intent, but you have in an instant completely flipped Judaism from something interesting to this agnostic, to something completely dead-end and not worth pursuing. A compromising approach is accessible. A hard-line "nothing less than absolute and total devotion is even worth considering, and therefore fundamentally not worth your time" is not. Where is the unsure, dubious, or curious indi…

I think you're mistaking the parent's refusal to compromise that which is truly good, for something else.

Re: The double life of Hasidic atheists

#47

Post by ars » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:39 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #39

davemel37 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought" This is at best an out of context understanding and at worst a complete distortion of the Jewish faith. "Service of the heart" is the core obligation of Judaism. Every single morning and evening Jews say the Shma which states the primary commandment of Judaism is to "Love G-d with all your heart, all your soul(personality), and all your resources..." Maimonid…

I don't know if this is your intent, but you have in an instant completely flipped Judaism from something interesting to this agnostic, to something completely dead-end and not worth pursuing. A compromising approach is accessible. A hard-line "nothing less than absolute and total devotion is even worth considering, and therefore fundamentally not worth your time" is not. Where is the unsure, dubious, or curious indi…

> A hard-line "nothing less than absolute and total devotion is even worth considering, and therefore fundamentally not worth your time" is not.

Judaism is about how to have a relationship with God. How can a human hope to do that? By doing what God asked. But also by arguing over what God wants.

It's like how do you have a relationship with a person you never met? By reading his writings.

The atheists in the story probably spend more time thinking about God than a regular member. By doing what God wants (the actions), and by thinking about him constantly, they probably have a deeper relationship with God than others do.

> But, just, if you ever wonder why it is shrinking instead of growing- FYI.

Judaism is not looking for converts. If you want to convert you can, but Judaism isn't going to try to convince you, or tell you your path in life is wrong. Non-Jews can live perfectly meaningful lives.

Re: The double life of Hasidic atheists

#48

Post by salgernon » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:42 AM UTC

hueving wrote: post #21

ars wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more likely that he really did think she had a problem and was trying to help. Not that he was trying to abuse the medical system to get his way.

It's doubtful that a person in a position of that power and responsibility is that stupid.

I've been forever scarred - in a good way - by the James Burke series "the day the universe changed". In I think the penultimate episode he explains as we watch a dramatization of a witch being tried and burned at the stake that the people perpetrating the horrible act truly believed that they were doing a good thing. That their reality included witches and Devils and gods and that they were doing this woman a favor for her immortal soul.

It sounds rediculous to us today but sending someone to be medicated because they don't adhere to your particular belief system seems right in line with that kind of thinking. (To say nothing of religions that practice exorcism, Rebirthing and eschewing gluten. )

Personally I wonder what beliefs we hold today will be absolutely appalling to our descendants 400 years from now. Probably eating meat (and I say this as someone that is in now way pro-veg, and I eat meat all the time - I just suspect we will find that our current working theories of animal behavior will prove that we are morally responsible for great pain in other sentient beings.) because our society keeps it acceptable in our perceived (or imposed) reality.

Re: The double life of Hasidic atheists

#49

Post by ars » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:50 AM UTC

davemel37 wrote: post #27

ars wrote: post #3

One interesting thing is that even if they did tell people they were Atheist, but continued observing Judaism with action, nothing much would happen. They would not be shunned or anything. Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought, it's also more concerned with this world than with heaven. There is a saying from the Talmud that "a person who acts without belief will eventually come to believe". Meaning…

"Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought" This is at best an out of context understanding and at worst a complete distortion of the Jewish faith. "Service of the heart" is the core obligation of Judaism. Every single morning and evening Jews say the Shma which states the primary commandment of Judaism is to "Love G-d with all your heart, all your soul(personality), and all your resources..." Maimonid…

Belief in God is certainly important. But action is more important than belief.

> All the actions and commandments are tools for reaching spiritual connection and understand G-d with more clarity.

And if you do that, and skip the action because you feel you have the spiritual connection you failed. But if you did the action, but did not have any special spiritual feeling, you still did what God wants, and that's what counts.

> The quote you reference, which for the life of me, I cannot recall as being accurate...certainly only means that behavior can influence belief.

It's from Pesachim 50b (among other places) if you want to look it up.

> The idea that Judaism is more concerned with action over thought is patently FALSE!

No. It's not. Thought it important, but action is what matters.

Re: The double life of Hasidic atheists

#50

Post by ars » Mon, Jun 08, 2015, 6:56 AM UTC

obstinate wrote: post #33

ars wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think I don't have experience with it? Yes Hasidim would say exactly the same thing. Perhaps with some pressure to increase learning. As long as he assured people that he performed the actions, they would only have a problem if he tried to "convert" as it were others.

Surely these individuals would not go to such extents to hide their lack of belief if they knew that revealing it would be free of consequences. I can only assume that they know their communities better than you do, and so it seems unlikely that you are correct.

Among other things it would be embarrassing, people would talk about them frequently. Also people would constantly set themself the task of convincing them, and offering to learn with them, and other things they probably don't want. They probably don't want the attention.

Also I doubt they are as firm in their disbelief as the article makes them out to be. They are probably constantly searching and yearning to believe again, so why would they declare themself a certain way, when they are not sure of it themself?