Talk:Jewish atheism

Orthodox acceptance

I would dispute the claim that Even the most Orthodox of Jewish authorities would accept as fully Jewish an atheist with a Jewish mother, according to Jewish law's emphasis on matrilineal descent. Many ultra-Orthodox Jews wouldn't even consider involved Reform and Conservative Jews Jewish. I think that perhaps this sentence should be deleted. --דניאל ~ Danielrocks123 ^{talk contribs Count} 02:49, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Let me put it this way, the great medieval scholar Maimonides (known to Jews as the Rambam) classified a person who denies God's existence as a min (a heretic) (Hilkhot Teshuva 3:7), who has no share in the world to come and is not considered part of the Jewish people for practical purposes (Hilkhot Shabbat 30:15). -- Danezra 20:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

So wouldn't you say that it would be fair to remove that sentence? --דניאל ~ Danielrocks123 ^{talk contribs Count} 00:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

This would be in circumstances where the atheist would know what Judaism is and then rejects it, then he is still Jewish according to everybody but can't be counted for certain things, however nearly all atheists do not truly know about Judaism before they reject it and would be classified halachackly as Tinokim ShNishba whom do not get classified as a min. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 02:20, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Orthodox Judaism views anyone as Jewish who fits under matrlineal Jewish descent (i.e. Jewish mother, maternal grandmother, etc.) It doesn't matter what faith that person follows - they would still be considered Jewish, just wayward. Mad Jack 00:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Rejection of God puts one outside of the orthodox and traditional Jewish religion. One may still call themselves ethnic Jews if they so wish, but a believing Jew they most certainly are not. So in this respect to use the term 'Jew'in any religious connotation is a contradiction in terms. Merely being descended from a Jewish parent does not make one Jewish in the religious sense. And finally to add to this discussion pleading ignorance is not feasible and is not an acceptable excuse. It is up to the individual to obtain the necessary knowledge and impart on himself the wisdom of their religion. To close your eyes, especially with knowledge so widely and easily available from synagogues, books, internet etc, is to say you are a blind man when your eyes function perfectly. For the man who rejects Judaism in ignorance when he is able to gain knowledge is no better or worse than a learned Rabbi who rejects with knowledge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.21.39 (talk) 16:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the statement on orthodox acceptance is quite misleading. While Halacha might consider an atheist to be a "Jew" for some purposes, in ancient times the halachick courts found a way to put an "apikores" to death, and today orthodox jews would not drink wine that an atheist has touched, would not marry an atheist or count them for a community (Minyan) so overall implying acceptance is very misleading Zvis (talk) 21:11, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Einstein and Freud

Einstein declares his disbelief in god in a 1941 paper; albeit he was forced to withdraw the paper for political reasons, he never recanted it. He used the concept of god metaphorically on several occasions (as in "God doesn't play dice"), which gives many people the impression he was religious. Freud more or less explicitly declares that belief in a deity is a form of paranoia in "Psychopathology of Everyday Life". However, sure as I am of the atheism of both, I am not a Jew myself, so I cannot fathom to which extent they, or the community at large, view them as Jews; were they mrely seen as secular gentlemen of no particular association, feel free to revert my edit. Complainer

Einstein

Einstein disbelieved in a personal god he believed in the god of spinoza

Atheist Jew?

Don't you have to follow Judaism which includes believening God to be a Jew? Don't give me this "if your mother is a Jew you are". Okay my mom is a Reformist and my father is a Catholic. So what am I? Half Reformist and half Catholic? OKAY! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.101.237.13 (talk • contribs) 07:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC).

"Don't you have to follow Judaism which includes believening God to be a Jew?" No. You can be an ethnic Jew. Mad Jack 00:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Einstein again

Could you people source instead of hacking and slashing? The Spinoza statement sounds very appealing, but all but realistic and, to be perfectly honest, I don't think I've ever met a theoretical physicist who believed in god, and I've met dozens. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Complainer (talk • contribs) 08:52, 20 December 2006.

According to Albert Einstein, he stated he believes in "Spinoza's God", which implies he has a pantheistic view of God. Unfortunately the article does not cite the quote, but nevertheless I'm removing him from the list because there is no clear evidence he was indeed a true atheist. --Ginkgo100^talk 20:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

"Jew" vs. "jew"

As far as I know there is an interesting distinction in Polish. Nouns designating members of religious denominations start with lower case letters, whereas those designating nationality or ethnic origin are capitalized: "żyd" means a person of Jewish faith, and "Żyd" means an ethnic Jew. Thus one would write "katolicy i żydzi" (catholics and jews) and "Polacy i Żydzi" (Poles and Jews). It is even possible to say that somebody is a "Żyd katolik" (a catholic Jew -- a convert?), even though such usage is probably uncommon.Tsf 01:44, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Ideology of atheist???

How can you assign an ideology to an atheist? Ideology and atheism have nothing to do with one another. Ideology and atheism are completely independent of one another. What does believing in God or not believing in God have to do with such things as Communism, Socialism, Social democracy, Liberalism, Conservatism? Even Zionism need not correlate with belief in God or non-belief in God, though I can understand this article commenting on that one ideology in relationship to atheistic Jews because the reader may be curious about that. The rest strikes me as ludicrously irrelevant. Bus stop 21:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Category:Jewish atheists up for deletion

FYI: Category:Jewish atheists has been nominated for deletion. Anyone who wishes to participate in the discussion may do so at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_August_25#Category:Jewish_atheists. Cgingold 15:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Religious Atheist Jews?

Noting that there is a distinction between the Jewish race, and Jews as followers of the religion Judaism - my impression is that "atheist Jew" usually means someone who identifies as a member of the Jewish race, but does not follow the religion Judaism (as is covered in this article). Can it also mean an atheist who is a follower of the religion Judaism? The article says "Many Jewish atheists feel comfortable within any of the four major Jewish denominations", but it's not clear what "comfortable" means? Is this "comfortable" as in they actively believe and practise its principles, or simply that they don't object to it? Mdwh 21:24, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

No Jew will say he belong to the Jewish race but there are Jews that will say they are ethnicsly Jews.Maybe for you there are no differnce but Jews don't like to use it the term Jewish race.132.72.70.50 11:24, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

A Couple of proposed edits/expansions

I'd like to propose a couple of things (if anyone is reading this)...

1) The line "Some Jewish groups have expressed the view that Judaism is a religion, not an ethnicity, stating that non-practicing Jews should be called simply "atheists" not "atheist Jews"."

This is marked as needing a citation. I can't find any reasonable citation for this claim: i.e. all four major Jewish movements (in the US) view being Jewish as more than strictly about belief. Orthodox and Conservative define Jewishness along the lines of matrilineal descent, while Reform and Reconstructionist accept both matri- and patrilineal descent, if accompanied by a Jewish upbringing. While you probably can't convert to any of these movements while espousing atheism, I don't see any of the four branches rejecting the idea that there's a Jewish ethnicity. So I think this sentence should be deleted.

2) It looks like there's been a bunch of prior discussion re: the atheism and Jewishness of Freud, Einstein, etc. I think a section is needed here on prominent/famous Jewish atheists. I propose defining this as people who are ethnically Jewish and who rejected belief in God: Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Woody Allen would certainly qualify here. Whether we want to include someone like Einstein or Spinoza, Jews who rejected a personal God while using "God language" is perhaps a matter for debate.

Htrouser (talk) 15:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Carl Sagan

Carl Sagan is also Jew, and he holds a philosophy similar to that of Einstein's and Spinoza's.

We should add a section on it. — Stevey7788 (talk) 04:49, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Marx

Do we really want to put up a picture of Marx as the symbol of Jewish atheism? This articles discusses Jews who identify ethnically, something that Marx didn't do. Some would even argue that Marx was an anti-Semite (see On the Jewish Question). Macfanatic (talk) 19:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Is there any evidence he didn't identify ethnically, out of interest? And accusations of anti-Semitism are based on a completely shallow reading of "On the Jewish Question", an article written as a reply to an article called "The Jewish Question", in defence of Jews as an ethnic minority but attacking the Jewish religion (while arguing against the idea that Jews should be forced to give up their religion in exchange for equal political rights, remember), and all this some decades before anti-Semitism really became an acknowledged concept. 147.143.252.182 (talk) 00:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Karl Marx's parents were Christians, his grandparents were Jews and he was an athiest who denied he was a Jew an wrote antisemetic articles. About the only country on earth where Marx would be branded a Jew is Nazi Germany based on a perverse notion of race. Whoops I stand corrected, Nazi Germany and Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.27.181.16 (talk) 04:21, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Jewish atheism vs. Christian atheism

There is a phenomenon known as Christian atheism, but it is arguably more marginal than Jewish atheism in terms of social acceptance within religious communities. The article should maybe try to explain why Jewish atheism is perceived as more common and more acceptable than Christian atheism, Muslim atheism or other forms of atheism. One possible explanation is that Christian doctrine teaches a form of antinomianism, which exalts faith and grace above the obedience to ancient communitarian laws. It is therefore possible for Jews to continue obeying these religious laws even as they lose their belief in the existence of God. ADM (talk) 18:18, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

David Cross

The comedian and actor David Cross has said that he has Jewish family and yet he is said to be an atheist. I am wondering if he is considered an atheist Jew? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.37.139 (talk) 22:14, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Krishnadas Kaviraja Goswami described in Chaitanya-charitamrita Adi 6.38:

‘chaitanya-mangala’ shune yadi pashandi, yavana

seha maha-vaishnava haya tatakshana

If even a great atheist hears Shri Chaitanya-mangala (previous name for Shri Chaitanya-bhagavata), he immediately becomes a great devotee.

So all the great atheists which comprise of 99.99% of the world’s population can become maha-vaishnavas if they get the supreme good fortune of reading this book. Thus in my personal opinion, when this book is published and distributed in mass quantities all over the world, it will break open the gates of the flood of the love of Godhead brought by Lord Chaitanya and His associates and will hasten the advent of the predicted Golden Age in all its glory.