Oh Furry It's been alot of fun ( I'm lying ) but banging my head against a brick wall is much more fun than continuing a discourse with you.  Enjoy crossing swords with all the other evil atheists here on RRS  ..I'm done with you.  Shalom !

1. Deal with what iwbiek put forward before you start tossing out more Hebrew, please. 

2. "Catastrophic floods"? Yep. Worldwide catastrophic floods with water significantly above the highest mountains (even the ones they knew)? Not so much.

3.  A capricious deity punishes his creation for doing something he considered "evil" without telling said creation about "good" or "evil" and the difference between them. What moral lesson does the story of the "fall of man" teach?

But don't you believe god managed to get Sarah's overly-menopaused gefilte chute to start cranking out beytsim again?  Then why can't he manage it for Jerry & Kramer, or Gilda & Roseanne?  "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"

Not sure what Jews you know, but I've hung with some pretty Orthodox Jews and the full range of "What Jews Believe" is rather broad.  Two Jews, three opinions.

Mind you, I have no doubt G-d exists.  But what you don't grasp is that the Jewish god-concept isn't like what Christians believe, where G-d (l'havil) is a puppeteer.

First, there is no "Hell" in Judaism.  No, really -- no "Hell" and not so clear on Heaven, much either.

As for those rituals, I do them for myself.  Whenever I had time and gas money to make it to shul on a regular basis, my frame of mind was much clearer.  These days I'm struggling to get a small business going and gas money is tight.  I'm sure G-d can do without my praying several times a day.  But still, I look forward to when business is good enough that I can get back to that.  And Yoga.  Yoga was helpful as well.

You might want to study the more Eastern religions and get away from the Western ones.  The Western ones are big on going to Hell for failing to give the deity their due.  Eastern religions are more about doing things to improve ones self or make the planet a better place.

According to some schools of thought, many of the more pointless practices serve as reminders for the more important social obligations.  For example, not trimming the corners of ones beard and not harvesting the corners of the field.

With no clearly defined "Hell", and no promise of universal bliss in "Heaven", Judaism isn't all about getting the goodies.

So since the words say something that you find problematic the words CAN'T mean what they say they do? Or are you really saying that Mosaic law has nothing to do with Judaism?

See ya later, alligator!

Looks like you really did get ripped off on that Jew-ology degree you got!

yep, you're right.  and you were right about everything and i was wrong about everything.  i know nothing about judaism and you're a billion times smarter than me.

enjoy that and have a great, if very complicated, life.

I dunno. The mental gymnastics provoked by myself, red, iw, proz, and a few others have been exceptionally entertaining to me. I really got a laugh when she characterised a question by prozac as a strawman. Sheer comedy gold.

Spank the monkey and donate $7000 to RRS.

A better server without the savior!

part of the thing when talking with Furry is that discounting the will to scrap, she projects a religion that is far more highly evolved than the literal christianity/islam we are familiar with. In conversation this often gets overlooked. Those later monotheistic faiths seem to me to represent a step back - a lowest common denominator sort of religious belief that's based on reward and punishment while Judaism seems more sophisticated, more eastern, despite the bleakness and judgement of much of the Pentateuch. Most advanced modern christians and I guess, muslims, seem to have reached this point on their own by actively blocking out the immoral parts of their bibles and actively interpreting. Furry doesn't like being lumped. 

There's more with Furry, I think. My Israeli/Jewish friends are agnostic or atheist but they are still Jewish. This does show us there's cultural glue with Judaism. It's an identity factor. I have a Jewish mate who can't possibly believe but he can't quite let go of the historicity of the Hebrew Bible, either. For christians, the OT is a religious text, while for jewish people the Hebrew Bible is about them. I try to imagine it as if the highland druids of my own celtic forbears had managed to write a book binding historical observation and religious supposition, myths and animism into one scots thing and done so 1000 or 1500 years before the Romans invaded. Even if I thought it was mostly bullshit that book would be alive inside me.

For my part, I have no great trouble with panentheists or pantheists. I understand the draw. Consider Ubuntu's recent 'backsliding' into god belief. You do get to a point of cognitive fuzz when you think about these unanswerable things and we humans are bound to construct something concrete, something familiar on which to rest our minds. For me, holding an open godless position waiting evidence feels like listening for what's going to come next. I can't imagine putting my hands over my ears.  

Part of what happens in Judaism, and to a less extent Islam, is that whatever you say "G-d is", G-d isn't.  G-d is no-thing.  Not "nothing", but there exists no thing such that you can say "G-d is (l'havdil) that thing" because to ascribe some-thing to G-d is to deny some-other-thing, or to limit G-d in some way to that first thing.

A former Rabbi (Reform congregation, before I moved on) gave a sermon about Atheists, because there are Jews who are Atheists.  As I recall, someone had come to talk with him and discussed the fact that he was an Atheist (imagine that happening at a church or mosque -- that should tell you the difference between Jews on the one hand and Christians and Muslims on the other ...) and this Rabbi tells the person "The god you don't believe in, I don't believe in either."  It can take some wrapping your head around because here I am, a Theist, and I'll gladly tell you whether or not I believe in a god you describe.

This has been my experience in dealing with many Atheists.  I've yet to have an Atheist describe a god that they wouldn't believe in that I'd believe in.  And to be clear, I mean that in an honest, constructive conversation sense, Vastet and ProzacDeathWish can kindly bugger off.  I think we can all agree (except any Christians or Muslims who happen to join in) that some deity who sends you to Hell (not that I believe in Hell) for eating a bacon cheeseburger, while drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette on Yom Kippur, any time during Lent, or high noon during Ramadan is a pretty whack deity.  And likewise, any deity who'd reward you eternally for saying "I believe in you!", and give you a free pass, no matter how many lives you trash along the way, is likewise pretty messed up.  So, I have no trouble saying "I don't believe in those gods either".

Back before my son had finally settled in on being an Atheist, we were talking about G-d, and the entire concept of Imitatio Dei.  My comment to him was something along the lines of "It doesn't matter whether or not G-d exists, so long as you act in a manner that is consistent with G-d existing.", by which I mean the whole Imitatio Dei thing.

Extreme compartmentalization of beliefs is =easy=, once you decide that unrelated things aren't related.  For example, I am no less certain that the Big Bang happened, and that Evolution is true.  They are unrelated to the existence, or non-existence, of G-d.  G-d created Science, G-d can create Science any way G-d happens to have wanted to create Science.

Being comfortable with not knowing, and not trying to cram two things together somehow, requires mental discipline because the mind tries very hard to tie them together.  Our minds create associations to "fill in the blanks."  Indeed, by allowing myself to NOT know, I find that the answers are more likely to either show up inside my head by magic, or at least I'm less likely to have to dismantle large numbers of "beliefs" I held just because not-believing or not-knowing was uncomfortable.  Okay, so not-knowing can be uncomfortable.  So?  Big deal, who said "comfortable" was the primary objective behind doing something.  Now, making educated guesses, I'm fine with that.  But an educated guess is not the same as Knowing.

From a purely rational, logical perspective, belief in G-d and disbelief in god and/or gods, are equally valid.  Which is to say, neither can be proven and holding either as "absolute truth", beyond what is "intrinsic to ones personhood", is illogical.  That I believe in G-d is more accidental, meaning, I happen to believe in G-d, than intentional, meaning, I =chose= to believe in G-d.

It always comes down to a 'personal' god. Every theist I talk to has a different definition of the 1 true god.

Simply put, I don't believe they know what they're talking about. That's what I 'believe'...

The type who doesn't try to define something which defies our limited capacity to understand the universe. The type who has reconciled theism with science without damaging either. You are an example of the future of theism.

But you're exceptionally abrasive and insulting. I've had more civilised discussions with evangelists. Not often, but still. You are quick to assume and quick to condemn. You inspire a similar position in your opposition. I'm not even sure you'll actually read this, or that I'm saying what I want to say in a way you'll understand. But I have to give it a try or I'll be in violation of my ethics.

We don't understand you, and you aren't helping us change that. As a result, anything we say is subject to inapplicability without our recognising it. Only you can improve the quality of such a discussion, but you don't seem interested. You seem more interested in verbal abuse and being a bully.

F-rryC-tH-rd-r,

Just what do you mean by "God created Science"?? (spelling corrected).

On the face of it, that doesn't quite make sense.

"Science" can refer to a set of methods and guidelines that have been devised and refined by people to develop progressively more accurate models, descriptions, accounts of "Life, the Universe, and Everything" (tm Douglas Adams), and it can refer to those models and descriptions themselves.

At best you can stretch it to the idea that because Reality is sufficiently consistent to allow such a discipline to 'work', that requires that it must have been 'created' that way by something that you think deserves the name of God, or G-d if you must. Why??

We can agree that there must be some basic principle or principles, some fundamental level of 'order' at the ground of Reality, of Existence.

I would see that this need be no more than some 'requirement' that the 'bits' of reality are all identical and fundamentally simple, whether some kind of ultimate 'particle', or packet of energy, or at least analogous to that. And that there is some ultimate minimum but non-zero state of activity, like the minimum energy level postulated by Quantum Mechanics, to continually 'shuffle' the 'bits'.

From such a ground, order naturally arises, just as a set of identical spheres on a flat surface will form a perfect triangular/hexagonal pattern when driven up against a barrier and shaken a bit.

If you want to label such principles 'G-d', OK, but why treat it as having 'wants' or intentions? That may be fine in an allegorical, mythical sense, but where does it get you?

You certainly don't logically need any more than this demonstrable aspect of existence, that multiple identical 'bits' can lead to emergent order and complexity to 'explain' things that you accept, such as the Big Bang and Evolution. And Evolution explains morality, as a fundamental advantage to a social species which will thrive on mutual assistance and cooperation.

Why all the theological baggage? 

A somewhat rhetorical question, because Science, thru Neuroscience, Psychology, Sociology, and other areas is showing how Man seems to 'require' such frameworks to contextualize social rules to improve the order and functioning of the group. And a fundamental heuristic of assuming agency in any unexplained event seems to have derived from an idea like "that movement in the grass may not be a predator, but just in case, let's assume it is and avoid it", as the safer option. There is also the desire for an 'explanation' for all kinds of phenomena, to minimize the 'fear of the unknown', with that same instinct to see 'agency' behind it all.

Such an assumption of 'agency' clearly can lead to the idea of gods, demons, spirits, etc, which seem to be pretty universal in some form across cultures.

It also seems that the psychological 'need' or inclination to accept a whole belief system involving some form of 'higher power', with some kind of will and intention for us, varies over a wide range across individuals.

You appear to have it fairly strongly, atheists to a much smaller degree, or even essentially zero in some cases.

We get these arguments when someone with a strong theistic inclination tries to understand what is 'wrong' with someone who feels no such need, and maybe vice-versa.

The other aspect is of course why should some particular ancient narrative be socially more functional that some other, or a more contemporary version? There does seem to be an intrinsic appeal if the narrative has just the right level of 'mystery', and even better if it harks back to 'ancient times'.

There is now evidence when we we compare different 'advanced' societies that many forms of religious traditions are no longer positive for social well-being, if they ever were. I will tend to agree that the more moderate forms of Judaism are among the better ones, if you must have one.

                                                  You really don't understand why there's a "Troll" label under your username ?  Seriously ?

                                                                              Well at least this time you didn't make any threats !

"Sure. Let's go with that."? "Whatever"?

The problem here, is... you aren't trying.

Aren't. Ain't. Whatever the hell dialect you use. Do you want to get your hands dirty with real dishonesty? Maybe demolish whatever credibility you have before whatever biiiggg announcement you have to make, we then shake hands on it (metaphorically!), and you walk away?

I didn't think so.

I don't believe the Liberal Jew part, but i do believe the "allegorical story intended to teach a morality tale." part. Who are you planning to teach, may I ask?

Let me get some things dealt with this evening (I have a zener diode sitting in an ice bath, measuring the  change in voltage with respect to ... TEMPERATURE!), then I'll see if I can do justice to a response.

Just so you know, I have read your posts and I am encouraged by them.  But I have a zener diode sitting in an ice bath, then I have to put it in steam, then I have to do math.  And eat a proper dinner.  Because I don't always remember to eat ...

I think at some point, before I was even 8 or 10, I adopted this attitude that since G-d created the Universe, G-d created everything in it, including all the Physical Laws which govern The Entire Universe.  G-d created the Laws, not on a pair of stone tablets, but at the basic level of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and so forth.  From that came my interest in Science, not that living in my house would have resulted in anything else for me.

Agreed.

So, why call it "G-d"?  Is that the question?

I dunno.  I don't remember a time when I didn't believe G-d.  There have been times when I've questioned what I was =taught= along the way, but as I worked my way through various aspects of different creeds or catechisms or whatever, the notion that "G-d created the entire Universe" just seemed to stick around.  Questioning the "Mystical Three-in-One" business never threatened my belief in "the Uncaused Cause" or "Uncreated Creator".

G-d doesn't have "wants" or "intentions" -- that's more about the way Christians view "god", as a people-like entity.  "Wants" and "Intentions" are human attributes.  People want stuff.  People have intentions.

Would I say "G-d wants everyone to have three square meals, a place to live, and other warm fuzzies"?  Sure, but not like G-d is sitting there, "wanting" away.  We are social creatures, and we seem, as a species, to have a sense of community and for the most part we have compassion for others.  So if G-d "originally" wanted to make sure everyone has three square meals a day, we'd have been created with all the tools to make sure there'd be people who suggest that perhaps "Social Justice" was a good idea.  We'd be "wired" that way, and for the most part, I think we are.

In my comprehension of G-d, if G-d =wanted= everyone to have "food, clothing and shelter", we'd definitely have it.  The Hebrew of Genesis 1:3 is much more forceful than the English translations -- it's six words: two of them are "And G-d said ..." (וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים) two of them are commanding light into existence (יְהִי אֹור) and two of them are reporting on the outcome ( וַֽיְהִי־אֹֽור).  If you look at the letters, ain't a lot of letters either.  A G-d who brings an entire Universe into existence with two words doesn't "want" and not "get".

What we have instead is a set of ingrained feelings and values -- being social creatures, compassion, sense of right and wrong -- and a commandment that we "do not oppress the poor, the widow or the orphan".  The Torah doesn't say "Ignore them, I've got this covered."  We're now on our own, whether it's a bunch of Jews engaged in "Tikkun Olam" (fuzzy-headed Liberal Judaism for 'repairing the world') or a bunch of Atheists working on a mission statement and arguing that it include Social Justice.

I think G-d is done "intending" and "wanting".  Now it's up to us.  This is our "job".

Why not?  There really isn't a lot of "theological baggage" in Judaism.  A common mistake, as I think redneF pointed out (I think it was him, or else Atheistextremist) is that the Hebrew Bible isn't just a "religious" book -- it's also a history book and a cultural repository.  Sit down and read Shir Ha'Shirim (Song of Songs).  Grab a significant other and a nice bottle of wine, some candles, a little soft music.  Have a nice read.  Start at Proverbs 31:10 and read to the end.  Read that one to your wife, if you have one.  Go back two verses.  Is that "theological baggage"?

Is that "theological baggage" or an argument someone in the "Atheism United Mission Statement" thread might say?

The hardest thing, I think, to get across is that if I up and decided / realized / became aware of the non-existence of G-d tomorrow, nothing would change.  I'd still be a Jew.  I'd just cross the line from "Jews who believe in G-d" over to the other side with "Jews who don't believe in G-d".  Judaism isn't =just= a religion, it's an entire culture, history, people.  You name it, Judaism has it.  Not that many generations back many people in my family were Jews -- Dad told me about going out to Long Island to visit his very Jewish grandparents.  Mom never mentioned the Jew-thing (other than "Don't you dare study that religion!&quot, but her mother and I talked after Mom passed away and, sure enough, still more Jews hiding in the family tree.  These are my people.

I look at the Universe and it's very clear to me that =something= is going on that is outside our control.  That there =is= something "larger than us".  To me, it is self-evident.  It is as obvious as the nose on my face.  I think you're right -- some people have this "need", some people don't.  Some people like dogs, some people like cats.  I happen to like cats.

I've watched a few eclipses in my life and they are just the neatest thing in the world -- darkness in the middle of the day.  Driving from New Jersey, back to Maryland one night, I looked up and realized a comet was larger than life in the sky.  I got home from my trip and drove my son a ways north of where we live to get away from the light pollution, and there was this comet.  Where I live we have the best thunderstorms imaginable -- the thunder rolls from one side of the sky to the other.  I've chased hurricanes and Manta Rays and played peek-a-boo with an octopus.  Jupiter was up one night, so I grabbed the telescope I'd bought my son, just to see how many Jovian Moons I could see.  My parents gave me a telescope when I was 10 and I'd stare at the moon, or look at sunspots on the sun.

=That= is what "belief in G-d" does for me intellectually.  =That= is what Atheists seem to want me to give up.

You do, or you don't.  I don't "want" to believe in G-d, like I wake up and go "time to believe in G-d", like "time to make the donuts".  The corollary is that I can't "want" to =not= believe in G-d.

I think you're spot-on that it's wired up in the wet-ware, and if that's the case, the better approach to "religion" is channeling "religious energy" in a more constructive direction.  Getting Creationists to see Science as the key to understanding Creation, for example.  If an "Intelligent Design" textbook mapped "The six days of creation" to 13+ billion years of "what we have now", I wouldn't have a problem with that.  But what Creationists do now is so anti-Science that it's just dumb.

I also think that people who have this strong need to convert others are manifesting their own insecurities.  That if they can just convert =you=, their own belief in G-d is justified.

Heh.  We have religious laws "on the books" that go back to when people put rocks under trees and called them gods.  But Judaism isn't stagnant.  We're not Muslims and we're not Fundamentalist Christians.  And you're perfectly fine the way you are, Jewish or not Jewish.

FurryCatHerder,

Thanks for the comprehensive response. I was beginning to wonder if you had me on 'ignore', perhaps still from your first visit to this board, IIRC.

So you see God as something that did have "wants" and "intents" with regard to us, or perhaps just the Universe as a whole, but no longer does?

That still makes him more than just an abstract principle or law of reality, IMHO.

I don't see any reason to think of the ultimate-reason-for-existence in that way, even allegorically, but maybe that's part of this 'wired-in' urge to perceive reality in that particular way.

Do you think of the Hebrew Bible as more than just the writings of men? I presume from the previous bit I quoted from you that you don't, IOW that it all just follows from the way things were set up "in the beginning". If that is true, then I see no particular justification for treating it as 'special'. There is evidence from other ancient culture around the world that such thoughts were not unique to at least some people since some form of social organization began. They would have occurred, and still occur unprompted, to many people before and since.

They ultimately follow, at least with more thoughtful people, from our empathy and compassion.

I personally find more and deeper insights into the human condition in the works of Shakespeare than in any religious texts.

I am sure you are aware of the many passages in the OT that most of us here find deeply offensive in a moral sense, even though there are also such 'nicer' passages as you refer to. It is a very mixed bag.

And of course I don't see what you quoted as "theological baggage". That passage makes no particular reference to God. I hope you appreciate that that is not the sort of thing I was referring to. I meant the whole idea of putting such thoughts in a context where they are in some sense ultimately derived from a belief in God, or 'inspired' by God itself, where God is more than an abstract principle. I can accept that in some sense they follow as a consequence of our evolutionary history, both in a genetic and cultural sense of evolution. Even though I do not see the history of the Universe and of life on Earth as rigidly determined from the beginning, due to both Quantum considerations and chaos theory (the effects of non-linear feedback leading to the possibility of infinite sensitivity to initial conditions).

I have absolutely no problem with this. To me it is a "D'uh" statement. Clearly, even to a died-in-the wool naturalist, materialist, whatever, the bulk of the Universe, of Reality, is way "outside our control".

This is not where I see the distinction.

It is the next step - seeing that "something" as having the attributes of what you think of as a "God" of some form, rather than just an abstract principle, an intrinsic attribute that 'determined' that there will be 'something' rather than nothing.

I also have no problem with Judaism as a culture, with the religious aspects part of that. I see that applying to all cultures, with all religions being an aspect of the culture which they are associated with, within which they arose, or which formed around the beliefs.

I also have wondered at the grandeur and mystery of the Universe, and of Life. I have never see a total eclipse, only a few partials. I also remember wandering onto a beach at midnight, in a place far from city light pollution, with no moon visible, looking up and seeing for perhaps the first time with such clarity and conscious appreciation, the Milky Way, not just as an area of the sky with a higher density of visible point of light, but as that textured mist spanning the sky. I think we have a better view of it here in the southern hemisphere than on the other side.

I too have seen comets, both as sky-spanning streaks of light and as the small wedge of light that Halley's appeared as in its last visit.

I have not so much chased manta rays, but had the experience of one seeing me and coming up to investigate me, looping up and back in front of me almost close enough to touch. I have watched sharks swim up and past me. I have fed giant moral eels on our Great Barrier Reef.

I have felt the wonder of seeing the rings of Saturn through my own 4-inch telescope, conscious that the light forming that image on my retina had come all the way from the planet, not just bouncing off an image in a book, or generated by glowing spots on a video screen.

Again, I think you may be missing the 'true' point of distinction between your world-view and mine. Such experiences are in no way unique to your position. Many, if not most, people would share the basic 'buzz' of such experiences. But some see them as indicating the "glory and wonder of God's Creation", others, like myself, as part of the wonder of existence itself, without the Theological Baggage.

I see such experiences, such basic senses of awe and wonder, as primary to either religion or science, but capable of inspiring either modes of thought, or even both, in individuals to varying degrees.

I have no need or desire to give any of this up. I just feel no need to bring in the God stuff, which to me is just polluting the pure experience with a bunch of unnecessary crap. Atheists don't want to do that - there are alternative ways to really appreciate these things - I refer you to Carl Sagan as a wonderful example of how that works.

I really get irritated at the presumption of many Theists that rejecting God means we miss out on all these wondrous 'highs' - I have had a guy in front of me express his sadness at what he felt I was missing by not being able to access what he felt when interacting with, or feeling the presence of,  or talking with, his God.

While it is impossible currently to strictly compare the emotional and 'spiritual' intensity of specific experiences in two separate individuals, altho advances in scanner technology and neuroscience may bring this closer, I have had many experiences which seem to map to what believers claim. I see them as basic to the workings of our minds, triggerable by different content, depending on the outlook and views of each individual.

I would never assume that the depth and intensity of any such experience a believer reported was anything less than they claimed, altho they seem to think that a non-believer could not possibly experience anything as profound within a secular context, and often would want to deny that mine could be as great as theirs.

I have no real problem with the rest of what you say.

Isn't what you're calling a "propensity to believe in supernatural "beings"" more likely to be a conjunction of the human imagination and its tendency toward making up stories to explain things they don't understand?

Since you brought up studies can you list one?