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Jewish Atheism

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member

The Baha'i Faith removes all anthropmorphic content from any conception of God and remains a strongly Theist religion.The Baha'i concept of God is apophatic with no human attributes defining God. What is reflected in Creation and humanity are the attributes of God, and not human attributes describing God.

As far as Jewish agnosticism/atheism I believe this trend in intellectual Judaism is from a different perspective.
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
The Baha'i Faith removes all anthropmorphic content from any conception of God and remains a strongly Theist religion.The Baha'i concept of God is apophatic with no human attributes defining God. What is reflected in Creation and humanity are the attributes of God, and not human attributes describing God.

As far as Jewish agnosticism/atheism I believe this trend in intellectual Judaism is from a different perspective.

is that because the uncreated/formless is the only thing that can't be corrupted?


via negativa

Thus “God is powerful” should be taken as “God is not lacking in power.” Maimonides’ appeal to negation (GP 1.58) is often misunderstood because in normal speech a double negative usually indicates a positive.
 
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LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
questioning, doubting. the formation of anything can be reformed
Well, sure. It is indeed unavoidable that questioning, when taken far enough, will bring atheism about.

Is that ironic? I don't think so, but I suppose someone who values theism might.
 

Grandliseur

Well-Known Member
Read some of your material in the link.
There was so much of it that I cannot even find again what I want to refer back to.

In one case, the statement that those who heard the voice of God - didn't. Rather, they came to understand what God wanted - something like that.
This claim is not in accordance with scripture. In the prophet's Samuel's case, as a child, or teenager, he was called - was it 3 times, before he was made aware by the priest he consulted what he had to do to respond to God's verbal calling. Other prophets received verbal messages, or visions from God that were very specific, just look at Ezekiel's, even Daniel's writings.

That the above doesn't do much to tell us what or who God is, it does tell us that God is real and acts with real time events with his servants. An example is a young prophet who didn't follow exactly, didn't obey exactly, what he was told to do. He was killed for his disobedience by a lion that afterwards acted very un-lion-ly -- thereby demonstrating to those who knew about these things that this was God's judgment which was further confirmed when a prophet received a message explaining things.

"you are left with a God whose essence is unknowable and indescribable"
That is only the case for those who ignore what God reveals about himself, while also ignoring what God does, his acts that even today are mocked as being stories, inventions, by those who want to make a god for people to worship, rather than God actually existing and being able to do these things.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member

This a very good reference for Maimonides and trend in the spiritual evolution of Judaism. Careful reading clearly determines Maimonides and others before and after him in this line God's relationship to humanity is apothatic Theism.

The intellectual movement in Judaism that resulted in a wide/spread agnostic/atheist philosophy in Judaism has different primarily in European intellectual movements that encouraged a humanist natural view of God. in the 19th century Jewish philosophers like , Mordechai Kaplan, espoused a naturalistic definition of God.

Part of the evolution of this philosophy grew up around the concept evolved through Midrash for understanding scripture and not the direct interpretation of scripture itself as in ancient Judaism such as the time of Jesus Christ. In Christianity the scripture became the paramount standard, and God is clearly defined, because doctrine and dogma became rooted early in the older Jewish belief in a literal Genesis.
 

Fool

ALL in all
Premium Member
This a very good reference for Maimonides and trend in the spiritual evolution of Judaism. Careful reading clearly determines Maimonides and others before and after him in this line God's relationship to humanity is apothatic Theism.

The intellectual movement in Judaism that resulted in a wide/spread agnostic/atheist philosophy in Judaism has different primarily in European intellectual movements that encouraged a humanist natural view of God. in the 19th century Jewish philosophers like , Mordechai Kaplan, espoused a naturalistic definition of God.

Part of the evolution of this philosophy grew up around the concept evolved through Midrash for understanding scripture and not the direct interpretation of scripture itself as in ancient Judaism such as the time of Jesus Christ. In Christianity the scripture became the paramount standard, and God is clearly defined, because doctrine and dogma became rooted early in the older Jewish belief in a literal Genesis.

i get the idea that god is manifested based on God's inheritance and not based on an anthropomorphic understanding.

god isn't dual, although human's believe god is separate, dual, from they're, or it's, manifestation.
 

Tumah

Veteran Member
Part of the evolution of this philosophy grew up around the concept evolved through Midrash for understanding scripture and not the direct interpretation of scripture itself as in ancient Judaism such as the time of Jesus Christ. In Christianity the scripture became the paramount standard, and God is clearly defined, because doctrine and dogma became rooted early in the older Jewish belief in a literal Genesis.
Perhaps a bit of conjecture in there rather than indisputable fact.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Perhaps a bit of conjecture in there rather than indisputable fact.

Needs explanation and a coherent response. The difference in the evolution of Christianity and a literal Genesis based on early establishment of doctrine and dogma dependent on a literal Genesis is basic history. So is the reliance on Midrash in Judaism.

The development of the humanist naturalist intellectual view of Reconstruction Judaism in Europe in the 18th and 19th century based on the writings of Jewish intellectuals is also a matter of history.

Of course, considering your belief in Mega-Super-Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, you would not agree with these views, but nonetheless it is not conjecture, and you need to back this simplistic assertion with references.

We are not dealing with the question of what is the true Jewish belief.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Read some of your material in the link.
There was so much of it that I cannot even find again what I want to refer back to.

In one case, the statement that those who heard the voice of God - didn't. Rather, they came to understand what God wanted - something like that.
This claim is not in accordance with scripture. In the prophet's Samuel's case, as a child, or teenager, he was called - was it 3 times, before he was made aware by the priest he consulted what he had to do to respond to God's verbal calling. Other prophets received verbal messages, or visions from God that were very specific, just look at Ezekiel's, even Daniel's writings.

That the above doesn't do much to tell us what or who God is, it does tell us that God is real and acts with real time events with his servants. An example is a young prophet who didn't follow exactly, didn't obey exactly, what he was told to do. He was killed for his disobedience by a lion that afterwards acted very un-lion-ly -- thereby demonstrating to those who knew about these things that this was God's judgment which was further confirmed when a prophet received a message explaining things.

"you are left with a God whose essence is unknowable and indescribable"
That is only the case for those who ignore what God reveals about himself, while also ignoring what God does, his acts that even today are mocked as being stories, inventions, by those who want to make a god for people to worship, rather than God actually existing and being able to do these things.

This is based on a literal interpretation of the Old Testament. True or not acts, stories and accounts, and the authors of the Pentateuch most of the OT, and even the gospels are at best anecdotal and unsupported by objective verifiable evidence whether they are true or not.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
The Baha'i Faith removes all anthropmorphic content from any conception of God and remains a strongly Theist religion.The Baha'i concept of God is apophatic with no human attributes defining God.
But that's what God is: an anthropomorphism... a way for humanity to relate to the universe. You might as well be talking about a square circle.

Let me put it this way: if you pray to God with the hope that God will hear your prayers, you've still got "anthropomorphic content" in your God.
 

pearl

Well-Known Member
what happens if you remove all anthropomorphic content from your conception of God:

Without biblical anthropomorphism we are left with the 'unmoved Mover' of the philosophers, without a 'personal' God. In what other way than the use of anthropomorphism could Israel hand on what they believed to be their experience of their God?
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
But that's what God is: an anthropomorphism... a way for humanity to relate to the universe. You might as well be talking about a square circle.

Let me put it this way: if you pray to God with the hope that God will hear your prayers, you've still got "anthropomorphic content" in your God.

This, of course, is the view of atheism, which I acknowledge as an alternative explanation, but we of course, disagree.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
This, of course, is the view of atheism, which I acknowledge as an alternative explanation, but we of course, disagree.
I realize that. Why do you disagree?

For instance, why don't you think that the idea that God listens to prayer suggests anthropomorphic characteristics of God?
 
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