From Judaism to Atheism: Maybe?

Naturalism is a philosophical movement which affirms the natural
universe the whole of reality and is understood only through scientific
investigation, often referred to as methodological naturalism. While
denying the existence of supernatural or transcendent entities, or the
questioning of the ultimate nature of reality, naturalism affirms that
cause-and-effect relationships, as in physics and chemistry, are
sufficient to account for all phenomena.

Materialism is the doctrine that all existence is resolvable into matter
or into an attribute or effect of matter. According to this doctrine,
matter is the ultimate reality, and the phenomenon of consciousness is
explained by physiochemical changes in the nervous system. Materialism
and naturalism go hand in hand.

Skepticism is the refusal to accept certain kinds of claims without
first subjecting them to a systematic investigation or rational inquiry.
For many skeptics, this process is akin to the scientific method. This
type of skeptic generally accepts those assertions that are in likely to
be true based upon a testable hypotheses and critical thinking.

Atheism is basically a lack of belief in a deity or deities of any sort.
Although some atheists tend toward skepticism or other secular
philosophies such as humanism, naturalism and materialism, there is no
single system of philosophy which all atheists share, nor does atheism
have institutionalized rituals or behaviors.

I endeavored to define each ‘ism´ as succinctly and yet, comprehensively
as possible to set the stage for understanding this article. There are a
few of you whose eyes have already glossed over and you´re getting angry
at me for not getting right to the point. These brief definitions are
important for understanding where it is my ‘atheism´ comes from and why
I feel so strongly about it. The metamorphosis from belief into
non-belief is not, as some would have it, merely a matter of emotional
or social dysfunction, though such things do occur internally in those
who are faced with conflicting outlooks and must, as their social needs
require, perform a psychological balancing act to live in both worlds
simultaneously.

Why Us?

It occurred to me that more Jews turn toward Atheism than those of other
religions. From Spinoza, to Freud, to Einstein, and many others in
between and since, Jews have been at the forefront of non-theistic
thinking in modern Western culture. I wondered why this was and thought
maybe it is because so much of what makes an atheist is already latent
within Jewish learning and culture. Is that possible that elements from
within my own religious education led me to atheism? My personal
correspondences with other disaffected Jews also confirms this
hypothesis, as none of them (among the dozens that I have contacted)
have taken on other faiths or even less stringent forms of Jewish
practice. All have embraced either atheism or some variant of
agnosticism. This was definitely something that needed further
exploration.

The answer I came up with isn´t definitive or universal by any standard.
I cannot speak for all renegade Jews-turned-atheist, nor would I attempt
to speak on behalf of anyone but myself. My goal here is seek out that
‘something´ in Judaism that could lead to atheism and rejection of
Judaism in the process. This is, at worst, an uneducated guess which
proves to be way off base or, at best, an introspective analysis into my
own particular view of Jewish learning. I believe it will be instructive
in either case. Those of you living with these same inner conflicts and
questions will understand and hopefully garner some insight from this
article.

When the Love of Being Right Goes Wrong

As a rule, most human beings love to be right, but when we Jews decide
we are right about something no one hammers home the point better than
we do. It isn´t enough to know that we are right amongst ourselves. Oh
no. We Jews are fully prepared to take all the time and effort required
to make sure the world hears every syllable explaining and justifying
our correctness. If you argue with a Jew, the first words out of his
mouth will be “As a matter of fact…’ attesting with precise logic and
devout passion to the veracity of anything we assert as truth. We are
the ‘Kings of Disputation´ and throughout our history in Exile we have
been subject, time and time again, to debates and argumentation with
Epicureans, Christians, Moslems, the Enlightenment, and, last but not
least, even amongst ourselves. Why do you think we make such good
lawyers?

This steady stream of attacks from without and within Judaism,
philosophical and physical, on traditional believers has created an
insular and defensive mentality among the Orthodox. Let´s be honest
here. We are a culture that is built, shaped, and influenced by our
persecutors and retractors as much as it is by our own internal genius
and religious ingenuity. One cannot exist as a hated minority for all
that time and not come away without a victim mentality. This mentality
reinforces, or maybe even is what created our argumentative nature and
the often hyperbolic, reflexive defense mechanism that our culture
displays. Without military power or demographic numbers to save us, all
that was left for us to do was argue our way out of the predicament. The
flip side of providing this positive argument for one´s position is by
exploiting the weaknesses of the other opinion. Overall, this method has
met with limited success.

This ‘Jewish´ skepticism means that every time we hear about Jesus doing
a miracle, or the Pope blessing a couple to conceive, or any other
supernatural claim, we immediately have two thoughts. First, it´s
impossible, and second, if it did happen, there must be a perfectly
rational explanation for it that has nothing to do with Jesus or the
Holy Father. Our skepticism directed at the claims of other religious
doctrines leads us to arguments based in naturalism and materialism. We
have now, and so far unknowingly, united the three basic elements needed
to create an Atheist into our method of disputation, but we haven´t
asked the same questions of ourselves, because it requires more
emotional input and sense of loss to question one´s own beliefs that it
does to destroy the faith and hopes of 1000s of others. You couldn´t
possibly take their loss personally.

So what happens when a Jew, trained in Talmudic logic and the various
forms of argumentation and now having this ingrained skepticism toward
any threatening or seemingly anti-Jewish ideal, suddenly doesn´t know
how to shut that skepticism off? What if all the arguments that one
utilizes to debunk Christianity or Islam suddenly become thrown into
reverse, critiquing one´s one faith and heritage by the same rules? This
is where the problem begins. I cannot simply claim that Judaism´s
miracles are rational and true and yet, in the same breath, claim that
Christianity´s claims must be false because they are physically
impossible or highly improbable. I cannot, in good conscience, debunk
the myth of Santa Claus while, in the same breath, seek to defend the
belief that Elijah the Prophet shows up at every Jewish home on the
night of Passover. Each idea is equally preposterous for the very same
reason; it is physically impossible. We invariably end up, through
asking others to be ‘intellectually honest´ to prove our point to them,
at same later time, facing ourselves in the same ‘intellectual´ mirror
and wonder if we are being equally honest about ourselves and what we
believe as truth.

(I wonder if this is the ultimate reason why Maimonides opposed
philosophical inquiry, or why, during the Middle Ages, the Rabbis
generally forbid formal disputations with Christian scholars. In
debunking an opponents idea, the same logic could be used, circumstances
reversed, to debunk one´s own, and therefore one had to very careful as
to who was going to be doing the debating. It´s not that the Christian
would trip one up in an argument, but that one would become so sure of
his own debating skills that one would begin to argue with everything,
friend and foe alike, based on that technique. )

The Truth Isn´t Cold or Hard

As much as I´d like to think this whole process is completely cold and
rational, it obviously isn´t. The feeling of power that can accompany
being ‘right´ about any issue can be very addicting. Sometimes this gets
out of hand, but even then isn´t necessarily a bad thing until we
separate our intellectual and emotional faculties and that is where we
go horribly wrong. We assume that when we are thinking that we are
somehow no longer feeling, and we end up, unknowingly, becoming attached
to our thinking in way that puts us into a position of holding an
enormous emotional investment in our opinions. Do you know how hard it
is to admit that you are wrong? Or that the position you have arduously
defended for many years is as equally misguided as those you debunked,
if not even more? Few of us ever realize the deep emotional attachment
we have to ideas we assume are ‘cold hard facts´, and are dead wrong
about. We throw ‘intellectual honesty´ in the face of every opponent but
no ‘emotional honesty´ in the way of our own introspection.

At some point, some of us actually make that leap into that
intellectual-emotional self-inquiry. We use the very same tools we have
been taught to use on others to inflict maximum damage on our own Jewish
beliefs and religion in general. We begin to ask the same questions of
ourselves that we demanded of others and by the same methods and
arguments. Yet, we are no longer debating strangers from whom we
emotionally disassociate ourselves. We are arguing with our own core
beliefs and the fight hits home with a vengeance. For those of you who
have never felt the emptiness of being wrong, completely wrong, and
having to alter your entire thinking based upon that realization, I
cannot put adequately into words how gut-wrenching that experience
feels. It is nothing short of heart-break. I really believed that the
Judaism I was raised in could withstand all the scrutiny that I was
fervently using to admonish the rest of humanity, but it could not.

My atheism is a direct by-product of my Jewish upbringing. Not in terms
of information, mind you, but in how information in general is to be
processed. I was taught to ask tough questions; to think and to problem
solve. I was trained to debate the point with determination. I was
educated in argument and commanded to treat any strange idea or religion
with strong skepticism. My problem is that I didn´t know when or how to
turn it off. Maybe I wasn´t supposed to.

So here I am.

Kol Tuv

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Shlomo lives in Detroit. Raised in Brooklyn NYC, he received an Orthodox/Chasidic Jewish education. He attended college, earning two relatively useless post graduate degrees. He became nonreligious at age 29 ,and found 'piece' of mind. He says, "I am often saddened by humanity's lack of foresight." His blogsite can be found at http://sentimentalheretic.blogspot.com/ where this essay originally resides.