From Christian, to Agnostic, to Atheist, to Jew, to Jewish Humanist. It's been an interesting journey.
I never took to the nominal Christianity of my parents or the much more potent strain of my fellow Texans. In high school I dabbled in a Baptist church for a time in pursuit - I'm ashamed to say - of a girl's approval. The sin and "salvation" message played into my teenage insecurities however, and I found myself vacuuming up the message and eventually loathing myself for being a sinner in perpetual judgement of an all-knowing all-disapproving God. Fortunately I met some saner friends who introduced me to a much more fitting agnosticism, and there I sat for years happy to leave the question of God to others.
Some time later I met my future wife. She was raised in a very conservative Christian faith but did not take to it much; she is very liberal and readily admits her faith is based on hope rather than firm belief or logic. But I found myself curious as to where I might end up if I gave God another shot, so I started by reading Hitchens and Dawkins ("Let's start from zero," I told myself). In short time the answer appeared self-evident: I had no logical reason to believe in God as he is traditionally defined. I became an Atheist.
Perhaps a year later, the brother of a friend of mine died from suicide. The family happened to be Jewish. My friend asked me to attend a sort of remembrance for his brother, and I went readily in support of my friend. What I saw truly touched me: a very large, very sincere contingent from the Jewish community turned out not with half-hearted utterances of "I'm sorry for your loss" and other numb cliches, but with stories of his brother and profound support for the family. They were celebrating his life. The mood was a strange mix of warm and somber, and I later joked that if he'd been Irish, it would have almost been a wake. It's difficult to describe even now, but the bottom line is that I was truly touched by this People I realized I didn't understand.
Recognizing I knew nothing about Judaism, I started to read about it out of mild curiosity which soon turned to an near compulsion to learn more. Much of what I learned, I sincerely liked. Here was a religion that, Orthodoxy aside, was surprisingly liberal and readily embraced secular ideals. A religion based on the importance of charitable action and deed rather than faith, finding faith to be far inferior to living the right life presently. A religion where they freely admit we have no idea what the afterlife looks like, or if there necessarily is one (no salvation to hang over one's head!). A religion where half - half! - of all self-identified members in North America freely doubt the existence of God! A religion that didn't proselytize, but seemed content to stand on its own merit in its own way.
So I began attending a synagogue, a Reform congregation (one of the more liberal branches of Judaism and the largest "denomination" in North America). I was welcomed immediately, obviously standing out as an outsider but never made to feel out of place. A prime Jewish value is to "welcome the stranger," based on Torah scripture in antiquity and cultural values now; the laws of hospitality are taken seriously, and I benefited from them. Standing in a synagogue singing in a foreign language to tunes I didn't know, I felt completely at home for no particularly excellent reason. It simply felt like where I belonged.
I spoke to a Rabbi, easily one of the warmest and most intelligent men I've ever met. He invited me explore the faith, the culture, the Jewish people. He led me and followed me on this journey for a year, the typical time it takes to "convert." One of the books he invited me to read was called Finding God by Rifat Sasina and Daniel Syme. In it, the theology of major Jewish thinkers throughout the ages is described in brief but comprehensive detail. Passages on limited theism and Jewish humanism stood out to be in particular, and I told the Rabbi as much. I learned his own wife was an atheist who still very much identified with the Jewish people, and he reminded me that faith in the supernatural was not a requirement to become Jewish - only knowledge, cultural and communal participation, and fidelity to Jewish ethics. That was good enough for me. Not long after, I became a Jew.
For a time I chose to put faith in a God of my own creation (if you're terribly interested in exactly what that God was, look into limited theism) but I've returned quite happily to my full-fledged atheism. After all, why create a God where none is actually needed?
I never took to the nominal Christianity of my parents or the much more potent strain of my fellow Texans. In high school I dabbled in a Baptist church for a time in pursuit - I'm ashamed to say - of a girl's approval. The sin and "salvation" message played into my teenage insecurities however, and I found myself vacuuming up the message and eventually loathing myself for being a sinner in perpetual judgement of an all-knowing all-disapproving God. Fortunately I met some saner friends who introduced me to a much more fitting agnosticism, and there I sat for years happy to leave the question of God to others.
Some time later I met my future wife. She was raised in a very conservative Christian faith but did not take to it much; she is very liberal and readily admits her faith is based on hope rather than firm belief or logic. But I found myself curious as to where I might end up if I gave God another shot, so I started by reading Hitchens and Dawkins ("Let's start from zero," I told myself). In short time the answer appeared self-evident: I had no logical reason to believe in God as he is traditionally defined. I became an Atheist.
Perhaps a year later, the brother of a friend of mine died from suicide. The family happened to be Jewish. My friend asked me to attend a sort of remembrance for his brother, and I went readily in support of my friend. What I saw truly touched me: a very large, very sincere contingent from the Jewish community turned out not with half-hearted utterances of "I'm sorry for your loss" and other numb cliches, but with stories of his brother and profound support for the family. They were celebrating his life. The mood was a strange mix of warm and somber, and I later joked that if he'd been Irish, it would have almost been a wake. It's difficult to describe even now, but the bottom line is that I was truly touched by this People I realized I didn't understand.
Recognizing I knew nothing about Judaism, I started to read about it out of mild curiosity which soon turned to an near compulsion to learn more. Much of what I learned, I sincerely liked. Here was a religion that, Orthodoxy aside, was surprisingly liberal and readily embraced secular ideals. A religion based on the importance of charitable action and deed rather than faith, finding faith to be far inferior to living the right life presently. A religion where they freely admit we have no idea what the afterlife looks like, or if there necessarily is one (no salvation to hang over one's head!). A religion where half - half! - of all self-identified members in North America freely doubt the existence of God! A religion that didn't proselytize, but seemed content to stand on its own merit in its own way.
So I began attending a synagogue, a Reform congregation (one of the more liberal branches of Judaism and the largest "denomination" in North America). I was welcomed immediately, obviously standing out as an outsider but never made to feel out of place. A prime Jewish value is to "welcome the stranger," based on Torah scripture in antiquity and cultural values now; the laws of hospitality are taken seriously, and I benefited from them. Standing in a synagogue singing in a foreign language to tunes I didn't know, I felt completely at home for no particularly excellent reason. It simply felt like where I belonged.
I spoke to a Rabbi, easily one of the warmest and most intelligent men I've ever met. He invited me explore the faith, the culture, the Jewish people. He led me and followed me on this journey for a year, the typical time it takes to "convert." One of the books he invited me to read was called Finding God by Rifat Sasina and Daniel Syme. In it, the theology of major Jewish thinkers throughout the ages is described in brief but comprehensive detail. Passages on limited theism and Jewish humanism stood out to be in particular, and I told the Rabbi as much. I learned his own wife was an atheist who still very much identified with the Jewish people, and he reminded me that faith in the supernatural was not a requirement to become Jewish - only knowledge, cultural and communal participation, and fidelity to Jewish ethics. That was good enough for me. Not long after, I became a Jew.
For a time I chose to put faith in a God of my own creation (if you're terribly interested in exactly what that God was, look into limited theism) but I've returned quite happily to my full-fledged atheism. After all, why create a God where none is actually needed?
Humanistic Judaism 101: Humanistic Judaism embraces a human-centered philosophy that combines rational thinking with a celebration of Jewish culture and identity. Humanistic Jews value their Jewish identity and the aspects of Jewish culture that offer a genuine expression of their contemporary way of life. Humanistic Jewish communities celebrate Jewish holidays and life cycle events (such as weddings and bar and bat mitzvah) with inspirational ceremonies that draw upon but go beyond traditional literature.
"God is one of the many different poetic expressions of the highest value in humanism, not a reality in itself." -Erich Fromm
"God is one of the many different poetic expressions of the highest value in humanism, not a reality in itself." -Erich Fromm
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