(February 1, 2019 at 7:28 pm)Yonadav Wrote: I am not yet an atheist. But I have a belief that has been creeping into my mind about hard determinism. I am starting to believe in hard determinism and disbelieve free will. I'm not quite there yet, but I am certainly leaning toward hard determinism. I see no room for a deity if we don't have free will. Judaism entails soft determinism. It has to be soft. There has to be a measure of free will. Without it, there is no Judaism. So if I really became convinced of hard determinism, then I would become an atheist.
But being an atheist wouldn't be very important to me. I would simply not be a religious believer anymore. If I were walking by a synagogue and some guys stopped me and told me that they need a tenth man for a minyan, I would go in and make their minyan. They are just asking me for help, and it is part of our culture for me to give them this help. I wouldn't feel any need to tell them that I'm an atheist, and they wouldn't really care very much.
It seems much more common, in the Jewish community at least, for people to simply be "cultural Jews," where they sort of go through the motions of being a religious Jew, but don't actually believe in god or any of that stuff. This is at least what I've gathered from my limited exposure to Jewish people in real life.
(February 1, 2019 at 7:38 pm)Belaqua Wrote:(February 1, 2019 at 6:48 pm)PRJA93 Wrote: The fact that I don't believe in god actually is pretty important to me. Maybe I like the rebellious aspects of it, I'm not really sure.
I can see that it's important to people, in that it's a pretty important part of how they see themselves in the world. Not that we devote much of each day to thinking about our role in the world.
What worries me is people's tendency to define themselves in terms of what they oppose. "Negative identity."
Some people are just atheist, and some people are in addition wildly anti-religion, and the anti- part becomes personally important.
Sure. The people who identify as "anti-theist" tend to come to mind when I think of what you're talking about.
(February 1, 2019 at 8:50 pm)onlinebiker Wrote: Being an atheist is important to me as being right handed, blue eyed, or 6 foot tall...I see where you're coming from. I also don't see it as some part of my life that I need to share with someone, but it certainly affects my view of the world, which is why I'd consider it important.
It only matters when I' m checking boxes on my personal information on some paperwork.
Other than that, I rarely notice.
Oh - and I get to sleep in on Sunday morning.
I do wonder if some atheists are apprehensive about admitting that atheism is important in their lives because of the many disingenuous attempts by the religious to convince us that atheism is an active belief rather than a lack of a belief. Admitting that atheism is important may provoke theists to say, "See? You just like going against god." -even though they would be off-base in that accusation.
If you're frightened of dying, and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the Earth.
