All that Spiritual Stuff

[eumelia]

Purim and the lunar eclipse got me thinking... again!

I've said this before, but I think it's wroth mentioning, but one of the beautiful things about Judaism is the fact that it is a living religion and that it is based on questioning authority and interpreting things in your own view.
Of course this is the ideal and not the way it actually is, a shame, in my humble opinion.

When I was in America I found Judaism there both more liberating and a touch ridiculous, since in Israel there are three, maybe four streams in Judaism (without getting into all the little sub-streams) which would be Orthodox, National-Religious (דתי-לאומי), Masorati/Conservative and Secular. There is very little wiggle room for the very lovely streams across the pond like Reconstructionist or Renewal. Israeli Jewry is in the whole, more closed to "alternative" ideas such as seeing GD as Goddess or giving the Shekinah equal standing with הקדוש ברוך הוא (The Holy One), or perhaps even grater standing as the Shekinah is considered Imminent and thus actually closer to humanity than The Holy One.

Judaism as it is today (in Israel at the very least) is in my opinion, a very repressive and oppressive religion, not the more progressive streams obviously. In the Shul my family are members, women wear Talleisim, Kippah, have proper Bat-Mitvah's just like the boys, but I still feel the closed mindedness of it all when there is this superior attitude -"my God is better than your God"- which can be found in all three Abrahamic religions (i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, A subject I will expand on in the future, I promise).
And it is this closed minded attitude that makes me reject a great part of Jewish, because the teachings, interpretations and the rest of Jewish history and nationalism is based on Patriarchy and Xenophobia and I feel I've reached a point in my life where I either leave that belief system behind me and keep Judaism as an ehtno-nationality or take what Judaism gave me and twist it until it suits me.
Which would mean uprooting the basis on which Judaism is based and that is Monotheism and Tradition.

More on this subject soon.

Comments

[hakuzo.livejournal.com]

I am assuming you saw the east coast? Yeah, I hear they are very conservative out there. There is a group of Charismatic Jews near my home who are conservative in no sense of the word. There is also a synagog in the capitol that has a youth group called Bethsheba Youth Center. I know they are fairly liberal, but not sure what sect.

[hakuzo.livejournal.com]

You know, I'm not very fond of YHWH. He boasts about doing bad things. The templars I served with, although christian, were perhaps barely so. There was a lot of cross-over, and they considered themselves as christians to be a sect of Judaism (and rightly so, I believe). We were all very fond of the Shikinah, and of ASHRA as well. We observed ASHRA's holy day by making and eating ASHRA cakes, and erecting ASHRA poles. I took it a step further, and carried an ASHRA pole in the back of my truck. When I got the chance, I used to drive up to the mountains, plug it in the ground, and pray. Those are fond memories. =)

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

Is there a single religion that doesn't go "My god(s) are better than yours?" All religions, by definition, go "We're right and you're wrong." The only effective difference is whether or not they try to convert/kill the followers of other religions - and Judaism gets points for not encouraging either.

There's a slow movement of secular-minded Jews reclaiming Judaism. Perhaps that'll lead to developing a more open-minded Judaism.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Really? What do you call the Charedim on the train and ask to put Teffilin on the young guys there על מנת לקיים "מצוות", and the courses that are aimed at החזרה בתשובה. it may not be part of the religions doctrine, but it happens more than people are willing to admit.

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

I don't call it 'converting'. They are not trying to get non-Jews to become way. They try to convince Jews-by-default to become active about it. Christian missionairs provide a counter-example.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

That's semantics, dear and really not worth starting an argument I foresee becoming an online shouting match, :)

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's semantics. I think it's a profound difference.

It's the difference between a religion that goes crusading, and a religion that doesn't. Crusades, what the European settlers in the Americas did... take your pick. Converting non-Christians to Christianity is nearly a commandant of that religion. What a difference from Judaism, which makes it so hard for people to convert to it on principle!

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Listen, I don't think any religion is inherently evil, that's ridiculous, it's the people who suck and we know this.
But the point is that Judaism as a religion, at the moment, at its present incarnation is not a religion that focuses on the morality (which is what organized religion teaches among other things) between people, but on how well we present ourselves to GD, how committed we are to the Mitzvot. It is said that a bad person cannot be a good Jew.
Of the top of my head I can think of a religious public figure who is one of the worst people in Israel and that would be Katzav.

All three Abrahamic religions have a history and legacy of carnage and murder, some more recent than others. But in all three repression, oppression and closed-mindedness are present. Judaism and Christianity have evolved and allow for secularism (even though certain streams in both religions consider them heretics) and Islam is now going through it's current Jihad where secularism can only become viable if they accept the fact that other people have a right to live (in relation to the discussion (http://hagar-972.livejournal.com/363337.html) at your LJ)

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

Actually, Dawkins made an interesting case in "The God Delusion" that most of the prevailing moral commandments(murder) are pretty much hardwired into our brains, and aren't the result of organized religion.

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

Oh, please.

I really don't like it when people try to find biological reasoning for ethical principles. Biological 'hardwiring' is no excuse for making rape morally acceptible, so why should it be an excuse for making murder morally inacceptible? What's the difference, other than our highly subjective moral perception?

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I agree with it, personally, but he had some interesting points.And yes, we're biological machines, so I can see why certain ethical drives may be embedded, the same way certain emotion as hardwired into us(anger, fear, disgust, 3-4 others).

I don't have enough knowledge to form an opinion either way, but the point was that morality isn't based solely on religion by any means.

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think morality is neccesarily part of a religion. While most - or all - religions seem to lay down an ethical code, it's not like there are no lacking examples of secular codecs. (Humanism, hello!)

I don't believe that being biologically hardwired is reason enough to make something Good in the ethical sense. I think that the very attempt to justify anything on the abstract level by things from the physiological level testifies is just plain wrong. (See provocative example above.)
(There are some things-commonly-considered-Good 'hardwired' into us. There are some things-commonly-considered-Bad that are 'hardwired' to us. Some people cave in to their biochemistry, others don't. Can't compare apples and oranges.)

Have you ever taken a course in Evolution or Ethology (Animal Behaviour)? My lecturers in both courses pressed quite hard the point that Biology doesn't justify morality. It's really at the core of bioethics.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I love that you can argue that way :D. Every time I hear that it was the "genes" to blame I feel my brain begin to melt out of rage!

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

I haven't taken either yet- I plan on Ethology next year, and I may or may not take Evolution, depending on courses available and their quality, although I'm taking one "Brain and Language" course this semester that deals with Evolution peripherally.

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

They went easy on us in Evolution, as it was a first-year course, but one of the Ethology lecturers - the one who covered evolutionary aspects - dedicated a lecture and a half to stressing this point, complete with disucssing papers and whatnot. Probably one of the most important things I learned in my B.Sc.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I was raised in a secular house hold, the ethics and morals I hold were not conveyed to me through religion... seeing as my mother is of the opinion that organized religion is evil.

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

Listen, I don't think any religion is inherently evil, that's ridiculous, it's the people who suck and we know this.

I believe nearly all social structures are inherently evil. If you're going to have a structure, than some people are going to stay outside the fence. If people aren't most careful about having only the most minimal structure absolutely neccesary, more people will be rejected/מוקאים החוצה than is absolutely neccesary.

To me, the difference between kids making fun of the fat/ugly/smart one and making that one unusual kid break in tears is just a minor hate crime: minor, but a hate crime still.

I still think less crimes and horrors were done in the name of Judaism than in the name of either Christianity or Islam. No real mass murders in our past, sorry. No real "We shall conquer your land because you are heretics!" in our past. No "You shall convert to our religion or you will die" in our past.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

When you say "social structure" I assume you mean social order and hierarchy, right? In that case we walk hand in hand Sister, with that I agree with you wholeheartedly.

I still think less crimes and horrors were done in the name of Judaism than in the name of either Christianity or Islam. No real mass murders in our past, sorry. No real "We shall conquer your land because you are heretics!" in our past. No "You shall convert to our religion or you will die" in our past.

I dare say that you view the תנ"ך as total apocrypha?

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

I dare say that you view the תנ"ך as total apocrypha?

Huh?

I don't view the bible as an historical document. So very definitely not. And even there, in supposedly two or three thousand years of 'documented history', there are what, a handful of cases where Jews killed more than a handful of strangers for religious reasons and without provocation? Compare that to the very real actual history of Christianity and Islam.

And yes, I mean social order and hierarcy. I'm using using those words because: (1) some social structures I particularly loath are not hierarchial in nature (kids society, for example) and (2) i'd not order i'm opposed to - first lesson in Ecology: "Life mean order, death means chaos" - but structures which are rigid, which may be fences that keep individuals out/away.

I suppose the only social group I accept is Kindred. I can live with nationality because to me it is a kind of Kindred.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Okay.

Wow, good discussion, it was fun, informative and didn't turn into a war!

I say go us :)

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

The Crusades were very much *not* religious in their actual origins, my junior high school history book quoted some of the original words of the Pope who called for it and a major point was the fact that "...in the Holy Land there will be enough land for all of your second sons who have no share of land..."(not exact- I'm translating from memory).The crusades, as well as most of the other "religious" wars in history were simply using religion as a pretext for socio-political power play(the 30 year war is another quick example).

If the American colonists have been Jews I'm not sure that they would have been less cruel- Judaism has a very strongly defined "in group" and can be very easily be used as pretext to dehumanize people from the "out group" under the right circumstances(see the way extreme settlers behave toward the Palestinians for an example)

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

(Replying to both you and Mel.)

And back to my original point from Mel's previous discussion-post, that religion - any religion - is problematic by definition, because all religions may be translated to "What we believe in is morally right and what you believe in is morally wrong."

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Such is the destructive nature of organized religion.

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[hakuzo.livejournal.com]

Au contraire. The jews massacre and commit genocide several times in scripture, and YHWH tells them specifically to kill women, children, cows, and to not even leave one single blade of grass left standing.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

Have you heard of a group in Israel called Amcha? They are zionist pagans, sort of, and I like what they say.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Really?
Have a website for me?

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

I don't have a website. There is an Israeli member of the Jewitchery Yahoo list named Elisheva who talks about Amcha a lot. I just posted there asking her for information for you.

The Jewitchery Yahoo list is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jewitchery/ -- you could join it and ask her yourself, too. :-)

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

Hi, I've just heard from Elisheva about AMCHA, the Jewish-Pagan group in Israel.

She says that they don't have a website, but you can contact her directly at elisheva@brecnet.com