Dear
Readers,
These columns began on my area of America Online, called: Judaism
Today: Where Do I Fit? People anonymously
sent me E-Mail, and I began to choose one for a public response
in my Jewish E-Mail of the Week column. The column has become
quite popular and is now syndicated internationally in many
Jewish papers and websites. I hope you find they help you
as you think about the Ethics, Spirituality and Peoplehood
components of the Jewish way of Life. I welcome your
comments... see the end of the column.
Gil
PS
Teachers and others, feel free to copy my columns and forward
them or use them as you see fit. Please see the friendly
copyright notice at the end. |
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Belief
in God is Foolishness!!!
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Dear
Gil:
I
have always been an Atheist, all
seventy-one years of my long and very
happy life. I can imagine that it
would be even better if there were a
benevolent Deity taking care of things
in general, and me in particular. Life
after death would be entertaining, and
reincarnation a gas! But these wistful
longings--of us relatives of the
gorilla and the chimpanzee--are not
TRUE!
From
my point of view, anybody who switches
allegiance from the one religion to
another is making a pilgrimage from
the Sahara desert to the Gobi. He's
covered a lot of ground, but he still
winds up in a sterile place, a desert.
I
have never -- not for a moment, or a
nanosecond -- believed in Jesus,
Krishna, God, Jahveh, prayer, angels,
heaven, hell, reincarnation, Original
sin, karma, religious dietary rules,
fasting, pilgrimage, priests, rabbis,
gurus.... I've reached the age of 71,
and done very well without wasting any
time, money, or emotional energy on
Church, Synagogue,
Krishna-consciousness raising
sessions, masses, prayer meetings or
Yom Kippur.
I've
been happily married for forty-three
years. We've lived in the same
beautiful house for forty years
(mortgage paid off), our children are
grown up and on their own, we have
$3,000,000 in our pension funds, we're
in reasonably good health.
What
would I pray for?
B
Dear
B:
Thank
you for a most thought provoking
letter.
You
are not the first person to contact me
saying "I do not believe in
God." If you are looking for an
argument--you are not going to get one
from me. Not because I agree with you,
but rather because I stay away from
these kinds of faith debates...they
are unprovable and
un"win"able.
I
don't pretend to know with certainty
about God, angels, miracles, karma,
heaven, hell etc. And I am leery of
people who claim that they definitely
know that any of the above exist. At
the same time, I don't think you can
prove that any of the above do not
exist.
Rather
than try to convince people to believe
one thing or another, I try to
convince people to seriously wrestle
with their Judaism. After all, we are
called the people Israel which means
to wrestle with God. This is not a
cute word game but a huge theological
statement about Judaism. To me, being
Jewish means wrestling with our doubts
and our choices. Wrestling with God
also means struggling to understand
whether we are the masters or victims
of our fate--or both.
With
all of these struggles in mind, I
would like to suggest an interesting
test of your personal faith or lack of
faith in God. The test is posed by
author Dennis Prager in the following
question: Do you believe that Mother
Teresa and the barbarian Nazi medical
experimenter Dr. Mengele had the same
fate after they died?
Your
answer to this question and the level
of certainty you have when answering
says a lot about your faith in God or
a power above.
Personally,
I don't want to believe that Mother
Teresa and Dr. Mengele had the same
ultimate fate and have difficulty
believing that they do--but I will
confess I am far from 100% certain.
As
to your question about prayer, you
might think of prayer as a time of
self reflection. The word in Hebrew to
pray is lihitpalel...which means to
judge oneself. Personally, I have yet
to meet the person who feels they
could not be a better person. For me,
this is part of what my prayer
includes. One need not believe in God
for this type of self-judging prayer.
Additionally,
you not need not believe in God to be
thankful for your good fortune and
recognize that others have less than
you (like less than $3,000,000 in
pension funds and good health.) Self
reflection such as this to me is a
noble purpose for prayer with or
without faith in God.
Thanks
for writing!
Gil
A FRIENDLY COPYRIGHT NOTICE
© Copyright Gil Mann
These columns can be found at www.beingjewish.org. Not
only do I give you permissions to copy these Jewish Email
columns...I HOPE YOU WILL and that you share them with others!
All I ask is that you never charge anyone for them and that you
also include this little copyright notice. Thank You!
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