One thing I love about the Internet is that no matter how much cool stuff you come across there’s always something that makes you think, “How did I never see this before?” Yesterday I was listening to an interview with Phil Hellenes on the Thinking Atheist podcast about his awesome video “Science Saved My Soul.”
Today I went and watched the video, and I’m sharing it here for anyone who may have missed it.
I’m not sure why, but until now I’ve never read Frederick Douglass’ Narrative. I think the impetus was actually from Carl Sagan, who devotes a section of The Demon-Haunted World to Douglass’ life. It’s a remarkable story, not least for the improbability of its ever being written down. His escape from slavery began, however, with his clandestine education by the wife of one of his owners. She taught him to read, but not to write.
Douglass, while invoking a general sort of God throughout, has nothing but the harshest words for the pious Christian slave owners of the American South (mind you he was in Maryland, the state I grew up in 150 years later; the deep South is a whole ‘nother story, as we say.)
“I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes – a justifier of the most appalling barbarity – a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest and most infernal slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all the slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have found them the meanest, the basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others. It was my unhappy lot not only to belong to a religious slaveholder, but to live in a community of such religionists.”
Bearing this in mind, isn’t it amazing more African-Americans aren’t hostile to religion in general, and Christianity in particular? I think so.
Not long ago I was trying to explain the “Sabbath elevators” in Israel to my Catholic aunt. She just kept looking at me like, “You gotta be sh/£&%g me!” Too bad she doesn’t have a computer, or I’d send her this video. It’s really crazy what observant Jews won’t do on Saturday, and the ingenious ways they invent in order to get around the system.
Which means they either think G-d is a bumpkin, or they just pretend to believe in His Omniscience in reverence to Tradition.
This goes back almost a month, but In the Moment excerpted my essay for Moment Magazine’s “Elephant in the Room” contest. The question was, “What does being Jewish mean without belief in God?” Entries are now closed. If I win, I get an iPad – so pray for me!
“In my Jewish excursions, one thing I never felt comfortable with was God. I disliked newly-learned expressions like ‘Baruch Hashem’ and the socially-driven piety I saw around me every day. (The Jews were behaving just like the Catholics, I thought.) The end came when, at Yom Kippur services one year, they brought out the Torah scrolls and the congregants began kissing them. ‘Idolaters!’ I wanted to scream. I left and never went back.
“Not long after this – and likely as a product of my voracious studying – I concluded I was an atheist. I spent some time thinking about how to reconcile my sense of Jewishness with my rejection of the Jewish God and, eventually, Judaism itself.
“I sometimes hear that a Jewish atheist is an oxymoron. In such cases I like to tell my one of my favorite jokes. A young student reveals to an elderly rabbi that he is an unbeliever. ‘And how long have you been studying Talmud?’ the rabbi asks. ‘Five years.’ ‘Only five years, and you have the nerve to call yourself apikoros!?’ (Apikoros is a rabbinical term for ‘atheist’, from the Greek philosopher Epicurus.)’
“As an atheist, my Jewishness is rooted in a shared historical identity and not belief in a popular idea called ‘God.’ If I thought for a moment that lacking this belief disqualified me as a Jew, I’d have no trouble saying goodbye to Jewishness forever. But I feel no pressure to make this choice. Jews have always been heterodox in their beliefs, despite attempts by zealots to unite them under one banner or another. It’s a bit like herding cats, or atheists.”
I found this right near the Vatican. Where else?
This comes via Michelle at Bleeding Espresso:
I just thought I’d share it with anyone who still needs to hear it.
I was having a conversation with a tweep this morning about a religious friend we have in common. Our friend is a rabbi. We both made sure to mention what a wonderful person she is, and then my tweep commented that she’s glad the rabbi accepts her, godlessness and all.
Then it dawned on me: Why is it the job of the religious to accept/not accept the non-religious? Who gave them such authority? (Nobody – they just claimed it for themselves without asking us.) My tweep and I were in agreement: it’s not us, it’s them. They’re the ones who believe weird things without evidence, not us. We’re normal.
Sometimes people who believe in weird things like gods happen to be exquisite human beings, too. Who woulda thunk it?
A quick post in response to James Wood’s recent piece in the New Yorker, “Secularism and its Discontents.” Wood misses no opportunity to take a swipe at “militant,” or “Darwinian” atheists (as he calls them) in his review of The Joys of Secularism. I used to admire Wood as a critic, but ever since he became an apologist for faitheism I can’t even make it through an entire article he publishes.
Discussing Philip Kitcher’s contribution, Wood writes:
His essay is characterized by its humanity, and by its willingness to borrow from religion. He will get no reward from the Darwinian atheists for this…
Oh, presumably because “Darwinian atheists” are incapable of humanity? Or unfamiliar with the religions they reject? Why are we always reading that religion is brimming, just overflowing with humanity? And that atheism is cold, and cold-hearted? Has Wood ever read a single book or blog by his nemeses, the New Atheists?
I think not. If he had, he would see clearly that they are not bereft of his much-prized humanity. It’s a patently ridiculous dichotomy he has set up. Aren’t we a little tired of this gnu-bashing already?
If you want to read a collection of very human essays by atheists – and Kitcher contributed to this one, too – try 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists. You’ll understand just how wrong Wood is on this one.
Here’s my favorite Jewish atheist joke, c/o Leo Rosten:
A brilliant young student goes to an old, learned rabbi and defiantly exclaims, “I must tell you the truth! I have become an apikoros. I no longer believe in God.”
“And how long,” asks the elder, “have you been studying Talmud?”
“Five years,” says the student.
“Only five years,” sighed the rabbi, “and you have the nerve to call yourself an apikoros?!…”
• Apikoros is a rabbinical term for unbeliever, skeptic, agnostic, atheist.
I’m not so sure I’d go with calling this “blasphemous”, because the concept of blasphemy has become entirely meaningless to me. It certainly is excellent, though. Bravo, Ricky! Via Friendly Atheist.
Marc Di Martino 