I was having an interesting discussion with a friend of mine about religion. She’s an atheist, and she’d been discussing the issue with her brother, a Catholic. They were both rasied nonobservant and are culturally Jews.
She described with some level of peeved bemusement the discussion between them. She’s begun to speak up about her beliefs recently, and she described a maddening discussion (as only sibling discussions can be) where her brother was pressuring her about her beliefs.
He was talking about how the Church is great for him and his wife and children, how it gives them a sense of community and purpose, and togetherness. But when she asked him about specific supernatural beliefs, she said he didn’t really commit to them. She said, “so you believe in the virgin birth?” She asked him question after question about the specific supernatural tenents of the Church… But he glossed over them and kept returning to ideas like community, values, togetherness. The things the Church provides.
She said to me, “Why can’t you do something with your family to do the togetherness thing, and do charity work and stuff like that… why make it a church if you don’t believe the church stuff?”
She expressed exasperation that her brother didn’t believe the supernatural ideas any more than she did, yet he was down on her for being an atheist!
In another instance, she has a friend who’s currently an agnostic, but was planning to convert to Judaism for her wedding.
The phrase “planning to convert” struck me as the wierdest phrase I had ever heard. What COULD THAT POSSIBLY mean? “I currently don’t believe in a God, but I plan to!”
Obviously it means “join a Temple”. But it’s clear the difference between “converting” and “converting”.
Is this what people mean when they say that “belief in belief” is part of the cultural experience of religion? The idea that “it’s good to join a church” even if you don’t believe in the “church” part of church?
-Siamang
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts | 15 Comments »I’m going to be on vacation for a couple of weeks, so I thought I would just post a couple of fun/interesting/nostalgic videos I’ve run across lately. ENJOY!
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Check out Stephan’s question to atheists over on CatE:
Atheist responses to the supernatural
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts | 4 Comments »