Atheism (including agnostics) represents 16% of the world’s population

Judaism represents an insignificant percentage of the world’s population.

There are about 13million Jews of  which 80% live in either the USA or Israel / Palestine (However they have played a significant role in world affairs in the past century)

ATHEISM

JUDAISM

Founded

Numerous advocates and philosophers over the centuries.

A longstanding and changing religious tradition

God(s)

To be an atheist is to be someone who rejects belief in God for the following reasons (which reason is stressed depends on how God is being conceived):

For an anthropomorphic (giving human characteristics to a non-human being) God, the atheist rejects belief in God because it is false or probably false that there is a God.

For a non-anthropomorphic God (the God of Luther and Calvin, Aquinas, and Maimonides), he rejects belief in God because the concept of such a God is either meaningless, unintelligible, contradictory, incomprehensible, or incoherent.

For the God portrayed by some modern or contemporary theologians or philosophers, he rejects belief in God because the concept of God in question is such that it merely masks an atheistic substance—e.g., “God” is just another name for love, or “God” is simply a symbolic term for moral ideals.

Belief in one God who created the universe and continues to govern it. Also a belief in angels and demonic beings.

Prophet(s)

None

Many prophets from the Old Testament but especially Moses.

Leader(s)

Numerous advocates and philosophers over the centuries.

Rabbis

Afterlife

None

Various differing beliefs throughout history, now generally resurrection of body & soul and afterlife containing rewards and punishments.

Practices

Generally Humanism and Humanitarianism.

Prayers 3 times daily, benedictions,

Texts

Various philosophical and scientific.

Torah / Pentateuch (the revealed will of god, sections of the Old Testament, scriptures, scholarly writings)

Human situation/

Life's purpose

Atheists find their own answers to the question of what it means to be human.

Atheists are as moral (or immoral) as religious people.

In practical terms atheists often follow the same moral code as religious people, but they arrive at the decision of what is good or bad without any help from the idea of God.

As life's purpose is unknown, the focus is on improving life as we know and experience it.

To acknowledge the unity of God and to serve God in the world. The world is both intelligible and purposive, because a single divine intelligence stands behind it. Nothing that humanity experiences is capricious; everything ultimately has meaning.

Punishment for heresy

Not applicable

None.

(Judaism has long lived alongside Christianity and Islam. All Jews are free to practice the religion of their choice or no religion at all).

Attitude to Women

Equality.

Historically: Reasonable

Currently: Equality (women are now ordained as Rabbis since the 1970's)

Main objectives in theory

To practice Humanism and Humanitarianism - a system of thought that is based on the values, characteristics, and behaviours that are believed to be best in human beings, with a commitment to improve the lives of others. See HUMANISM

To promote education, critical analytical thought, and freedom of expression.

It is possible to be both atheist and religious. Virtually all Buddhists* manage it, as do some modern theologians of other religions, such as Judaism and Christianity, with the "religions" being seen as socio/politically/economically essential, but without the necessity of gods or spiritual beings.

*Buddhism is viewed as a philosophy rather than a religion by many.

People are atheist for many reasons, among them:

·         By virtue of research they find insufficient evidence to support any religion.

·         They think that religion is nonsensical.

·         They once had a religion and have lost faith in it.

·         They live in a non-religious culture.

·         Religion doesn't interest them.

·         Religion doesn't seem relevant to their lives.

·         Religions seem to have done a lot of harm in the world and the world will be better without religion.

Not all atheists are hostile to religion, but many do think that religion is bad. Some of their reasons being:

·         Religion gets people to believe something untrue.

·         Religion makes people base the way they run their lives on a falsehood.

·         Religion stops people thinking in a rational and objective way.

·         Religion forces people to rely on outside authority, rather than becoming self-reliant.

·         Religion imposes irrational rules of good and bad behaviour.

·         Religion divides people, and is a cause of conflict and war.

·         The hierarchical structure of most religions is anti-democratic, and thus offends basic human rights.

·         Religion doesn't give equal treatment to women and gay people, and thus offends basic human rights.

·         Religion obstructs scientific research.

·         Religion wastes time and money.

For the religious Jew, the entirety of life is a continuous act of divine worship. “I keep the Lord always before me” (Psalms 16:8)

For the Zionist, to establish a permanent homeland in Israel (Palestine)

(Zionism originated in Europe in the later part of the 19th century as a Jewish political movement. Believing that Jews could never assimilate in to any multicultural society/country - a belief not supported by orthodox Jews - its purpose was to unite the Jewish people in a homeland of Israel, based on the belief that God had promised the land of Israel to the Jews as his chosen people.

Main objectives in practice

A concern with the needs, well-being and interests of all people.

To leave the world and society in a better condition for our children to inherit.

As above.

Major

benefits to the human

condition

Many major philosophical, scientific, political and humanitarian advances have come about through first questioning religious beliefs, rejecting them, and then developing new ideas based on intellect and science and thereby advancing socio/economic progress.

Major detriments to the human condition in deaths.

None known

• During the Holocaust it is estimated that up to 6 million Jews were killed. The worst genocide in the history of the world.

(For many centuries Christians in Europe discriminated against Jews. Many harboured a prejudice against Jews that is known as anti-Semitism, viewed as a religious prejudice or an anti-Jewish variety of hatred directed against ethnic minorities.

To anti-Semites, Jews represent mysterious, mythical, and evil forces; are all-powerful; and play a sinister role in world history. In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church's anti-Jewish preaching sought to prevent contact with Jews, and many Christians believed that Jews were in league with the Devil. The Protestant Church also advised burning synagogues Christians blamed the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Many believed that Jews were not human and that they used magic to appear like other people. Also the false accusation that Jews used the blood of Christian children in their rituals. Such stereotypes of the Jews interacted in the minds of many Europeans with fear of foreigners and combined with economic and social frictions. As a result, anti-Jewish violence frequently erupted. The Christian church and various governments enacted laws that prohibited Jews from engaging in certain occupations, forced them to live in certain areas, kept them from attending universities, or even expelled them from various countries.

The linking of anti-Semitic accusations to race struggle is what made Nazism so genocidal. The Nazis believed the Jews were responsible for what they regarded as the degeneracy of modern society. Hitler viewed modern ideologies that stressed equality and freedom as a revolt of inferior classes and peoples led by the Jews. The Nazis viewed communism as the most radical recent form of the ancient Jewish conspiracy that would lead to national dissolution and disintegration. For Hitler, Nazism was thus a doctrine of world salvation to redeem humanity from the Jewish-Bolshevik doctrine. He believed that the German race had to acquire and maintain total supremacy through total war against the Jews. Such a war would be a fight in which the only alternatives, for either side, were victory or extinction).

• The establishment of the state of Israel in Palestine and its subsequent wars and oppressions has caused an unknown number of thousands of deaths of mainly Palestinians.

Other Major detriments to the human condition.

None known

In November 1947 a two-thirds majority of the UN General Assembly, including both the United States and the Soviet Union, passed a resolution calling for the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Arabs rejected partition, arguing that the UN had no right to give more than half of Palestine to a minority of the population (approx. 14%) and that they should not be forced to pay for Europe’s crimes against the Jews.

The Arab state of Palestine called for in the UN partition plan never came into being. Instead Israel held 77 percent of Palestine, while Jordan occupied and annexed the West Bank and Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip.

Following the 1967 war with the Arab states more lands were annexed to and are currently occupied by Israel. During all this time the Palestinian people have been subject to harsh illegal rule, with virtually all their work, education, health and infrastructure operating at minimum levels. Universal punishment has been meted out to Palestinian communities in response to attacks upon Israel by Arab fighters.

The Palestinian people generally now live in fear and abject poverty.

Notes