Agnostic.com
1 1

Hi gang. I currently work for a Jewish Community Center and before that at YMCA. In my experience the Jewish people are much better to work with and for and are more tolerating of my Agnostic and LGBT ways. Several have told me they are Jewish by culture but are not believers. The Y was very much southern Christian right wing evangelism.

KateZilla 7 Sep 1
Share
You must be a member of this group before commenting. Join Group

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

1 comment

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

It may not be whether they're Christian/Muslim/Jewish but whether or not they are extremist or not. If you are looking for extreme Christians, you can find them in the Bible Belt. Jewish extremists can be found in Israel. Muslim extremists are in the Middle East.
There are decent people who believe in all three. I've seen many more good examples than bad but we live in a more heavily Christian area with higher levels of extremism. It's not a fair comparison.

CK-One Level 6 Sep 4, 2018

that is only partly true.

for one thing, jews in israel tend to be LESS religious than elsewhere, although there is a (minority) orthodox contingent. you may notice, though, that orthodox jews, which some may consider extreme, do not bomb buildings, shoot abortionists, or even proselytize (they may try to get a reform jew to become more religious, but that's different). you could consider them extremists for taking extreme views on how jews should be jews, but they're not extremists in the sense of laying it on anyone else.

for another, judaism does not require everyone to be jewish. nonjews are not thought to be doing it wrong, are not thought to be going to hell, and not thought to be lesser people than jews. in addition, jews are forbidden to proselytize, and rabbis will officially discourage potential converts three times, to make sure they're converting for a good and sincere reason.

on top of all that, judaism doesn't demand faith. i am a jewish atheist and i am not considered to be sinning (not that i would buy that, being an atheist and all; i'm just talking about judaism's attitude, not mine!) the only thing you can do to get kicked out, so to speak, is to take on another god. if you become a christian, for example, you're no longer considered a jew, by jews. but an atheist? jews are encouraged to ask questions, and doubt is acceptable.

i know little about islam but i know muslims and i know what muslim extremists do, and it's night and day. muslim extremists don't even follow islam! they do things in the name of islam but they are either ignorant or lying when they say they're following islam, and no, isul, for example, is not another sect of islam. they're a terrorist group that uses islam to get their recruits. ordinary muslims do nothing of the kind. so the muslim extremists are muslim in name only.

extremist christians are not isolated in the bible belt, where they surely can be found of course. i think we all know what extremist christians do. but not every christian who isn't extremist refrains from evangelizing. i can well understand why a jew might be easier for an atheist to work for than a christian. even an ordinary christian will even unwittingly mess with you more than a jew will. i do not say this because i am a jew. i say this because i am an atheist. the only time i have EVER gotten even the LEAST bit of interference with my atheism by a jew was when a friend of a friend assured me that atheism was a religion. she was wrong of course, but at least she wasn't trying to bring me home to jesus!

g