6 ms·

The double life of Hasidic atheists

40 points by swolchok 11y ago

shmerl 11y ago
Materialistic rationalism is so outdated. Have these folks heard of Kant? Even Jewish thinkers (Hasidic and non Hasidic alike) viewed him with respect.
ars 11y ago
One interesting thing is that even if they did tell people they were Atheist, but continued observing Judaism with action, nothing much would happen. They would not be shunned or anything. Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought, it's also more concerned with this world than with heaven. There is a saying from the Talmud that "a person who acts without belief will eventually come to believe". Meaning that's it's perfectly fine to do the action without the intent, even for years, even for their whole life. Not just OK, but actually encouraged. (They saying applies also to smaller things than belief, for example someone who gives charity not to help someone, but because they like being praised is still lauded for their action. Eventually they will come to give charity to help someone, rather than for what they get from it.)
- knodi123 11y ago
  What you're saying would certainly apply to contemporary regular jews- but I'm not so sure it's true of the Hasidim that this guy is so deeply embedded with. It really is a foreign culture, and unless you have experience with it, you'd never be able to imagine just how jewish it's possible to get.
  - ars 11y ago
    What makes you think I don't have experience with it? Yes Hasidim would say exactly the same thing. Perhaps with some pressure to increase learning. As long as he assured people that he performed the actions, they would only have a problem if he tried to "convert" as it were others.
    - obstinate 11y ago
      Surely these individuals would not go to such extents to hide their lack of belief if they knew that revealing it would be free of consequences. I can only assume that they know their communities better than you do, and so it seems unlikely that you are correct.
      - ars 11y ago
        Among other things it would be embarrassing, people would talk about them frequently. Also people would constantly set themself the task of convincing them, and offering to learn with them, and other things they probably don't want. They probably don't want the attention. Also I doubt they are as firm in their disbelief as the article makes them out to be. They are probably constantly searching and yearning to believe again, so why would they declare themself a certain way, when they are not sure of it themself?
- nwatson 11y ago
  Action vs desire ... interesting contrast with xtianity: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
- shmerl 11y ago
  > Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought, it's also more concerned with this world than with heaven. That's disputable. For example there were those who claimed that observing commandments mechanically, without intending to have the spiritual effect is actually worse than not observing while intending to have it. This idea was expressed by R' Shmuel Alexandrov[1] when he was defending non observant Jews who intend to act righteously, vs. "observant" ones who don't do it out of spiritual reasons. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuel_Alexandrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuel_Alexandrov
- ori_b 11y ago
  > One interesting thing is that even if they did tell people they were Atheist, but continued observing Judaism with action, nothing much would happen. In an ideal world, yes. In the real world, humans are pretty much tribal as hell, and people want others to hold the same worldview as they do, and it hurts when someone rejects something that you consider part of the core of your being. Jews are human too.
- davemel37 11y ago
  "Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought" This is at best an out of context understanding and at worst a complete distortion of the Jewish faith. "Service of the heart" is the core obligation of Judaism. Every single morning and evening Jews say the Shma which states the primary commandment of Judaism is to "Love G-d with all your heart, all your soul(personality), and all your resources..." Maimonides has his twelve tenants of faith, which are all about belief and not at all about action. Love and Faith are about connecting with and understanding G-d. All the actions and commandments are tools for reaching spiritual connection and understand G-d with more clarity. It is almost entirely a spiritual based faith... The quote you reference, which for the life of me, I cannot recall as being accurate...certainly only means that behavior can influence belief. We can form habits by behaving a certain way and we can come to believe certain things that are consistent with our behavior...The idea that Judaism is more concerned with action over thought is patently FALSE! That being said, you can make the argument that some Jews today are more concerned with aesthetics than with true belief...but that is a shortcoming in their faith, and hardly a representation of what Judaism or the Torah teaches. All that being said, a well rounded, Torah observant Jew, regardless of their denomination will have a healthy balance of faith, moral compass, and action that leads to living an optimal, healthy, happy, meaningful life to the fullest.
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    I don't know if this is your intent, but you have in an instant completely flipped Judaism from something interesting to this agnostic, to something completely dead-end and not worth pursuing. A compromising approach is accessible. A hard-line "nothing less than absolute and total devotion is even worth considering, and therefore fundamentally not worth your time" is not. Where is the unsure, dubious, or curious individual to even begin, if all that is even acceptable is absolutely unwavering, unshaking, unhesitating prostration? I realize teachings don't care what is accessible and what is not. I'm not trying to tell you what should be taught. But, just, if you ever wonder why it is shrinking instead of growing- FYI.
    - jorangreef 11y ago
      I think you're mistaking the parent's refusal to compromise that which is truly good, for something else.
rumcajz 11y ago
Also see "Caught in the pulpit", about preachers turned atheists yet unable to quit. One of the authors of the book is Daniel Dennett, one of the most inspiring rationalist contemporary philosphers. http://www.amazon.com/Caught-The-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief/dp/0615927904 http://www.amazon.com/Caught-The-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief/dp/06...
JesperRavn 11y ago
>[Athiests who reveal themselves] risk losing their children, especially in New York State, where custody is often given to the more religious parent. Interesting, I wonder why that would be? Is it because American courts are biased towards religious people in general? But in that case, wouldn't a liberal state like New York be less biased? Could it possibly be because of bias of courts in New York towards the Jewish community?
- ars 11y ago
  It's an inaccurate statement. More accurately the courts award custody to the parent that did not change in religiosity. In this case it's the more religious parent, but it can be the reverse in other cases.
  - mercurial 11y ago
    > More accurately the courts award custody to the parent that did not change in religiosity. Why?
    - patmcc 11y ago
      Stability is generally rewarded - sudden drastic changes to a primary parent's living situation, religion, employment, etc. is not seen as great for children. Also, sudden shifts in behaviour can happen because of serious mental illness (not saying that's true here), which courts would understandably be worried about. If a family was mostly happy, healthy, and stable, and one parent decided to leave the family and make drastic changes (to a new religion/community/city/whatever), the safe thing would probably be to leave the kids with the piece of the family that hasn't drastically changed. Most of the time, anyway.
- bjourne 11y ago
  In courts all around the (Western) word custody courts are heavily biased towards the mother. It would be very surprising if religiousness where a more important factor in New York State. I think the article is plain wrong on that point and that the religious level of the parents doesn't make any difference at all.
JackFr 11y ago
http://rabbisedley.blogspot.com/2012/08/richard-feynman-meets-rabbinical.html http://rabbisedley.blogspot.com/2012/08/richard-feynman-meet...
rdtsc 11y ago
> The last time she showed signs of non-conformist behaviour, her husband consulted the community leaders. They sent her to see a mental health specialist, who medicated her. ‘The mental illness card has been used often in cases like mine,’ she wrote. She has since seen another mental health specialist; he gave her a clean bill of health. That is pretty brutal. "Mental health" was often used by opressive regimes to discredit and punish dissidents. In the Soviet Union they would do that to religious figures (Orthodox Christian priests and political dissidents). The card then was flipped. The religious figures were basically considered "mentally ill" for believing that God exists, and they would be subjected to heavy doses of medications in order to "snap them out of it" in hopes they would see the truth. Of course, the true underlying reason was to remove them from public life so they don't spread those ideas, and as a side-effect torture to punish them so others may learn their lesson from it..
- JesperRavn 11y ago
  Sad that the political power of the Hasidic community is able to result in the justice/medical system being abused like this. While people are rightly wary of other tight knit religious communities, I think that abuses like this in the Hasidic community go unchecked because it's politically unacceptable for police and politicians to criticize the Hasidic community.
- ars 11y ago
  It's more likely that he really did think she had a problem and was trying to help. Not that he was trying to abuse the medical system to get his way.
  - hueving 11y ago
    It's doubtful that a person in a position of that power and responsibility is that stupid.
    - philwelch 11y ago
      I don't know if it's because you're especially naive or I'm especially cynical, but that comment is absurd to me. If only power and responsibility were a guarantee against someone being that stupid, we would live in a much better world!
guard-of-terra 11y ago
Heh he heh. In Russia, in sociological surveys there's this recurring result that 20-30% of those who say they are Orthodox Christian also say they don't believe in God. Another 20-30% don't believe in Heaven or Hell. Go figure what's in those people's heads.
- krapp 11y ago
  Religion is as much about conforming to cultural and social norms as anything spiritual. Church is more important than family and country in some places, and not easy to just walk away from.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism It doesn't have to make sense.
modeless 11y ago
I find myself jealous of these people. For the price of a little hypocrisy, you get to be part of a very supportive community. You get structure for your life, a large number of social gatherings, and a big pool of potential friends and romantic partners. I almost considered going to church just for that reason (back when I was in college and friends with a lot of devout Christians), but I couldn't stomach the hypocrisy of going to church as an atheist. Perhaps somebody could start an "atheist church", but the concept is unpalatable to me. I don't want atheism to define my life in the same way belief defines the life of religious adherents. I don't want to attend atheist classes or listen to an atheist preacher or be around evangelical atheists. I just want a large community of people who stick together, follow a common moral code, support each other, and have regular social events.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  There are non-religious communities as well. Take music fans for example. They do all that social gatherings stuff. Board games players also. And at least their object of praise provably exists.
  - vinceguidry 11y ago
    There's also 'the community' as in, neighborhood associations and council meetings and the like. http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents
- schoen 11y ago
  Someone did start an atheist church along these lines: http://sundayassembly.com/ http://sundayassembly.com/ This is at least the second time that people have done so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_movement I don't have any experience with either movement, so I don't know whether they would be very similar to or very different from what you would like.
  - mercer 11y ago
    I have experience with the something like former and while I'd characterize it as very positive, it doesn't quite compare to the community of the church I used to be an active member of. My impression is that some of these initiatives emulate the 'wrong' parts of church. While I'm not certain of this, I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that many churches in more recent times have made the same mistake, and these initiatives often involve people with a background in these kinds of churches. My background is Evangelical, and in my opinion they do 'community' extremely well. Perhaps they're the best 'form' to emulate, and since the 'content' is often relatively... flimsy, it is easily replaced with other things. That said, the initiatives I've experienced were still very worthwhile and enjoyable! Let me elaborate. Via meetup.com a friend of mine organized meetings every two weeks. Rather than follow the 'Sunday service' model, it was closer to the 'weekday small-group' model that is part of most churches, and particularly important Evangelical ones (to the point of using the Sunday as little more than evangelism). We'd meet in a group of around 8-14 people and after some initial conversation, we'd split up into groups with a piece of text chosen by the conversation leader. This could be a bible passage, but also something else entirely. Then, we'd start talking about the topic, following a few basic rules. Most crucially, we were strongly encouraged to not primarily debate or discuss our viewpoints, but to try and keep things personal and focused on experience. This, of course, created bonds through the (forced) openness and the resulting recognition and empathy. Afterwards, we'd go to a bar and just mingle and talk about whatever. Usually much of that would be spending more time talking about the topic we'd discussed earlier. Many people came because they were tired of 'empty' conversations in the typical social events, often because they had a desire to discuss 'higher' things with 'smart people'. Some ended up disappointed that they had little room to espouse their views and belittle the 'superficial people' with an in-group, but most came to appreciate and value the personal, meaningful conversations. And, of course, inevitably the 'intellectuals' would end up discussing philosophy or religion and the like anyways, but now with a foundation of empathy and friendship. It was also extremely valuable to see a mixed group of individuals that would often not associate or even avoid each other. One of my favorite regulars was a guy who owned a printing-press in a neighboring city and just came by because his adopted 16-year old daughter wanted to attend. He had a lot of trouble with the 'level' of conversation initially, and clearly was not used to talking about intellectual things or sharing personal-ish stuff. But over time he came to enjoy the thoughtful conversation and the free-form 'pub time' afterwards and many of us, in turn, came to appreciate that he was not just some 'simpleton' and often contributed immensely to the conversation by virtue of having a very different, more experiential outlook on life (and a very different past). Some of the most valuable things that I had as a church member and that I always missed were the community, the personal interaction within such groups, the encouragement to show at least some vulnerability, and the mix of wildly different people exchanging views and experiences. And those were the best things that these 'sunday assembly' type initiatives offered, in my opinion.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ronenlh 11y ago
I am in that boat and the description was one on one of what happened to me. I also got the paradigm shift from Maimonides. My community believes in geocentrism because it is written in Maimonides halachik works, and his philosophica works are semi-prohibited to study. One i saw in the latter one that he paraphrased Aristotle in his geocentrism, and in all his "science" I saw that I was in the wrong side of thruth, since my Rabbis weren't "truthful" regarding where our truth cones from. Then all the other questionable premises fell like a house of cards and so the entire dogma. I can step into a synagogue without a raging internal monologue about the solar system.
__david__ 11y ago
It's interesting how this mirrors other religions. I've read forums where Mormons openly talk about losing their faith and there's a lot of people that just decide to fake it because they love their spouse and their kids and they don't want the inevitable rift to tear apart their family. And there are definitely stories from people who ended up confessing to their spouse, resulting in the spouse divorcing them and the community rallying around the spouse, with former church friends just cutting off contact. That's basically their entire lives—with that much at stake, it's no wonder people just pretend. And (most) Mormons aren't nearly as orthodox as Hassidim (anecdotally it seems the friends and family cutting off contact thing is mostly Utah Mormons—places where the Mormon population is lower don't appear to have as many of those types of issues, though there are definitely outliers in both cases) From what I've heard, Jehovah's Witnesses also have a very hard time—even family members are encouraged to shun a person who has been disfellowshipped. Peer pressure can really suck.
- joshdance 11y ago
  I am a Mormon and cutting off contact and shunning someone is definitely an outlier. That is not what we believe nor teach. In fact in the most recent worldwide training (called General Conference which happens every 6 months) there were two trainings, or talks given about reaching out to and supporting those who had left the church. Believing in Jesus Christ means we try and act like Him. And it is clear what he would do. “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?” (Luke 15:4). Of course individual actions and reactions will vary and shunning and ostracizing might unfortunately happen a lot, but that is not at all what the Church teaches or hopes for.

40 points by swolchok 11y ago

Materialistic rationalism is so outdated. Have these folks heard of Kant? Even Jewish thinkers (Hasidic and non Hasidic alike) viewed him with respect.

ars 11y ago

One interesting thing is that even if they did tell people they were Atheist, but continued observing Judaism with action, nothing much would happen. They would not be shunned or anything. Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought, it's also more concerned with this world than with heaven. There is a saying from the Talmud that "a person who acts without belief will eventually come to believe". Meaning that's it's perfectly fine to do the action without the intent, even for years, even for their whole life. Not just OK, but actually encouraged. (They saying applies also to smaller things than belief, for example someone who gives charity not to help someone, but because they like being praised is still lauded for their action. Eventually they will come to give charity to help someone, rather than for what they get from it.)

knodi123 11y ago
What you're saying would certainly apply to contemporary regular jews- but I'm not so sure it's true of the Hasidim that this guy is so deeply embedded with. It really is a foreign culture, and unless you have experience with it, you'd never be able to imagine just how jewish it's possible to get.
- ars 11y ago
  What makes you think I don't have experience with it? Yes Hasidim would say exactly the same thing. Perhaps with some pressure to increase learning. As long as he assured people that he performed the actions, they would only have a problem if he tried to "convert" as it were others.
  - obstinate 11y ago
    Surely these individuals would not go to such extents to hide their lack of belief if they knew that revealing it would be free of consequences. I can only assume that they know their communities better than you do, and so it seems unlikely that you are correct.
    - ars 11y ago
      Among other things it would be embarrassing, people would talk about them frequently. Also people would constantly set themself the task of convincing them, and offering to learn with them, and other things they probably don't want. They probably don't want the attention. Also I doubt they are as firm in their disbelief as the article makes them out to be. They are probably constantly searching and yearning to believe again, so why would they declare themself a certain way, when they are not sure of it themself?
nwatson 11y ago
Action vs desire ... interesting contrast with xtianity: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery. But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
shmerl 11y ago
> Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought, it's also more concerned with this world than with heaven. That's disputable. For example there were those who claimed that observing commandments mechanically, without intending to have the spiritual effect is actually worse than not observing while intending to have it. This idea was expressed by R' Shmuel Alexandrov[1] when he was defending non observant Jews who intend to act righteously, vs. "observant" ones who don't do it out of spiritual reasons. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuel_Alexandrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuel_Alexandrov
ori_b 11y ago
> One interesting thing is that even if they did tell people they were Atheist, but continued observing Judaism with action, nothing much would happen. In an ideal world, yes. In the real world, humans are pretty much tribal as hell, and people want others to hold the same worldview as they do, and it hurts when someone rejects something that you consider part of the core of your being. Jews are human too.
davemel37 11y ago
"Judaism is much more concerned with actions than thought" This is at best an out of context understanding and at worst a complete distortion of the Jewish faith. "Service of the heart" is the core obligation of Judaism. Every single morning and evening Jews say the Shma which states the primary commandment of Judaism is to "Love G-d with all your heart, all your soul(personality), and all your resources..." Maimonides has his twelve tenants of faith, which are all about belief and not at all about action. Love and Faith are about connecting with and understanding G-d. All the actions and commandments are tools for reaching spiritual connection and understand G-d with more clarity. It is almost entirely a spiritual based faith... The quote you reference, which for the life of me, I cannot recall as being accurate...certainly only means that behavior can influence belief. We can form habits by behaving a certain way and we can come to believe certain things that are consistent with our behavior...The idea that Judaism is more concerned with action over thought is patently FALSE! That being said, you can make the argument that some Jews today are more concerned with aesthetics than with true belief...but that is a shortcoming in their faith, and hardly a representation of what Judaism or the Torah teaches. All that being said, a well rounded, Torah observant Jew, regardless of their denomination will have a healthy balance of faith, moral compass, and action that leads to living an optimal, healthy, happy, meaningful life to the fullest.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  I don't know if this is your intent, but you have in an instant completely flipped Judaism from something interesting to this agnostic, to something completely dead-end and not worth pursuing. A compromising approach is accessible. A hard-line "nothing less than absolute and total devotion is even worth considering, and therefore fundamentally not worth your time" is not. Where is the unsure, dubious, or curious individual to even begin, if all that is even acceptable is absolutely unwavering, unshaking, unhesitating prostration? I realize teachings don't care what is accessible and what is not. I'm not trying to tell you what should be taught. But, just, if you ever wonder why it is shrinking instead of growing- FYI.
  - jorangreef 11y ago
    I think you're mistaking the parent's refusal to compromise that which is truly good, for something else.

rumcajz 11y ago

Also see "Caught in the pulpit", about preachers turned atheists yet unable to quit. One of the authors of the book is Daniel Dennett, one of the most inspiring rationalist contemporary philosphers. http://www.amazon.com/Caught-The-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief/dp/0615927904 http://www.amazon.com/Caught-The-Pulpit-Leaving-Belief/dp/06...

JesperRavn 11y ago

>[Athiests who reveal themselves] risk losing their children, especially in New York State, where custody is often given to the more religious parent. Interesting, I wonder why that would be? Is it because American courts are biased towards religious people in general? But in that case, wouldn't a liberal state like New York be less biased? Could it possibly be because of bias of courts in New York towards the Jewish community?

ars 11y ago
It's an inaccurate statement. More accurately the courts award custody to the parent that did not change in religiosity. In this case it's the more religious parent, but it can be the reverse in other cases.
- mercurial 11y ago
  > More accurately the courts award custody to the parent that did not change in religiosity. Why?
  - patmcc 11y ago
    Stability is generally rewarded - sudden drastic changes to a primary parent's living situation, religion, employment, etc. is not seen as great for children. Also, sudden shifts in behaviour can happen because of serious mental illness (not saying that's true here), which courts would understandably be worried about. If a family was mostly happy, healthy, and stable, and one parent decided to leave the family and make drastic changes (to a new religion/community/city/whatever), the safe thing would probably be to leave the kids with the piece of the family that hasn't drastically changed. Most of the time, anyway.
bjourne 11y ago
In courts all around the (Western) word custody courts are heavily biased towards the mother. It would be very surprising if religiousness where a more important factor in New York State. I think the article is plain wrong on that point and that the religious level of the parents doesn't make any difference at all.

JackFr 11y ago

http://rabbisedley.blogspot.com/2012/08/richard-feynman-meets-rabbinical.html http://rabbisedley.blogspot.com/2012/08/richard-feynman-meet...

rdtsc 11y ago

> The last time she showed signs of non-conformist behaviour, her husband consulted the community leaders. They sent her to see a mental health specialist, who medicated her. ‘The mental illness card has been used often in cases like mine,’ she wrote. She has since seen another mental health specialist; he gave her a clean bill of health. That is pretty brutal. "Mental health" was often used by opressive regimes to discredit and punish dissidents. In the Soviet Union they would do that to religious figures (Orthodox Christian priests and political dissidents). The card then was flipped. The religious figures were basically considered "mentally ill" for believing that God exists, and they would be subjected to heavy doses of medications in order to "snap them out of it" in hopes they would see the truth. Of course, the true underlying reason was to remove them from public life so they don't spread those ideas, and as a side-effect torture to punish them so others may learn their lesson from it..

JesperRavn 11y ago
Sad that the political power of the Hasidic community is able to result in the justice/medical system being abused like this. While people are rightly wary of other tight knit religious communities, I think that abuses like this in the Hasidic community go unchecked because it's politically unacceptable for police and politicians to criticize the Hasidic community.
ars 11y ago
It's more likely that he really did think she had a problem and was trying to help. Not that he was trying to abuse the medical system to get his way.
- hueving 11y ago
  It's doubtful that a person in a position of that power and responsibility is that stupid.
  - philwelch 11y ago
    I don't know if it's because you're especially naive or I'm especially cynical, but that comment is absurd to me. If only power and responsibility were a guarantee against someone being that stupid, we would live in a much better world!

guard-of-terra 11y ago

Heh he heh. In Russia, in sociological surveys there's this recurring result that 20-30% of those who say they are Orthodox Christian also say they don't believe in God. Another 20-30% don't believe in Heaven or Hell. Go figure what's in those people's heads.

krapp 11y ago
Religion is as much about conforming to cultural and social norms as anything spiritual. Church is more important than family and country in some places, and not easy to just walk away from.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism It doesn't have to make sense.

modeless 11y ago

I find myself jealous of these people. For the price of a little hypocrisy, you get to be part of a very supportive community. You get structure for your life, a large number of social gatherings, and a big pool of potential friends and romantic partners. I almost considered going to church just for that reason (back when I was in college and friends with a lot of devout Christians), but I couldn't stomach the hypocrisy of going to church as an atheist. Perhaps somebody could start an "atheist church", but the concept is unpalatable to me. I don't want atheism to define my life in the same way belief defines the life of religious adherents. I don't want to attend atheist classes or listen to an atheist preacher or be around evangelical atheists. I just want a large community of people who stick together, follow a common moral code, support each other, and have regular social events.

guard-of-terra 11y ago
There are non-religious communities as well. Take music fans for example. They do all that social gatherings stuff. Board games players also. And at least their object of praise provably exists.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  There's also 'the community' as in, neighborhood associations and council meetings and the like. http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents
schoen 11y ago
Someone did start an atheist church along these lines: http://sundayassembly.com/ http://sundayassembly.com/ This is at least the second time that people have done so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_movement I don't have any experience with either movement, so I don't know whether they would be very similar to or very different from what you would like.
- mercer 11y ago
  I have experience with the something like former and while I'd characterize it as very positive, it doesn't quite compare to the community of the church I used to be an active member of. My impression is that some of these initiatives emulate the 'wrong' parts of church. While I'm not certain of this, I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that many churches in more recent times have made the same mistake, and these initiatives often involve people with a background in these kinds of churches. My background is Evangelical, and in my opinion they do 'community' extremely well. Perhaps they're the best 'form' to emulate, and since the 'content' is often relatively... flimsy, it is easily replaced with other things. That said, the initiatives I've experienced were still very worthwhile and enjoyable! Let me elaborate. Via meetup.com a friend of mine organized meetings every two weeks. Rather than follow the 'Sunday service' model, it was closer to the 'weekday small-group' model that is part of most churches, and particularly important Evangelical ones (to the point of using the Sunday as little more than evangelism). We'd meet in a group of around 8-14 people and after some initial conversation, we'd split up into groups with a piece of text chosen by the conversation leader. This could be a bible passage, but also something else entirely. Then, we'd start talking about the topic, following a few basic rules. Most crucially, we were strongly encouraged to not primarily debate or discuss our viewpoints, but to try and keep things personal and focused on experience. This, of course, created bonds through the (forced) openness and the resulting recognition and empathy. Afterwards, we'd go to a bar and just mingle and talk about whatever. Usually much of that would be spending more time talking about the topic we'd discussed earlier. Many people came because they were tired of 'empty' conversations in the typical social events, often because they had a desire to discuss 'higher' things with 'smart people'. Some ended up disappointed that they had little room to espouse their views and belittle the 'superficial people' with an in-group, but most came to appreciate and value the personal, meaningful conversations. And, of course, inevitably the 'intellectuals' would end up discussing philosophy or religion and the like anyways, but now with a foundation of empathy and friendship. It was also extremely valuable to see a mixed group of individuals that would often not associate or even avoid each other. One of my favorite regulars was a guy who owned a printing-press in a neighboring city and just came by because his adopted 16-year old daughter wanted to attend. He had a lot of trouble with the 'level' of conversation initially, and clearly was not used to talking about intellectual things or sharing personal-ish stuff. But over time he came to enjoy the thoughtful conversation and the free-form 'pub time' afterwards and many of us, in turn, came to appreciate that he was not just some 'simpleton' and often contributed immensely to the conversation by virtue of having a very different, more experiential outlook on life (and a very different past). Some of the most valuable things that I had as a church member and that I always missed were the community, the personal interaction within such groups, the encouragement to show at least some vulnerability, and the mix of wildly different people exchanging views and experiences. And those were the best things that these 'sunday assembly' type initiatives offered, in my opinion.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ronenlh 11y ago

I am in that boat and the description was one on one of what happened to me. I also got the paradigm shift from Maimonides. My community believes in geocentrism because it is written in Maimonides halachik works, and his philosophica works are semi-prohibited to study. One i saw in the latter one that he paraphrased Aristotle in his geocentrism, and in all his "science" I saw that I was in the wrong side of thruth, since my Rabbis weren't "truthful" regarding where our truth cones from. Then all the other questionable premises fell like a house of cards and so the entire dogma. I can step into a synagogue without a raging internal monologue about the solar system.

__david__ 11y ago

It's interesting how this mirrors other religions. I've read forums where Mormons openly talk about losing their faith and there's a lot of people that just decide to fake it because they love their spouse and their kids and they don't want the inevitable rift to tear apart their family. And there are definitely stories from people who ended up confessing to their spouse, resulting in the spouse divorcing them and the community rallying around the spouse, with former church friends just cutting off contact. That's basically their entire lives—with that much at stake, it's no wonder people just pretend. And (most) Mormons aren't nearly as orthodox as Hassidim (anecdotally it seems the friends and family cutting off contact thing is mostly Utah Mormons—places where the Mormon population is lower don't appear to have as many of those types of issues, though there are definitely outliers in both cases) From what I've heard, Jehovah's Witnesses also have a very hard time—even family members are encouraged to shun a person who has been disfellowshipped. Peer pressure can really suck.

joshdance 11y ago
I am a Mormon and cutting off contact and shunning someone is definitely an outlier. That is not what we believe nor teach. In fact in the most recent worldwide training (called General Conference which happens every 6 months) there were two trainings, or talks given about reaching out to and supporting those who had left the church. Believing in Jesus Christ means we try and act like Him. And it is clear what he would do. “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?” (Luke 15:4). Of course individual actions and reactions will vary and shunning and ostracizing might unfortunately happen a lot, but that is not at all what the Church teaches or hopes for.