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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Jewish Afterlife

I have wondered where exactly the Jews get their views of afterlife. The thing is that Jewish people do not believe in heaven or hell. Heaven and hell is a Christian invention, later adopted by Muslims. I actually think that the ancient Jews might have not believed in any afterlife whatsoever. There is no evidence in the Tanach that gives a sign that there could be an afterlife. Indeed, it even says in places, "the dead know nothing" or "the dead go down in silence". This leads me to think that originally Jews had no concept of an afterlife. After they seen other religions develop afterlife they said to themselves, "wow that is a great marketing idea, we need to use that". I think it is the Rambam who says, Jews die, but in the future they get resurrested to live a second time, but he does not say anything about eternal life. Again, this makes me think that Judaism might not have an afterlife as it used to be. The Jews of today have some messed up version of afterlife that I have no idea where it came from. I actually hope that original Judaism has no afterlife, because that would be at least one thing the Jews got correct.

14 comments:

  1. the mishnah predates Christianity. Mishnah Sanhedrin (also commonly quoted in our texts of avos) says "Every Jew has a share in the world to come".

    So at the very least, we see that the concept of a Jewish afterlife predates Christianity.

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  2. Is "world to come" something like heaven? Yes the Mishnah is before Christianity, but it is not before Zoroastrianism. Remember that during the first diaspora the Jews lived in the midsts of the Zoroastrians. The Zoroastrians did believe, at least I think so, of heaven and hell. Thus, perhaps the Jews did not borrow this belief from the Christians but from the Zoroastrians.

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  3. It's funny how G-d haters think that every other religion had original ideas, but somehow, Judaism stole everything from everyone else throughout history.

    Admitting that Jewish ideas were copied by others comes a little too close to admitting that Jewish ideas are worth copying because they come from G-d - so they just steer clear of the entire possibility.

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  4. "It's funny how G-d haters think that every other religion had original ideas, but somehow, Judaism stole everything from everyone else throughout history.":
    First of all people who are skeptics with regard to God do not hate God. How can you hate something you do not believe in? Let me ask you a question. Do you believe in Zeus? What about Apollo? Do you believe in these Greek gods? Of course not. Now, do you hate Zeus? Do you hate Apollo? It is silly to equate skepticism with hate. It is nothing but a strawman.

    Second of all skeptics do not say that every religion had original ideas and Judaism stole everything. That is your own strawman. Every religion stole ideas from the previous religion. Judaism had some original ideas. So did Christianity. And so did others. But they got their ideas from other religions before them. Indeed, just consider the story of Noah's Flood. That story is based on the 5000 year old Sumerian story about the Epic of Gilgamesh. Judaism is not completely original and for that matter no other religion. They steal from eachother.

    "Admitting that Jewish ideas were copied by others comes a little too close to admitting that Jewish ideas are worth copying because they come from G-d - so they just steer clear of the entire possibility." :
    I have no problem admitting that Islam and Christianity stole many ideas from Judaism. But that does not make Judaism correct. Why should it? Remember Christianity also stole ideas from pagan religions, does that make the pagan religions correct too?

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  5. That's an excellent point - I know that all characters in the Greek or Roman pantheon do not exist.

    However, I don't write a blog about my Zeus(Greek) or Apollo(Roman) skepticism.

    If you merely think that Hashem doesn't exist - why write a blog about it?

    Those who consistently publish articles against G-d have hate in their hearts for the one who gives them life.

    I don't spend time coming up with ideas and quotations to refute the existence of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. They don't exist.

    By the fact that you like to write about so many arguments against Hashem, it shows the extent of your hatred, and the extent to which you will commit your time and energy to attacking your Creator.

    It doesn't affect me personally if you hate G-d, but you owe it to yourself to be honest about your obvious feelings.

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  6. Trivial remark, Apollo is Greek not Roman. Apollo is one of the sons of Zeus.

    "If you merely think that Hashem doesn't exist - why write a blog about it?":
    Two answers to your question. First, other people believe in it. Other people trully and genuinely believe in God, I myself used to be Jewish. Therefore, I write so that these people can read and change their way of thinking. Second, because Jewish people are strongly devouted to their religion they would be willing to commit evils and stupidies to protect it. It is precisely because of relgion that there is so much gay hatred. And it is precisely because of religion that science is rejected for bronze age superstitutions. This is why it is necessary to speak out against it.

    "I don't spend time coming up with ideas and quotations to refute the existence of Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. They don't exist.":
    How do you know they do not exist? What happens if they do?

    "It doesn't affect me personally if you hate G-d":
    Yes, you are right, I hate God. Even though I do not believe in God, I somehow hate him. I do not know why I hate him. Perhaps you can tell me why I hate God? I ask you because you obviously hate Zeus and Apollo. If you can understand your source of hatred for Zeus and Apollo then perhaps I can understand why I hate God.

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  7. The name Apollo was also used in the Roman Pantheon (sometimes called Phoebus), but as you mentioned, this is ancillary to our discussion.

    There is no singular entity that can be called "religion". As such, it is disingenuous to blame "religion" for anything.

    Do you blame gay hatred on observant Jews? I have neither seen or heard of any Jewish groups beating up people whom they suspect of homosexuality, bestiality, or incest.

    Are all Jewish conceptions of science stuck in the Bronze Age? Even the most right wing Charedi person will take medication and have surgery, if needed, using the very latest techniques. All Jews use motorized transportation, telephones, many own cell phones, not to mention electricity and running water.

    How many households had electricity in the Bronze Age?

    Even the most insular and restricted observant Jews live with modern science daily - none of them are Amish.

    So, neither of your concerns have any merit.

    Thus, we are only left with your desire to pull other Jews away from their connection with Hashem.

    Why would you want to do that? Bowing to Hindu idols, for example, is obviously ludicrous - but neither you or I go around writing anti-Hindu websites to encourage them to leave their idolatry.

    If you don't hate G-d, then you will have no reason to continue your Torah bashing and mitzvah mocking.

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  8. "There is no singular entity that can be called 'religion'. As such, it is disingenuous to blame 'religion' for anything.":

    Yes, there is. When some person does something evil and he does so because of his ideas then we say that he has evil ideas that caused him to do that. Religion is similar. Religion has evil ideas, terrible ideas, that can make people do atrocities. Judaism has a lot of nice things in it, but it also has a few things that expose its dark side too.

    "Do you blame gay hatred on observant Jews? I have neither seen or heard of any Jewish groups beating up people whom they suspect of homosexuality, bestiality, or incest.":

    You are making a confusion here. Hatred and violence are two separate things. Violence is worse than hatred but this does not mean that non-violence is non-hateful. Just because there are no Jews who do not beat up gay people (I am sure you can find a few who did that) does defend Judaism from being anti-gay. There are plenty of observant gay people that had to struggle with their entire life either because they think of themselves as an abomination or either because they get rejected by their families for being gay. It is religion, and only religion here, that is to blame for the difficulties that gay people have. You never see this in the secular world. In the secular world you tell you are gay and no one will really care. You would still have the same friends and they would not treat you differently. They would not abandon you.

    "Are all Jewish conceptions of science stuck in the Bronze Age?":

    The orthodox are, the modern orthodox are too but to a smaller degree, and the conservative and reform are to an even less degree. But they are all stuck there in some form or another. Using electricity does not mean you are a scientific person. These orthodox Jews use electricity and phones but they still believe that we were magically created by God. Instead of accepting the demonstrated scientific explaination of evolution through natural selection. They reject science for their bronze age story of a magical creation.

    "So, neither of your concerns have any merit.":

    They do have merit. I have demonstrate you to be wrong.

    "Why would you want to do that? Bowing to Hindu idols, for example, is obviously ludicrous - but neither you or I go around writing anti-Hindu websites to encourage them to leave their idolatry.":

    That is easy to explain. I was Jewish myself. Ex-Christians write anti-Christian sites. Ex-Muslims write anti-Muslim sites. Therefore, it is natural why I would stick with Judaism because I was once a Jewish believer myself.

    "If you don't hate G-d, then you will have no reason to continue your Torah bashing and mitzvah mocking.":

    I love people. Therefore, I believe it is my responsiblity to show to them why they are wrong. I will not force them to change and if they do not want to then they can live how they would like to live. But I will nonetheless speak out against them. So that they can listen to my side.

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  9. "When some person does something evil and he does so because of his ideas then we say that he has evil ideas that caused him to do that."

    What is evil?

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  10. "What is evil?":

    I know what this is. This is going to be that ridiculous game that religious people play when they ask a skeptic "why do you not kill other people?".

    Good and evil are easy to understand without God. In fact, they make no sense whatsoever without God (I will soon what I mean why this). For me, "good" is just being kind and loving to people. While "evil" is the opposite of that. That is it. Look at how simple that is!

    For religious people "evil" does not even make any sense. Because for religious people "morality" is the identical to "obedience". God demands obedience. God is like the ultimate fascist of his universe. He demands obedience from his subjects. Whatever he demands he calls "good" and whatever he condemns he calls "evil". So that it would be easier to control people. Remember, it is God who orders the Israelites to go on genocidal murders against numerous other civilizations. Do not pretend that this God, of the old testament, is "moral". He simple demands obedience and calls it "moral".

    So if you want to criticize me by saying that, "there is no objective way to come to morality", I agree, there is no objective way to conclude proper actions from people. But this does not mean we should do whatever we want. Furthermore, you should be intellectually honest and extend the same criticism to yourself by noting that your idea of "moral" is just equivalent to being an obedient little slave to your God and following exactly what he wants.

    So even if you do not like my description of "evil", it is nonetheless better and more in depth than any religious notion of pure obedience.

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  11. I agree - I am an "obedient little slave" to Gd - at least I try to be.

    The question is, to what are you enslaved? Liberal secularist culture? Ever-changing moral codes made up for convenience?

    You admit that you have no basis on which to use terms like "good" or "evil". You still have "legal" and "illegal" - Rousseau, social contract, these are all important aspects of our world today.

    I don't particularly care if an atheist wants to simply abide by the laws of his/her country and leave everyone else alone.

    It's simply hypocritical to say that religion is "evil" when you can't have an objective definition of evil.

    There is no life that is free of servitude. You can serve your own bodily desires, you can serve the popular culture of the day, you can come up with all sorts of idolatry - or you can serve Hashem - but as Bob Dylan once said "you gotta serve somebody"

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  12. It is good that you admit you are an obedient little slave to God. You are willing to admit it. You recognize your slavery.

    "The question is, to what are you enslaved? Liberal secularist culture? ":
    What do you mean to ask? Who do I serve? I serve no one. And my mind is not enslaved to anything. It is free to think. I agree with you that liberals can be enslaved in their own values sometimes. In particular, groupthink. However, I am not a liberal. In fact, liberals really dislike me; I am a right-winger.

    "Ever-changing moral codes made up for convenience?":
    Why is it wrong if people's morals change over time? Perhaps, people begin to realize the mistake that they used to do and they change it so to fix their mistakes. Take for example something like homosexuality. People realize that there is no reasonable objection to that, we should still nonetheless care for other people. This is why we have a change in people's morals. It is okay to say you made a mistake and change later. Science changes all the time, it improves itself over time for the better. So why is that a problem with people's morals? If people are striving to have a kind world and a world which is concerned for other people and as a result we need to reconsider morals then why is that a problem? I think the problem is when you say "I have an absolute standard of morality applicable forever". This is what religion is. That is dangerous. This is why the Torah can have nasty things in it and the people still support it because they think it is still moral. The problem is not that people change the problem is that when there is no change.

    "You admit that you have no basis on which to use terms like 'good' or 'evil'.":

    I do have a basis. I said I have no objective way to come to morals from first principles. That cannot be done. I do, however, have a basis for calling something "good" and "bad". I gave my explanation above, it is very simple explanation.

    "It's simply hypocritical to say that religion is evil when you can't have an objective definition of evil.":

    Why is it hypocritical? I gave an explanation of what I mean when I say "evil", under that description religion is evil. The fact that I recognize there are no objective morals is irrelevent. It simply means I am grown up enough to realize that there are no transcendental morals just like there is no Santa just like there are no gods.

    "There is no life that is free of servitude.":
    If you are going to serve something then you should serve something which is real and something which has value. Hashem, sorry to tell it to you, is not real. If you serve other people by doing good works then you are doing something which is real and valuable. You think that there are only two positions. Either you serve (as a slave) God or you are an atheist and become addicted to popular culture. That is not always the case. Some people are obsessed with popular culture who are atheist and some who are theists. They are both wasting their lives. I am not interested in popular culture. In fact, I only recently found out who Lady Gaga is by watching a South Park episode. This means there are Orthodox Jews that knew who she was even before I knew who she was! I am interested in finding the truth. That is what I spend my time on. I hate popular culture.

    I find it funny that you quote Bob Dylan. As if that quotation automatically becomes true just because Bob Dylan says that. Since you like quotations let me tell you an important quotation to keep in mind, by Voltaire, "a witty saying proves nothing". Famous quotes and funny quotes mean nothing, we need to analyze them as we analyze intellectual arguments.

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  13. The Dylan quote was some light humor - that line is actually from the period in his life when he experimented with Christianity.

    Then he got in a motorcycle accident, and went back to being a secular Jew - he wrote the album "infidel" and it was a best seller. :o)

    Sounds like you and I are both committed to finding the truth. I respect the truth seekers out there. Did you grow up shomer mitzvot?

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  14. "Did you group up shomer mitzvot?":

    I say "mitzvos" instead. I came from a non-religious family. But I went to an Orthodox Jewish school from which I graduated. I liked it very much, and have good friends from there. But when I left it soon when I became a skeptic, as I currently am, at college. (No, college did not contribute to my skepticism whatsoever. It was my own curiosity).

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