Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira

Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira

14. What Is the Relationship Between Judaism and Atheism?

Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira

Daniel Langton [+-]
University of Manchester
Daniel Langton is Professor of Jewish History at the University of Manchester. Relevant publications include Discourses of Doubt: The Place of Atheism, Scepticism and Infidelity in Nineteenth-Century North American Reform Jewish Thought (2018) and Normative Judaism? (2012). He was an AHRC Leadership Fellow for a project entitled The Doubting Jew: Atheism, Jewish Thought and Interfaith Relations’ in 2016–17.

Description

Jewish conceptions of, and attitudes towards, atheism have changed over time. Jewish biblical tradition tended to be concerned more about practical, rather than philosophical, atheism. In the Talmud, heretics were often condemned for atheistic tendencies, such the belief in God’s existence or unity, or for a loss of faith due to the problem evil as in the case of Acher. The great medieval authority Maimonides asserted that atheistic ideas could lead to loss of one’s place in the World to Come, even as his own naturalistic teachings on prophecy and miracles and God’s unknowability, prepared the ground for later Jewish scepticism. In the early-modern period it became possible for highly heterodox Jews such as Spinzoa to emerge; later non-believing Jews would be regarded as atheists for denying the authority of scripture, divine creation, divine providence, and even the divine origins of morality. In the modern period, non-Jewish Jews are commonplace, rejecting supernaturalism as part of the rejection of traditional religious authority and the idea that their Jewishness should be defined in terms of religion.

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Citation

Langton, Daniel. 14. What Is the Relationship Between Judaism and Atheism?. Atheism in Five Minutes. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 52-55 Oct 2022. ISBN 9781800502376. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=43300. Date accessed: 06 Oct 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.43300. Oct 2022

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