I was talking to a non-Jew about the Jewish stuff I do and she said, "wow, you must really believe in G-d" My reaction was, "huh, I don't think that's ever come up"

Its bizarre - because, it's Elul, all the Jewish communication I get is taking stock, teshuva, etc. None of it is about "Is my faith in God strong enough"

I don’t think “lack of belief in Gd” shows up in Al Chet.

Bf told me a few hours ago he hopes it isn't too disappointing to me that he's an atheist who approaches tradition with skepticism and I was like "...?"

Isra-el = "Stuggles with God"

I'd be interested in how he reasoned this. IIRC it's in the beginning of the Mishneh Torah, Yesodei Hatorah "to know that there is Gd" etc.

Rambam: I have written 13 principles of faith that every Jew must believe. Every Jew: Eh, pass.

Rambam could be quite pedantic

We got an excerpt of his laws of teshuvah in our Judaism 101 last night. My small group: “Why are we only getting these select points?” Me, googling: “Well, looks like he has ten CHAPTERS on teshuvah…” Group: “Oh!”

He….had a lot to say.

And most of it was well-argued. Most.

Sorry to jump in as Christian Atheist, but maybe could we agree that some Christians take the God thing a little too far and in maybe some bad and weird ways?

I don’t think you’ll find a Jew alive who disagrees with this

Ah good. I’ve seen some weird stuff, for sure. I’m not gonna diss those food pantry Christians, if they agree to keep the weird from me.

I mean no one would deliberately pick a user name like “christbot” as an atheist unless they’ve seen some funny stuff.

It’s actually a problem for unhoused people that assistance is often inaccessible because it comes with religious demands, so actually—they don’t.

Yes, being unhoused often means being subjected to sermons and compelled rites like baptisms in some cases. If you refuse to accept Christianity, you don’t eat or have a bed. And people from any religion can lose a place to live. I myself was couch surfing for a while.

Yeah, reason my parents kicked me out when I was 15.

Yep, and “convert or starve” really isn’t a shining example of Christian kindness.

It IS a long established example of how Christianity spreads. Take your army, roll in, take all the food, refuse to give them scraps unless they accept Jesus, they’re now poor Jesus loving subjects. There’s even a term for these people. But it has gone on. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_Ch...

Ok, ready for the Moses conversation whenever anyone feel like it.

Not walking in to the bar joke, though. I’ve seen enough of them to know they’re not funny anymore. I can walk into that one myself just fine, face first. It just lowers the bar.

Oh my gosh, I never knew there was a specific term for it! I just thought of it under the umbrella term colonialism, which doesn’t differentiate between Christianity and Catholicism.

Oh wait, read the Wikiparticle and now see what’s a priori.