Our concerns about religion
A word of caution before we start
"The meaning of a word when it leaves my mouth may be completely different when it enters your ear."
We are very keen on using words accurately and we will be using the words "Jew", and "Judaism" later on this page. We therefore need to agree on what they mean - and we have to be very careful because in the current climate any use of these words is likely to lead to instant accusations of "anti-semitism" - no matter what the context!
To us a "Jew" is a member of a self-identifying group of people who share a history and a culture. Membership usually passes through the female line.
"Judaism" is a religion shared by some Jews. Many Jews adopt aspects of Judaism in their family culture even though they may not be religious - just as atheists in England enjoy many aspects of Christian festivals.
Someone whose religion is "Christianity" is a "Christian". Someone whose religion is "Islam" is a "Muslim". How should we describe someone whose religion is "Judaism"? We certainly can't use "Jew" because many (most?) Jews are not religious - many of them are atheists like us! To be accurate we will use "Judaist".
Unlike Christianity, Judaism is not a proselytising religion, it does not seek to convert people to Judaism. Individuals may convert to Judism and probably the most famous recent convert is Ivanka Trump whose husband, Jared Kushner, is now seeking "property development opportunities" on the Mediterranean coast of Gaza.
Before we outline our concerns we want to make some things clear.
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We know many decent religious people and we fully understand how important religion is in many people's lives.
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We don't tar everyone with the same brush and obviously it is impossible for an individual religious person to be responsible for what is done in the name of religion.
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For over 2,000 years millions have died in conflicts between different religions (Christians v Muslim, Hindus v Muslims, Christian pogroms against Jews) and within individual religions (Sunni v Shia, Catholic v Protestant).
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Religions have been at the forefront of colonial exploitation - from the Arab armies of Islam conquering North Africa and Spain to the armies of Christian Europe conquering South America and Africa. A modern African leader summed it up:
"When white missionaries arrived we owned the land and they had the bibles. By the time they finished white people owned our land and we had the bibles."
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We are concerned that religion remains at the heart of much that is wrong with the world today
We are concerned about:
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The decades old violent dispute between Judaists, Muslims and Christians over Palestine/Israel.
The problem didn't "begin" on October 7th, 2023 with the attack by Hamas, it began in the 19th century with the idea that land should be seized from those currently working on it and used to settle those belonging to a specific group that had been persecuted for centuries by Christians.
The slaughter of over 45,000 Palestinians by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), 95% of which is Jewish, has taken place in full view of the world. Our own Prime Minster, an atheist, is bringing up his children in Judaism - this must colour his view of what is going on.
This slaughter has been carried out primarily with bombs and weapons manufactured by the USA where politics is totally dominated by the financial backing of evangelical Christian nationalists and Jews. Pro Israel groups are very active in politics in the USA and in the UK.
It seems the governor of Montana (a fundamentalist creationist Christian) considers the state of Israel to be a key part of his identity and responsibility.
There will always be trouble when one group of people feels it has been chosen by its god to dominate those around it.
We can only turn to the Torah, the Talmud, the New Testament, the Quran and the Hadiths to discover "the words of god" that justify this slaughter. The god revealed in the holy books shared by the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) is an unpleasant entity: jealous, angry, destructive, violent, murderous and totally lacking in empathy. Benjamin Netanyahu quotes from the Torah to motivate the soldiers in the IDF. For example, 1 Samuel 15:3:
Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.We think this is wrong. We think killing people is wrong. We think weapons of mass destruction are wrong. We think religious funding of politicians is wrong. We think preferential treatment of one tribe/religion/group over others is wrong.
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The way that religions treat women.
"God is a woman yet religions are dominated by men!"
Men wrote the religious books. Men dominate the institutions of religion. Men created the hierarchies of most religions. Perhaps religions would be better if they treated their gods as female.
Men have a problem and women are the victims.
To us people are people - to be treated equally and with respect. End of.
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The way that religions treat sexual minorities.
Religions have a problem with sex. Religions are obsessed with sex. Religious men have a sexual insecurity problem.
We see this every day on social media with the macho culture that dominates much of right wing and populist politics where religion is used as an excuse to persecute sexual minorities
People are people. There is no such thing as "normal" because we are all different. We are all at different points along the normal curve for whatever human trait you can think of. It is this difference that makes life exciting.
As long as someone causes no harm, the rest of us have no right to make judgements about their sexual lives.
The problem comes when the power enjoyed by male religious leaders is used to abuse children, women and other men. Almost as bad is the cover up that always happens to protect religion from outside criticism and investigation.
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The way that religions force their views onto children.
Children have rights. They have the right to make a free and informed decision about what to believe.
You can't make a free decision if you are forced by parents and community to toe one religious line.
You can't make an informed decision if you are kept in ignorance of the alternative views. This explains why we are rarely invited into "faith" schools - they are afraid of us.
What are religions afraid of? If they are confident in the validity of their beliefs they have nothing to fear by providing children with a range of views and then trusting them to make their own decision about what to believe.
Could it be that religions know that encouraging children to find out more and to question everything will result in decisions they find unacceptable?
Religions are afraid of opening the minds of children.