Judaism does or at the very least has the potential to offer some sort of utility.

Atheism, by definition, cannot offer any utility.

Stu

What do you mean by utility?

Relative satisfaction by the consumption of a service.

Stu

why? say that atheism improves john doe's mood range, in general, and releases him from his fear of death. doesn't it have utility?

My level of happiness and satisfaction increased significantly once I abandoned the faith I was raised with and opened my eyes more to the world around me, free of the superstitions of religion.

So as a sample size of one (and the only population that matters to me in this regard),

I vehemently disagree with your unsupported assertion. And have disproved your thesis by counterexample.

Then whatever religion you belonged too had negative utility for you and once you abandoned it, you felt better. Who knows, maybe you will find a religion that provides you with utility and you feel even better still.

Athiesm doesn't provide any utility and cannot provided any utility. Unless of course, your so fanatical about it, that athiesm is essentially a religion for you. Then I suppose you could find some utility in athiesm. I haven't met anyone who admits to being that fanatical about athiesm though.

Stu

Atheism doesn't offer anything, it is not a dogma. Comparing it to one doesn't make sense.

What is the point of OP? Saying that matter has more mass than a vacuum?

as someone who was raised jewish, went through the whole bar mitzvah thing, i can say at least from my experience going to a reformed temple in los angeles that it i felt little true religious belief from the congregation. maybe this is the benefit of judaism, it did seem more about intelligently thinking about the world and the religious text than blind following. i cant say i've ever met a jew that took the torah literally everyone seemed to understand that it was a metaphor. as far as western religions go, i think it is the closest to an intellectually honest belief system, my main problem was the idea of dated customs that seemd pretty useless and that did little more than make a statement of faith. things like keeping kosher which was originally a practice made to ensure people didn't eat the foods that were either hard to make for nomadic people or that often carried disease, is now illogical. also i went to a ridiculously greedy temple, painfully so

Thats a valid point to make to people who act like matter has less mass than a vacuum. Same with the OP.

Stu

i don't get it. atheism relative to what? religion? then of course it can have utility. if religion has negative utility, and the only alternative is atheism...then atheism has positive utility, relatively speaking.

if religion has "positive utility" - it's positive relative to what? atheism? i doubt you can prove that religion always has positive utility relative to atheism. and if you can't, then there's no importance to the statement "judaism might sometimes produce positive utility relative to atheism" because it also sometimes might produce negative utility relative to atheism.

What is 'Judaism'?

Although atheism will usually make you a more emotionally satisfied person, it's actually not the atheism itself that does it ( for reasons above). The plus is from a similar source as the clarity that meditation can help you achieve. Just being able to know you are looking at a situation and able to weigh the actual variables and connect them to actual outcomes for people that you care about rather than having to put their care and needs secondary to the confused eternal wishes of one of a myriad of mythical beings the politics of mankind has created. The fog of "what does yhwah want" lifts.
Atheism gives you the knowledge that people matter to each other, and that mattering is number one rather than an infinitely distant second to the ramblings of some primitive sunstroke smitten desert tribesmen.

it's like saying that betting on red in roulette is better than keeping your money in your pocket...because when you make the bet you will sometimes win.

maybe judaism has negative utility

by your reasoning wouldn't being a SuicideSquadOfJudian be better than being an atheist?

Come on Niesio. Google it and the first link is wikipedia



Here's the link for the lazy

Spoken like an athiest zealot.

Stu

ur an idiot

Chez, You know if that were true Judaism would have already been abandoned by the masses and relegated to the status of a dead religion.

Stu

Insults are the last weapons hurled by the weakminded Dragonystic.

Stu

Wouldn't that make all atheists zealots? Rather a waste of a good word. no?

i can live with that.

by the same logic, if it weren't true, we'd all be jews.

in other words, just because judaism has positive utility for Saul, relative to his other options, does not mean the same holds true for me.

how does that follow? if a religion hasnt died yet its +EV? what?

Unless we found another belief that offered us the same or even greater utility. As a species, we abandoned that which is not useful and cling to that which is.

Stu

um no. as a species we cling to the known and the comfortable.