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Not Losing my Religion
Oct. 11th, 2008 07:45 pmTwo of my friends have had wibbles about their faith. Well, one had a wibble and one wobbled out but they seem to be claiming to have similar issues. Reading their posts made me realise that their posts didn't make much sense from my perspective. I'm not sure whether this is because they're both wibbled from Christianity and they do things differently.
Both of them seemed to have wibbles based upon the realisation that their morality is not dependent upon their Christianity. Initially my response was to think that I did not have this issue. My behaviour is affected by my religion every day of my life, not just through attending synagogue. The way I dress, the food I buy, blessings said before food, what I will and won't do on Shabbat. However, the more I think about it, the more I realise that these behaviours are because I am Jewish rather than because of a faith in G@d. I am theistic and have been my entire life, so I'm not sure how my morality would be different if I weren't. I don't, however, behave in a certain way due to faith in G@d exactly.
There seems to be an idea that religious morality should go like this:
Step 1: Find good evidence of G@d.
Step 2: Find good evidence to support the view that religious text and traditions are good approximation of what G@d wants us to do.
Step 3: Follow religions prescription on how one should live.
This is not how the relationship between religion and behaviour works for me at all. For me it works more like:
Step 1: Find religion which piques interest an seems to feel comfortable.
Step 2: Select religiously advised behaviour which seems appealing and incorporate into life.
Step 3: Religious behaviour will either embed and become a permanent part of my life or will naturally fall away.
Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3.
The thing I couldn't work out how to incorporate into the steps above is that the big reason I am now a somewhat observant Jew is that the aspects of Jewish practice I have thus far incorporated have enhanced my life. There are obviously limits to the degree that I would be willing to follow halacha. I have married a non-Jew. I have what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
atriec would describe as 'bottom-up' morality as well as what she might describe as a 'top-down' adherence to halacha. In fact I don't tend to think of my adherence to many bits of halacha as 'morality' in the way that I lot of people mean the word; I think of it more like a sort of lifestyle feng shui. Most of the time the is no tension because I have little bottom-up moral objections to most of my Jewish practice. I do occasionally have conflicts which sometimes go one way and sometimes another. Generally my veganism beats my adherence to kashrut. On the other hand, my bottom-up morality would be against infant circumcision but I am planning to circumcise my sons. Most of the time I do not need a very strong reason to follow halacha because there is not a strong reason not to. The tension hits occasionally and sometimes I need good reason to follow halacha which causes me inconvenience or moral concern. I think these indicates that I do have some trust in halacha and leads me to wonder why. I think it is because the aspects of halacha I have thus far followed have have made my life better and this makes me think that continuing the process of following more will probably make my life better. I can think of two reasonable explanations for this. The first could be that halacha has evolved over thousands of years through a process of natural selection whereby mitzvot which made people's lives better were more likely to survive than ones which made people's lives worse. The other is that halacha is at least partially divinely inspired and following it makes life better because you're following the instruction manual (to use an awful metaphor). I think I believe a bit of both but, as you might tell from the tone of this post, not in a way that I think about an awful lot.
Anyway, that's my little ramblings.
Both of them seemed to have wibbles based upon the realisation that their morality is not dependent upon their Christianity. Initially my response was to think that I did not have this issue. My behaviour is affected by my religion every day of my life, not just through attending synagogue. The way I dress, the food I buy, blessings said before food, what I will and won't do on Shabbat. However, the more I think about it, the more I realise that these behaviours are because I am Jewish rather than because of a faith in G@d. I am theistic and have been my entire life, so I'm not sure how my morality would be different if I weren't. I don't, however, behave in a certain way due to faith in G@d exactly.
There seems to be an idea that religious morality should go like this:
Step 1: Find good evidence of G@d.
Step 2: Find good evidence to support the view that religious text and traditions are good approximation of what G@d wants us to do.
Step 3: Follow religions prescription on how one should live.
This is not how the relationship between religion and behaviour works for me at all. For me it works more like:
Step 1: Find religion which piques interest an seems to feel comfortable.
Step 2: Select religiously advised behaviour which seems appealing and incorporate into life.
Step 3: Religious behaviour will either embed and become a permanent part of my life or will naturally fall away.
Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3.
The thing I couldn't work out how to incorporate into the steps above is that the big reason I am now a somewhat observant Jew is that the aspects of Jewish practice I have thus far incorporated have enhanced my life. There are obviously limits to the degree that I would be willing to follow halacha. I have married a non-Jew. I have what
atriec would describe as 'bottom-up' morality as well as what she might describe as a 'top-down' adherence to halacha. In fact I don't tend to think of my adherence to many bits of halacha as 'morality' in the way that I lot of people mean the word; I think of it more like a sort of lifestyle feng shui. Most of the time the is no tension because I have little bottom-up moral objections to most of my Jewish practice. I do occasionally have conflicts which sometimes go one way and sometimes another. Generally my veganism beats my adherence to kashrut. On the other hand, my bottom-up morality would be against infant circumcision but I am planning to circumcise my sons. Most of the time I do not need a very strong reason to follow halacha because there is not a strong reason not to. The tension hits occasionally and sometimes I need good reason to follow halacha which causes me inconvenience or moral concern. I think these indicates that I do have some trust in halacha and leads me to wonder why. I think it is because the aspects of halacha I have thus far followed have have made my life better and this makes me think that continuing the process of following more will probably make my life better. I can think of two reasonable explanations for this. The first could be that halacha has evolved over thousands of years through a process of natural selection whereby mitzvot which made people's lives better were more likely to survive than ones which made people's lives worse. The other is that halacha is at least partially divinely inspired and following it makes life better because you're following the instruction manual (to use an awful metaphor). I think I believe a bit of both but, as you might tell from the tone of this post, not in a way that I think about an awful lot.Anyway, that's my little ramblings.