What's In A Name?

Not all people who identify as secular humanistic Jews are necessarily atheists. The beliefs of the movement are consistent with all kinds of non-theistic positions, including atheism, agnosticism and even deism. The founder of the movement, Rabbi Sherwin Wine, coined the word “ignosticism” to describe his approach. Here’s how Wikipedia defines it:

[Ignosticism] can be defined as encompassing two related views about the existence of god:

The view that a coherent definition of god must be presented before the question of the existence of god can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of god (per that definition) is meaningless. In this case, the concept of god is not considered meaningless; the term “god” is considered meaningless.
The second view is synonymous with theological noncognitivism, and skips the step of first asking “What is meant by ‘god’?” before proclaiming the original question “Does god exist?” as meaningless.

Some philosophers have seen ignosticism as a variation of agnosticism or atheism, while others have considered it to be distinct. An ignostic maintains that they cannot even say whether he/she is a theist or an atheist until a sufficient definition of theism is put forth.

Naturally I accept the basic premise of this definition, though I find myself more in the camp of those who view it as a variation on agnosticism or atheism. I chose to use the term atheist in in the title of this blog because that best describes my point of view.

You can read my holiday speeches to know what my views are about the supernatural and metaphysical. Yet as open as I have become about my point of view, some small part of me hesitated before settling on the name of the blog.

Atheism is a word that has been debased by the religiously faithful and re-defined to signify immorality. For this reason Richard Dawkins and others have argued that, like gay people, atheists have to come out of the closet and be open about their beliefs. I know a little something about coming out of the closet, so I agree and that is why I have the “Scarlet A” on this blog.

But as I’ve said before, atheism is not a belief system. It’s just a statement about whether one accepts the existence of unprovable supernatural beings. It’s been said many times, but I’ll repeat here because it’s correct; if you want to know how an atheist thinks about God, just think of all the gods you don’t believe in and add one.

Humanism, on the other hand, is a sophisticated belief system. It includes an approach to moral and ethical behavior and a worldview far deeper than a mere rejection of God or gods. In my view it should also be complemented by cultural traditions, ceremonies and rituals that do not call for belief in a deity. This is a good definition of Secular Humanistic Judaism.

When I toyed with the name of this blog I searched the term “atheist rabbi” and came up with the 1965 Time Magazine article about Rabbi Wine. I liked the way it sounds (I don’t know if he did or not) and it is an accurate, if not full description. Plus I hope it will get this blog noticed.

Other secular humanistic rabbis may not call themselves atheists, but as long as we are all ignostics, it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we put our faith in people and not in a deity. Our practical approach is the same; there is no theistic god and any other power in the universe that may or may not exist is completely undefinable and irrelevant.

What’s In A Name?