New Blog for OTDers

Margo, Off The Derech, and I are starting a new invite-only blog for people who were once Orthodox and now are not and those currently making that transition. It's invite-only so we have a place to discuss things without worrying about how Orthodox people will respond.

If you're interested in joining as a reader or as a contributor please email one of us so that we can add you.

XGH is Back Again

In an event that should surprise no one who knows him, XGH is back with a new blog: Modern Orthoprax.

XGH is a closet atheist/agnostic who continues to live an Orthodox life. He is probably the most popular blogger of his kind. His original blog inspired my own.

Link Roundup

Abandoning Eden is thrilled to be moving in with her (non-Jewish) boyfriend, but doesn't know when, if, or how to tell her parents, who frankly sound pretty scary. She also has a post about protecting her parents from reality. Congrats and good luck, AE!

The Holy Hyrax has a fascinating post examining various ways that Arachim censored their version of the Venetian Haggaddah, originally printed in 1609. Bare arms and the man in the moon? Censored. Disturbing racial imagery? No problem.

Beyond BT has a typically mirror-world (to us skeptics) post about having the seder without extended family.

DovBear thinks the rabbis are right to be scared of blogs.

XGH is back and required reading, as always. Even DBS is back, albeit with only two posts so far.

Evolution of my Blog

New atheist blogger PhillyChief of You Made Me Say It has tagged me with the Evolutionary Meme. The idea is to pick five posts which reflect the evolution of one's blog and then to pass the meme on to five others.

Going back through the archives, I find that while my blog has evolved over the years (!) that I've run it, most of the themes were present nearly from the beginning. In other words, I, the Creator, created, in the beginning, several "kinds" from which all current posts descend. Macroevolution of this blog's posts is a lie perpetrated by the atheist liberal elite. The only evolution that exists at Jewish Atheist is microevolution, or evolution within "kinds."

Accordingly, all five posts that I will discuss are from 2005, my first year blogging. Each is the first post of it's "kind."

1) My first real post was on May 20, 2005. It was titled Common Questions I - The Cosmological Argument. This introduced the first major theme of my blog: arguments for atheism and/or against theism. This theme has become less prevalent as my break with Orthodox Judaism recedes into my past.

2) Only five days later, on May 25, 2005, I introduced the second major theme of this blog: the downsides of Orthodox Judaism as a culture and a lifestyle. In a post called How Orthodoxy Causes Good Men to do Evil, I used the example of homosexuality to argue that being Orthodox causes... well, you read the title.

3) A few weeks later, on June 15, 2005, I segued neatly into the field of politics with my post Orthodox Jews and the GOP. As my blog has (micro!) evolved and questions of theism and Orthodoxy have become less immediate for me, politics has taken on a bigger and bigger role.

4) Two days after that, on June 17, 2005, I wrote about Malkie Schwartz and the Footsteps organization in the egregiously-long-titled Support for People From Ultra-Orthodox or Chassidic Communities Seeking to Enter or Explore the World Beyond Their Communities. This theme of reaching out to and attempting to help other people leaving Orthodox Judaism has continued to this day.

5) On October 16, 2005, I posted Letter to Dad, which was written by a lesbian to her intolerant, religious father. This was the first post of many about the intersection of homosexuality, religion, and politics, which has become something of a pet cause of mine.

Tagging

I hereby tag XGH, because whose blog has evolved more entertainingly?; Andrew Sullivan, because his views have evolved so interestingly; Chana at The Curious Jew, because her blog has tracked her maturation from floundering teen to sophisticated college student; Mark at Pseudo-Polymath, because I missed his first couple of years; and the fellas at 2blowhards, because their blog has evolved so well.

Sidebar Updated

I cleaned it up and added a few new skeptic blogs:

• Abandoning Eden - A poignant new blog by the commenter I highlighted here. Be sure to check out the letters to and from her Orthodox father regarding her dating a non-Jew.
• The Journey Off is a blog by a frum girl who no longer believes.
• Safkanut is by an arch-skeptic who remains Orthodox in practice and is looking for reasons to believe, albeit without much hope.

(Edited to add a few I forgot. Sorry guys!!)

• Lubab no more is the blog of an ex-Lubovitcher who is a heretic on the inside and a Modern Orthodox Jew on the outside.
• Ba'al Tshuvas Anonymous is run by a ba'al teshuva (formerly non-Orthodox Jewish person who became Orthodox) who has become a skeptic.
• Failed Messiah is guy who brings needed attention to a lot of the problems that are swept under the rug by the Orthodox communities. Here's what he believes and don't miss his story of attempting to get Chabad to help Ethiopian Jews

Frequently Asked Questions

I've decided to consolidate these links in a post, rather than on my sidebar:

How I Left Orthodoxy

How I Became an Atheist

Who Wrote the Bible?

How to be a Happy Atheist

The Source of my Morality

How Can I Be Jewish and an Atheist?

A Roundup of my Early Posts

Intellectual Cowardice in Orthodox Judaism

Intermarriage and Interdating, Part II

Evolution and Creationism

Elsewhere

1. A thread on Dov Bear about whether frum Jews have hot sex. I'm hoping it gets a lot of comments -- it's something I've been curious about, too.


2. New blogger Skeptodox has a couple of interesting posts at Safkanut:
• A review of Off the Derech, in which he complains about how many of the Orthodox pretend that everybody who leaves is practically mentally ill.
• Would we recognize our ancestors' religion?


3. Glenn Greenwald demolishes the idea that O'Hanlon and Pollack (of the much-ballyhooed Op-Ed about the surge) have been in any way liberal on the war, critical of Bush, informed, or, you know, right about anything related to Iraq in the past. There are too many posts to link to directly.
   

I'm Back! Comments are Back

Missed you all. Feel free to leave comments f0r the last few posts.

--JA

Blogging and Friends

So it's well-known that it's inadvisable to discuss sex, politics, or religion in social settings because feelings run so deeply on the issues that discussion may quickly lead to arguments and the destruction of friendships or at least a pleasant afternoon. When I first got into blogging, I thought it was perfect because it let me say what I always want to say but am too polite to do in person. ("What are you, nuts?? You believe that God literally dictated the Torah to Moses?")

Then, of course, because bloggers are human, we start getting friendly. And then we face the reality that engaging in these debates even online means pissing people off and creating strife.

At least anyone I've met (or "met") through the blogs already knows where I stand on all the issues, so if they have become friendly, it's with that knowledge. Still, it's kind of a shame that it's so hard to discuss these issues without everyone getting all riled up.

I Made the JIB Finals!!

Unfortunately, I'm getting killed in this round. Go save me here and here!

(Not that DovBear isn't a great blog, but skeptical? Come on. :-)

Mea Culpa

The people who complained about my last post were right. Random put it particularly well:

the questions are not aimed at the average religious believer - they're aimed at the average atheist, to reassure him of his intellectual superiority over us superstitious halfwits.

I'm going to try not to further contribute to the us-vs-them mindset. Making fun of the opposition, whatever the subject, serves only to alienate. I myself get angry when other bloggers stereotype liberals or atheists or any of the other labels I sometimes describe myself with. So thanks for calling me out.

(And a special thanks to sckorefil, who contributed greatly to this thought process in an online chat.)

JIB Nominations are Open!

The Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards are accepting nominations until Thursday. Please go nominate blogs and posts you think worthy. I've already nominated a few blogs, including my own. :-) If you think of any specific posts of mine that deserve to be nominated, though, I'd be honored.

Velveteen Rabbi links to Richard at Tikun Olam who thinks the JIBs will be less slanted to the right this year thanks to better leadership and the creation of separate categories for things like "left-wing political" and "Jewish skepticism." It's kind of an embarrassment to the Jewish people when Little Green Footballs runs away with the JIBs, in my opinion.

I Added a Highlights Section

I added a new section called "Highlights" to the sidebar, mostly to give new readers a quick overview of this blog. Did I leave anything out?

Have I Been Missing Your Posts?

I'm pretty sure my blog reader Bloglines unsubscribed me from some blogs during The Great Blogger Upgrade of 2007. A couple of times now I've thought to myself, "You know, I haven't read anything from [Ezzie|DovBear|etc.] for quite a while, now. What's up with that?" Only to check their sites and see they've been posting all along.

So if I used to be a regular commenter on your blog and I've been MIA lately, please let me know. :-) I read way too many blogs to keep track of without a blog reader.

Never Mind

Please ignore the previous post (which this replaces.) Continue to email me at thejewishatheist@yahoo.com.