On facebook, in reply to his Christmas and Hanukkah greeting, someone asked Mark Zuckerberg, "but aren't you atheist?" He replied, "No. I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things, but now I believe religion is very important."
This is unfortunate. If not for the explicit "no", I would have said that he was dodging the question, but he said it. He threw atheism under the bus. He has made it very clear to everybody that he doesn't identify as an atheist and doesn't want to be considered as an atheist. Bless him. This doesn't mean he's not an atheist, of course; an atheist is simply someone who doesn't hold a belief in the existence of any God.
I don't believe for one second that Mark believes in the existence of the Jewish God. The one who forbade Jews from eating pork instead of teaching them how to cook it properly. Who created foreskins to protect the sensitive tips of male organs, but then ordered the Jews to cut them off their newborn babies. Who permitted Jews to enslave foreigners and treat them as property, even though he created all people. Who made women menstruate but then declared that a menstruating woman is unclean, and anyone who touches her - even her husband - is also unclean. Who banished children of single parents and their descendants from entering his temple for 400 years (the 10th generation).
I don't believe that Mark believes in that God. And since he hasn't talked about any other God, I continue to believe that he is an atheist. He may choose to call himself an agnostic, a cultural Jew, or whatever helps Facebook and his family, but that doesn't mean he's not an atheist.
0 comments:
Post a Comment