What is the Point of this Column?

11/22/2019—Blanch Vivion Brooks wrote a column today in the NY Times, entitled We Need a Religious Left.

Sure we do, for the reasons she writes and for many more besides.

But, what is the point of saying so if we don’t have one? People do not leave religion—or even just have no contact with it—out of choice. It happens organically. Many members of this generation just don’t believe in God. You can point out that this has bad effects as much as you like. You can’t manufacture belief.

I left Judaism because I no longer believed in God and because I was becoming more and more irritated at the manifestations of belief I encountered in synagogue. That is not a criticism of believers. But what is beautiful to them is just infuriating if you don’t believe.

Anyway, I was told that my seething anger was the least religious comportment imaginable.

It was time to go.

And if you tell me that actions like mine undermine social life, just what am I supposed to do about it? I already know that this is the case.

Maybe a column like this can help convince secularists that religion is a good thing very often. That would be helpful.

But it can’t bring back religion. Faith does not work that way.