Welcome to our new website!

Atheism Episodes

Aug. 28, 2025

Rabbi Shapiro Corners Grok in Debate Over Zionist Definition of Jew

A thought-provoking exploration of Jewish identity that challenges modern conceptions and examines the tension between religious covenant and nationalist redefinition. Our guest argues that Zionism fundamentally changed what it means to be Jewish, contradicting thousands of years of Jewish self-understanding. • Jewish identity traditionally defined through religious covenant, not ethnicity or nationality • Rabbi Saadia Gaon's thousand-year-old teaching: "Our people (Umah) is only a people (Umah) by way of their religion" • The contradiction of Israel's Law of Return allowing atheist Jews but excluding Jewish converts to Christianity • How Zionism reframed Jewish identity from religious covenant to nationality/ethnicity • The contradiction of requiring religious conversion to join a supposedly secular Jewish nation • Judaism's unique approach: not everyone must be Jewish, unlike Christianity and Islam • The seven Noahide laws as universal obligations versus specific Jewish cov…
Guest: Grok
13
May 6, 2021

A Defense Against Hume's Objection to the Cosmological Argument

Hume claimed the fact we can conceive of something coming into existence without a cause shows it is possible. He's wrong not only about his conclusion but his premise as well. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43301996?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents (Note: Wolfson is incorrect about the argument from design not being used in Jewish philosophy as an independent proof to the existence of G-d. It certainly is.) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/ Photo by Alex Andrews from Pe...