“First thing of being Jewish is about being a decent human being”…duh!

All good willing men will say the same about their religion, irrespective what their religion is. Most Hassidim (if not virtually all) would disagree with this. To them the first thing about being Jewish is living according to the Halacha, being a decent human is not even an issue for them. In fact I know many “good Jews” who use the Halacha for what I find abject moral behaviour.

Humanity has nothing to do with religion. Someone good or evil will find enough reasons in his holy scripts to justify his actions. None of the Abrahamitic religions is really peaceful. Read the holy scripts; war, adultery (even from the saints), manslaughter, beheading, stonings all 'doesn’t seem to be very humane to me' yet they are all advertised strongly. The Homo Sapiens is a bestial animal that withholds nothing, except that humans tend to justify their actions with an explanation or by finding an origin or early (scriptual?) commandments. An attitude which can lead to magical thinking.

The term “humane” covers all the good qualities we attribute to our species. Its general definition is: “a disposition to relieve creatures in distress, and to treat all with kindness, honesty and tenderness.” Although the attributes implicit in the word "humane" are as wrong and self-aggrandizing as the statement in the title of this blog, humanism is my chosen way of living.