Summary Of Herb Silverman's Candidate Without A Prayer
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Herb Silverman’s Candidate Without a Prayer is indeed a appealing and engaging autobiography describing his freethinking life story; the author begins with introducing the reader to his childhood growing up as an Orthodox Jew in Philadelphia. Slowly, he starts testing God’s existence in his life which has shaped his important role within America’s secular activist community during his life as an adult. Silverman, a retired mathematics professor from the College of Charleston, grew up during the Great Depression and the Holocaust. Within his family, religiosity was status quo; being Jewish was everything and, therefore, Silverman began Hebrew School as an Orthodox Jew at the age of six. Early in his life he already started questioning authoritarian leadership and personal faith. There a multiple examples in the book describing experiences that lead to his point of view. Particularly outstanding was a simple question one of his best teachers once asked
Why does the Torah say ‘God of…show more content… From a reader’s perspective, one of the most outstanding elements of the book is the comparison of the praying routines in both Judaism and Atheism. In the Jewish community, fixed prayers are regular and required notwithstanding if one believes in God or not; however, a Jew cannot fulfill all commandments that he or she is asked for in the Torah. There cannot be a commandment to believe in God since one cannot will oneself to believe something one has valid reasons for not to believe in. Several atheists go through a prayer routine to maintain their place in family and community; however, those prayers are more like a focused meditation, a transcendent or spiritual exercise. Moreover, the prayer would most likely either be devoted to nobody, or consist of talking to oneself about hopes for a given result or