BOAZ_David, thank you for reminding me about Viktor Frankl. Obviously, some of the posters nowadays (I've been absent for a while) are Christians whose religious tenets pervade every discussion. Many such (not all) use faith as a shield against rational analysis - closed minds that cannot be convinced of another explanation for an observed phenomenon under any reasonable circumstances.
I thought we all have common ground in recognising that to be human is to be fallible. Why is it so difficult to accept that no matter how deeply you believe something as a matter of faith, or how convinced you are by the incontrovertibility of the objective data, there is a possibility that you are wrong?
I'm not a Christian of any sort, although I entertain the possibility that an entity beyond our understanding (aka God) exists. Or not.
Like Viktor Frankl, I'm Jewish. That said, I take a dim view of the actions of Christian sects over 2000 years. Church-generated anti-semitism caused ghettos, the Spanish Inquisition, pogroms, the Holocaust. Underneath fundamentalist Christianity, or any other fundamentalist form of religious expression is the idea that as an instrument of God's will, you can dump responsibility for your actions on God. People do it to people. People are accountable to themselves for what they do.
Anyway, to get back to the 'search for meaning', the reviewer's comments are no basis for BOAZ_david's gratuitous judgement about who does or doesn't have a meaningful life. This is subjective, context-dependent concept, and a semantic issue.'Meaningful' does not translate the same for everyone.
Here is a straightforward analogy. Ask people to name something deadly. Most would say a death adder, nuclear warfare, horse flu etc. But some would say a Troy Cassar-Daly concert, footy match or family get-together.
I'm not sure about linking the existential vaccuum to a particular god-centric interpretation of humanity. An alternative view is that there are many individuals in existential distress. For some, I'm sure, being born-again can do a great deal to mitigate against that distress. But there is a possibility that there are other effective ways too.

Hi there Pequod.. welcome to the thread.

Don't worry too much about my 'polarizing' approach.. its as much to open minds to thinking as anything.

You being Jewish.. and not believing in God ? or uncertain at least ?
Wow.. :) that stuns me. It's like Sasha Baren COHEN doing a book on "da gospel according to ali g" where he mocks his own verifiable biological ancestor...Moses. This is one area where I find some Jews are strangely positioned...

Of all the people in the world.... the Jews probably have the most identifiable ancestry. That ancestry is tied up with Salvation history, and the mighty Acts of Yahweh in that history.

I'm evangelical..meaning I accept the Scriptures both old and new testaments. thus, you will find my 'ilk' to be extremely generous and even warm toward Jews. Some of the historical events between the Roman Catholic Church and Jews.. are not only regrettable, but plain baseless.

We could list uncountable atrocities in the past 100 yrs from atheistic regimes toward Christians too.. the Soviets were quite "unfriendly" to put it mildly.

As Jew... you have more reason to have a sense of meaning than most people.. but it is in connection with the history of salvation and your calling to be a 'light to the nations' that this is so.
The church view of Israel and Jews now.. is that they are temporarily sidelined... but not outcast.. and that God will do a mighty work of inclusion in the end..
I would think that is a refreshing change for the Islamic view that ...

-Jesus will return and kill all the Jews.

We say he will return and the Jews will be brought in...(through belief)

The only 'right' I have here is to offer thoughts :)

Thank you BOAZ_david for your welcome. I don't know why you think being Jewish is more likely to prevent me questioning my existence than being Christian, though. More likely not to, actually.
Do you know that nowhere in the old testament or other traditional holy texts are Jews required to take anything on faith? Jews can think what they like, as long as they follow the rules. Much the same as being free to think what you like about speed cameras, as long as you stick to the speed limit.
I don't see how being evangelical makes it possible to reconcile two such very different documents as the old and new testaments. On balance, the new testament is more into tolerance than the old, but history shows that people adjust their interpretations to suit their behaviour - from the Israelites and the golden calf to conversion to Christianity on the rack.
I'm sorry to say that while I am happy for Christians to behave however they like (within reason), on the basis of old testament rules, you are a rule-flouting Jewish breakaway group and God is going to punish you for a thousand generations (by my rough calculation, that's another 13,000 years before you are allowed off the naughty mat). The good part is that it is God who will do the punishing, not people.
The saddest thing of all is what people have done to each other in the name of religion or some other abstract ideal. Christians to Jews, Turks to Armenians, Arabs to Jews, Israelis to Palestinians, Turks and Arabs alike to Kurds, Hutus to Tutsis, Soviets to Jews, Christians, Muslims and free thought, Sunnis to Shi'ites and vice versa, Catholics to Protestants and vice versa, Native Fijians to Fijians of Indian origin, Idi Amin to Ugandans of Indian origin, cowboys to Indians, squatters to Aborigines--basically conquerors to the vanquished. Apparently, social justice, fairness, ethics and morality are not genetically programmed into Homo sapiens.
Add to that the existence of multiple, incompatible and internally inconsistent ideologies, religious or otherwise, and no wonder we ponder on existential vaccuums

Boaz,

“would think that is a refreshing change for the Islamic view that Jesus will return and kill all the Jews”

How many times Boaz? Its 2.5 years of misquoting, misleading, misinterpreting...

The truth is Muslims and Christians have the same belief re Jesus second coming (ie bringing peace and justice, fighting the anti-Christ). Your Wahabi version above is as alien as the neo-cons who believe Jesus second coming is rapture-related (and death of the gentiles, ie non-christians).

I will overlook the sugar quoting of “we say he will return and the Jews will be brought in through belief” yeah right! I will also overlook the fact that for the last 2000 years Jews were mostly persecuted by those who claimed to be followers of Christianity.

Happy Ramadan :)

Peace,

*OUCH* :)

I was repeating popular Islam as expressed to me by lesser notables than your kind self. I should have said "The view prevails in a large number of Muslims"...which seems to me to be true based on conversations with them and in articles such as the one below.

http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/367/

The fact that no Jizya will be accepted underlines the abolishment of all religion except one. The People of the Book will be required to follow the Law of Islam which Jesus will impose. The die-hards that refuse will be hunted and killed rather than allowed to continue in their outmoded faith.

“The hour will not come until the Muslims fight against the Jews and kill them. The Jews will seek shelter behind stones and trees, but the stone or the tree will speak: “O servant of God, there is a [die-hard] Jew behind me, so come and kill him!” But the Gharqad tree will not speak out because it is partial to the Jews.” (Saheeh Muslim)

I think the truth here is that I was misrepresenting YOUR Islam :)
You can write a letter to the mob above and tell them to get their act together.

cheers and blessing mate.

Pequod...that was quite a mouthful... I feel encouraged that you took the time to consider all that.. and pass it on.

Your observations of human behavior are quite accurate... but I think you are missing the central theme of Israels original calling.

Reconciling alienated man to God.

This alienation is what God addressed in Christ, (as he had been addressing in and through Israel to that point.)

I speak from a very convinced perspective... that the New Covenant spoken of by Jeremiah, is fulfilled in Christ, and that the gospel is present from the very early chapters of Genesis.

No amount of persuading could ever hope to convince others of this, I can only present the facts as I see them.. of Christ dying for our sin, of rising, according to the scriptures, and that these events were attested by many eye witnesses, and lastly by Paul.. and that this is what fills the vacuum in our lives.

Paul..
5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. (Phil 3)

related in his letter to the Ephesian Christians

2:1 "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,

11
Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)— 12remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

13But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

14For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility

COMMENT.. I love those last words "He..himself is our peace"