Rabbi Sherwin Wine is my new hero.

He died last Saturday. I just found out about him. The rabbi was a Jewish atheist.

Wine taught that there was no reason to believe in God. But he did believe in upholding Jewish ethical traditions and values.

In 1965 he told The New York Times that the existence of God required "empirical criteria," and said in Time magazine, "I find no adequate reason to accept the existence of a supreme person."

He told The San Diego Jewish Journal, "The message of the Holocaust is that there isn't any magic power."

In 1969 he founded the Society for Humanistic Judaism. He established the Birmingham Temple near Detroit. Today it's in Farmington Hills. Today there are 30 affiliated congregations with 10,000 members in the U.S. and Canada. They hold regular services.

God knows who they pray to.

Or not.

(The New York Times)