# Is Judaism a religion or some sort of nationality?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-judaism-a-religion-or-some-sort-of-nationality/249722>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [June 10, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-judaism-a-religion-or-some-sort-of-nationality/249722 "2004-06-10T22:02:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2004, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-judaism-a-religion-or-some-sort-of-nationality/249722/41 "2004-06-15T15:53:56Z")

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eman77:

> [@](#):
>
> No, my father felt it was more important to honor a promise than to marry my child’s mother.

Since the promise pre-dated your involvement with her, he’s right in the pure moral sense, although in the practical sense, from the standpoint of the child, it obviously isn’t beneficial.

Someone who takes his promises seriously shouldn’t put himself in the position where he’s likely to break them. You say that you got involved with the mother of your child because you’d “seen with my own eyes they were no different than non-jewish girls.” But in one very significant way, even to you, they were different. That is, that getting too heavily involved with one would/would not lead to breaking a promise made to your father.

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