I have a number of friends who identify themselves as being jews, however a couple consider themselves “athiestic jews”. I have also seen people on this board identify themselves this way.
How exactly does this work? Judiasm is thought of as one of the world’s religions, but what other religion permits followers to identify as athielsts? I have never heard someone identify themselves as an athiestic christian, muslim, or buddist. If these folks exist, please enlighten me.
If you are jewish and an athiest, what exactly do you believe in that makes you jewish?
From my understanding (and I identify ethnically as a Jew, since my mother is a Jew), “Jewish” is an ethnic descriptor as well as a religious descriptor, and if one’s mother is Jewish, then a person is Jewish by ethnicity.
So I’m one of those atheist Jews (or agnostic Jews, or non-religious Jews), since I’m atheist/agnostic/non-religious.
It’s not completely different from being Christian. Look at Europe. Most people are indifferent about religion, and yet countries have established (Christian) churches, often have Religious Holidays as National Holidays, and people routinely celebrate Christmas and Easter.
I’m kinda the same way. I’m a hard core non-believer, self-identified atheist but I was raised Catholic and feel like I’m “culturally Christian”. That is, I grew up with all the Bible stories (OT and NT), celebrate Christmas, and even remember much of the Latin mass I had to say as youngster who was an Alter Boy before Vatican II, when Mass was still in Latin.
There’s more to the culture than just the religion. I’m content being an atheist Jew who likes irony and sarcasm and education but is indifferent to ritual.
I was raised Jewish, and my husband was raised Muslim. We’re both atheists, but still identify culturally with the religions in which we were raised. Most of my extended family is still local, and we join them in celebrations of Jewish holidays, but for us it’s simply an excuse to get together. We also celebrate things like Christmas and Easter, but not in a religious sense.
I don’t identify as Jewish because it’s not my religion, I wasn’t raised in the culture to any great extent, and ethnically I couldn’t care less. I don’t care what people call themselves, but it does tell me something about people who think it makes a difference.
Beyond the aspects of religion, culture, and ethnicity, religious identification plays other roles. Look at the world of boxing where there have been competitors who identified as Jews or Muslims who were neither but were able to advance their careers as a result. We have a presidential candidate right now who is Jewish in some regard but carefully avoiding the subject, to some degree to not be a religious candidate, and also to some degree not to have to explain how Jewish he is or is not.
And then sadly, to be Jewish sometimes depends on what others consider you to be.
Well, related to this, I could be an atheist my entire adult life but if some kind of latter-day Nazi movement arose in my country, no doubt there will be people checking birth records and such in an effort to root out Jews and they won’t give a damn if I’m observant or not.
Well before that happens, it’ll be time for me to take up arms and/or flee the country. I’d kind of prefer the former, since my safest choice is Israel and I don’t like the heat, and I think I’d enjoy putting some wannabe brownshirts in the ground, truth be told.
Anthropologically speaking, Judaism is an identity more than it is a religion: in the texts, the Jews are described as a “nation”, but this meant (and means) more a “tribal” type of identity than a “modern” ethno-nationality.
The difference is subtle but important: modern ethno-nationalism is typically based on a more or less common ‘genetic’ heritage, and it tends to be exclusive: it is rare for an ethno-nationalism to have as members people who differ radically in (say) culture and the outward aspects of racial appearance: yet Jews range from Black Africans (the Bene Israel) to White Europeans (the Ashkenazim).
Another difference between an ethno-nationalism and Judaism: one can join Judaism via conversion. One cannot so easily become (say) “Japanese” by an act of will and acceptance.
Again, just as one can join Judaism via an act of will/acceptance, once can leave it - either by conversion to a religion antithical to Judaism, or by simple self-identity as non-Jewish.
There is nothing absurd or contradictory about being an atheist Jew: belief in a god is only a part of Jewish identity, together with all sorts of other cultural expressions. Indeed, even taken as a religion, the “belief” aspect is of far less significance in Judaism than in other similar monotheistic religions: in Judaism, adherence to cultural practices and rituals rates more highly.
True, but that’s simply an effect of relative historic genetic isolation - rapidly being undone in the modern world (what with the destruction of the homelands of Ashkenazic Jewry in WW2, and the scattering of the survivors to NA and Israel, there to intermarry at a great rate with non-Ashkenazim). It isn’t all that significant to self-identity as Jews.
Also significant, maybe moreso as far as identity is concerned, is that, despite this genetic isolation, there isn’t a dispute within Judaism that the ‘ethnic’ branches of Judaism are all still Jews: so, for example, a visibly Black African woman can be a Jewish “Ms. Israel”, despite the fact that Ashkenazic Jews have historically been the majority of the population.
In traditional Jewish belief, to be Jewish means that one is bound by the covenant with G-d that is recorded in the Torah. This means that even if someone Jewish identifies himself (or herself) as an atheist and doesn’t observe the Torah’s commandments, he is still Jewish because he is obligated. He may not believe in those obligations, but that doesn’t change the fact that traditional believers do think he is.
When I did have religion it was Judaism, and I’d never have another, though I have none now. But I can (or think I can) trace my roots back to a people with an identity that predates the Torah and the religion we know today. That’s one cultural piece. I also grew up in a part of New York where we were pretty much a majority, certainly in my classes. I have this totally incorrect presupposition that anyone I meet who is not obviously non-Jewish is Jewish. Sometimes I’m even right.
Or rather, he was profoundly agnostic: the “parable of the poisoned arrow” was intended to teach people not to bother about whether gods exist or other metaphysical speculation - as the problems the Buddha identified (the noble truths about suffering and its cure) have to come first:
Ironically enough, because some forms of Buddhism are agnostic about God or gods, and by no means consider Buddha to be a god himself, it is possible to be Jewish and Buddhist at the same time - the two are not necessarily contradictory!
