Are there any other atheist/agnostic Jews (or part Jew) out there?
My father's side of the family is Jewish, and I've identified more with them culturally since my 20s when my grandfather passed away. I was raised Catholic (my mom's side) & attended mass through college. But truth be told, I lost faith in organized religion before reaching my teens.
I find it kind of funny how Jewish boys like my dad and other Jewish guys I know tend to marry Catholic girls. What is up with that? Is it the shiksa-peal or something? Lol
@Auty89 Having been raised Catholic and trying most of the Christian sects, I was a "Messianic" Jew, and then converted to Judaism halachically while suspecting my heritage was Jewish. A DNA test later revealed this to be true. I used to attend a Conservative congregation and then some Reform synagogues. Anyway, having been both, I would have to say there are more similarities between Judaism and Catholicism than either religion realizes. Now I vacillate between agnostic theism and agnostic atheism. I am humanistic and a free thinker. I like to think about Einstein's conception of a Higher Power. Judaism is a thinking religion, and there are many atheist/agnostic Jews. Anyway, that's my background, and how I got here. Many Catholics convert to Catholicism, and vice-versa. There's a well-known nun named Edith Stein who converted on her own during the Holocaust(she died regardless because we know Hitler didn't really care if you were an atheist Jew or a converted Jew etc. and someone must have narced she was a Jew.) She was a great thinker and very philosophical.
This thread is very interesting as to what people think a Jew is. It’s not just a religious belief. There’s heritage, culture, and tradition behind it. I’m kind of surprised by some of these comments.
My great grandfather emigrated at the age of 17 from Odessa, Russia (now Ukraine) in 1918. If he was a Jew, which my father suspects, he abandoned this faith, in favor of Christianity upon arrival in New York. Someday, perhaps, I may trace my ancestry, but from a religious standpoint, it matters not one iota whether I am descended from Jews or Gentiles.
I'm 15-18% Ashkenazi Jewish according to various genetic testing sites (but I grew up Lutheran).
Why are you asking? Are you part Jewish? Your bio says you were raised Baptist, but I'm assuming by asking this you have some Jewish relatives? There's several atheist/agnostic Jews on this site, and even a Jewish by Culture group (which I identify as).
I am Jewish on my dad's side even though I didn't think to put that in my bio. Furthermore, my dad was a missionary to Jewish people in NYC.
At first, I thought you meant you were culturally Jewish but didn't buy into the religious beliefs. But if you were raised a Baptist, went to Bob Jones University and majored in Christian Ministries, how did you get to be culturally Jewish?
Excuse me if this sounds ignorant, but if you consider yourself atheist, can you still be called a Jew? I was raised Catholic, but don't consider myself to be Catholic now.
Well, if you're of Jewish descent, then that counts. It's a heritage. Not just a religion.
judaism is a religion. jewishness is a cultural identity. someone just called me racist for saying that. i am not saying jewishness is a race. (physically there is no such thing as race; it's a social construct.) i am saying it is an ethnicity and a culture -- more than one culture, actually, since the sephardic jews and the ashkenazic jews have quite different customs. i am jewish. i believe there are no gods. therefore it is possible to be jewish and an atheist!
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by the way, don't feel ignorant. lots of people don't understand this. i met an evangelical christian who didn't even know jews don't believe jesus is divine and that judaism has nothing to do with jesus (i didn't explode her head with the possibility he never even existed). i will add to what i said above that although jewishness isn't a race, there is a disease that only jews get, so there is definitely a genetic component at play, at least for ashkenazic jews. it's called tay-sachs disease and it's a real thing.
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