Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Jewish Agnostics

This article made me smile.

Some choice quotes:

Please don’t tell me that the survey allows people to “self-identify” as Jewish or agnostic, and thus isn’t actually imposing anything as much as letting respondents slide into whatever slot they freely choose. If I were lucky enough to have been asked to take their test (and I keep hoping someone will give me a test like that, but no one ever does), it would have been up to me to decide which is MORE true, that I’m Jewish or that I’m an atheist/agnostic
and
Jewish does not mean “those people who believe in (a Jewish) God.” If any religious definition pertains, it’s the old one: Jews are people who believe in one God AT MOST; or Jews are the people who don’t go to synagogue (as opposed to other people, who don’t go to church); or Jews are those people who have a mother who says she’s a Jew. Who are you, Pew Forum, to tell me that Jews aren’t (often, in sizable numbers, famously, proudly) atheists/agnostics? Or that atheists/agnostics aren’t (often, in sizable numbers, famously, proudly) Jews?

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