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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here.  Thank you all for taking the time to repond so thoroughly.  Much of the discussion is above my head - I was raised outside of any religion - but my main takeaway is that there are indeed people who would say they are jewish but don't believe in God simply bc that is their background / culture.   Is that right?  So being Jewish is more a culture than a religion?  I know there are Reform, conservative and orthodox sects of Judaism.  Would the non believers be more found in reform synagogues?  This is just so interesting to me since I'm not religious (my mom was from a Christian family and my dad from a jewish family but like I mentioned they raised me without any religion) and so don't understand why someone would label themselves as a particular religion without believing in God.  But I guess it's just they feel it's more of a culture than religion...?  [/quote]

It is a good question and if you google it you'll find lots and lots of different answers. Here's my perspective:
I am a Jewish Atheist. According to Judaism, any person born to a Jewish mother is Jewish, so because my mother was a Jew, I was born Jewish and not believing does not make me un-Jewish.  So the simple answer is that I am Jewish because I was born Jewish.

My ancestors were Jewish and my grandparents all practiced the Jewish traditions so I consider this part of my heritage.  Even though I don't believe in any religion, and I never participate in any organized religious activity, I do sometimes celebrate some Jewish holidays (e.g. Hannukah, and Passover). It's fun to celebrate one's heritage, and for me, it's a harmless connection to past generations.
Also, I had some genetic testing done, for unrelated reasons, and genetically, I clearly have strong Jewish ancestry.

The issue is even more complicated than religion vs. culture. Historically, the Jews were expelled from their land (around 600 BC, but this was a process that took hundreds of years). So after that, the Jews spent over 2000 years in exile and developed unique cultures (being often isolated by force or choice from the rest of the population where they lived).  Because they were living in different geographical areas for many generations (Middle East, Europe, Africa, almost anywhere in the world really), they were very influenced by the different cultures where they lived, so there really are significant differences in culture between Jews. The Jewish "religion" itself is basically the same, but even with that, there are differences in the way it is practiced.

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You are a much more sensible poster than the previous man. Thank you for your insight and civil discussion.[/quote]

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