Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2009

Vrag Naroda <thedavid@null.invalid>:

    Seems you're confusing the meanings of "Jew," "Jewish" and
"Judaism."  You know better, since you've distinguished
"ethnic Jews" from religious ones, acknowledged that one can be
"'a Jew' by ancestry," and referred to those who are
"culturally Jewish...regardless of any beliefs," but now you're
conflating terms that sometimes have very different senses
instead of discriminating between them.  Your loyal readers may
be able to guess why.

    You're also forgetting that the evidence you pointed to in
support of your view -- the Rufesien court case -- argues
against you, since the Israeli rabbinate and the secular judges
agreed, despite their other differences, that under Jewish
law a person born to Jewish parents is _still_ considered a Jew
even after becoming Christian.

    Non sequitur, dude.  As you earlier admitted, being Jewish
doesn't require worshipping Yahweh.  And of course Jews are
not the only ones who worship Yahweh or consider themselves the
people he was talking to.

    You might need to do a little more thinking.  Google comes
up with 33,200 hits for "secular Muslim," and "cultural
Muslim" offers another 4,000 or so.  Here's a quote from Malise
Ruthven's book on Islam:

      There is, however, a secondary meaning to 'Muslim'
      which may shade into the first. A Muslim is one
      born to a Muslim father who takes on his or her
      parents' confessional identity without necessarily
      subscribing to the beliefs and practices associated
      with the faith, just as a Jew may describe him- or
      herself as 'Jewish' without observing the Halacha.
      In non-Muslim societies, such Muslims may subscribe
      to, and be vested with, secular identities. The
      Muslims of Bosnia (Bosniaks), descendants of Slavs
      who converted to Islam under Ottoman rule, are not
      always noted for attendance at prayer, abstention
      from alcohol, seclusion of women and other social
      practices associated with believing Muslims in
      other parts of the world. They were officially
      designated as Muslims to distinguish them from
      (Orthodox) Slavs and (Catholic) Croats under the
      former Yugoslavian communist regime. The label
      'Muslim' indicates their ethnicity and group
      allegiance, but not necessarily their religious
      beliefs. In this limited context (which may apply
      to other Muslim minorities in Europe and Asia),
      there may be no contradiction between being Muslim
      and being atheist or agnostic, just as there are
      Jewish atheists and Jewish agnostics ... It should
      be noted, however, that this secular definition of
      Muslim (sometimes the terms 'cultural Muslim' or
      'nominal Muslim' are used) is very far from being
      uncontested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Islam

    Evidently a controversial subject rather than the open and
shut case you believe.      

-- Catawumpus