What is Judaism?

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S.A.M. said:
When you say adaptable and flexible what does it mean? They ignore the parts they don't like?

e.g. how do Jews conciliate atheism with Judaism? Or homosexuality?

Don't these break primary laws in Judaism?
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Most Jews aren't fundamentalist or orthodox. They know that words can be interpreted in many ways. Debate about the meaning of the words is not discouraged, it is encouraged. There is no hell, your fate is between you and your God. Belief in God is probably the only real requirement.
 
spidergoat said:
Most Jews aren't fundamentalist or orthodox. They know that words can be interpreted in many ways. Debate about the meaning of the words is not discouraged, it is encouraged. There is no hell, your fate is between you and your God. Belief in God is probably the only real requirement.
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So there are Jews who think that the Torah can be interpreted in anyway, including to mean there is no God? And homosexuality is not a sin?

How do they interpret it like that? What is their basis of interpretation?
 
As I said, I think belief in God is probably the only requirement, my knowledge of the religion is far from comprehensive. Jews who do not believe in God cannot be considered to follow the religion of Judaism.
 
So besides the belief in God, everything else is open to interpretation?
 
It's more like you have the personal freedom to interpret or follow as much as you like, since the consequences are between you and your God.
 
Yeah it must be all that independent thinking. One does not jive with the other. Social conformity in Jews in India is very high and enforced by the rabbis. So it seems strange that it would be different elsewhere, given the tribal nature of the community even today, even among atheists.
 
Yeah and not exactly conducive to independent thinking; yet Jews do have a history of argumentation, so how does that jive?
 
It's institutionalized argumentation. But this tradition has broadened in modern times.
 
Spidergoat why are you trying to explain this when you know she already knows all this? You are raising evidence for a group you claim to know little about. If she wants to ask a jew then let her go to a jewish website and ask if she dared. Don't entertain her anti-semitism. And you are not really correct that jews are mostly non religious. There are less orthodox but there are still quite a few conservatives:

The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey found that around 3.4 million American Jews call themselves religious — out of a general Jewish population of about 5.4 million.

The number of Jews who identify themselves as only culturally Jewish has risen from 20% in 1990 to 37% last year, according to the study. In the same period, the number of all US adults who said they had no religion rose from 8% to 15%.

The number of American Jews who consider themselves religiously observant has dropped by more than 20% over the last two decades, as the share of Jews who consider themselves secular has risen, according to a survey.

Jews are more likely to be secular than Americans in general, the researchers said.

About half of all US Jews — including those who consider themselves religiously observant — claim in the survey that they have a secular worldview and see no contradiction between that outlook and their faith, according to the study's authors.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3759000,00.html
 
spidergoat said:
It's institutionalized argumentation. But this tradition has broadened in modern times.
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I'm not certain that is true, but my own knowledge is limited here. e.g. there have been arguments over circumcision since the beginning of Judaism, even though it is an intrinsic part of the faith [is it mentioned in the Torah? because its not mentioned in the Qur'an]

Also, if you follow the history of Jews in different communities throughout history, you notice that there has always been debate on issues related to religious practice even if not always on religious principles. The idea of reform Judaism [while American in this incarnation] is not a new one, there has already been a renaissance in Judaism several times with breakaway groups who disagreed with the orthodoxy. Yet, this has had almost no impact on the tribalistic aspect of the community.

Why do you suppose that is?
 
An oppressed minority sticks together no matter what personal issues they may have with each other in private.
 
Thats not true for other oppressed minorities. They basically screw around with each other if it helps them to get ahead.
 
So there is individual propensity for tribalism in Jews? Thats a very strange statement.
 
All I'm saying is that there are always exceptions with human beings, but even Jews with religious differences can feel membership in the larger group.
 
I doubt thats really true, the worst Nazi guards were Jews, they were hunted down and killed by other Jews/
 
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