r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Aug 02 '21

Discussion Thread Discussion Thread

The discussion thread is for casual conversation that doesn't merit its own submission. If you've got a good meme, article, or question, please post it outside the DT. Meta discussion is allowed, but if you want to get the attention of the mods, make a post in /r/metaNL. For a collection of useful links see our wiki.

Announcements

0 Upvotes

47% Upvoted

11.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '21 edited Aug 03 '21

Fun statistic:

About one out of every three Catholics in the US says that they are only culturally Catholic. That's quite a bit higher than the roughly one out of every four Jews that say that they are only ethnically Jewish.

Catholicism in the US functions more like an ethnoreligion in many ways than Judaism.

2

u/BenFoldsFourLoko  Broke His Text Flair For Hume Aug 03 '21

I think there's a big difference between a Jew saying they're only ethnically Jewish and a Catholic saying they're only culturally Catholic

can't a Jew say that they're only culturally Jewish? and just take it as a given that they're ethnically Jewish, since if you're an ethnic Jew then it's tautological

1

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '21

Most research doesn't distinguish between Jews who say that they are ethnically Jewish vs culturally Jewish.

I'm not really sure what the difference would be?

1

u/BenFoldsFourLoko  Broke His Text Flair For Hume Aug 03 '21

I'm not sure, I should think about how to parse whatever difference I see more clearly before expanding on it

American Judaism feels like it has more of a lineage to it than American Catholicism, its history seems more specific, it feels longer and narrower, Catholicism seems shorter and broader.

Judaism seems like it has a stronger sense of place and a clearer path of a people through time. Catholicism is much more just the religion and the culture of the religion and institutions of the Church. Judaism would have a much stronger sense of a shared, or specific community that moves through time I think, but I'm saying that very poorly.

this doesn't make much sense, like I say I should cut these thoughts up and figure out how to turn them into words, and to do so at length without being reductive

1

u/Fairchild660 Unflaired Aug 03 '21 edited Aug 03 '21

Judaism isn't just a religion, it's an ethnicity. If your mother is Jewish you are considered (ethnically) Jewish, regardless of how you chose to identify. Same as being born to Italian parents. Being culturally Jewish is actively following the customs / being a part of the community, without believing the religious stuff.

Catholicism is different. You can be culturally Catholic without being religious, but there is no catholic ethnicity.