I think the only reason I ever believed in God was because my parents told me he exists.
I think society may have helped reinforce the idea but the belief comes from my parents. To give another example my parents taught me that college is important and that I should get a degree. The Lubavitch society I grew up in told me that college is unimportant and that I shouldn't go. I always sided with my folks on the issue. In the end I went to college.
Most people follow the religion of their parents [citation needed]. Of course, most parents try to live in a society that matches their beliefs so it's hard to separate one from the other.
Do your religious beliefs match those of your parents?
24 comments:
"Do your religious beliefs match those of your parents?"
Not really. Though my attitudes toward science and higher education and even generally about Judaism are strongly influenced by them.
I believed in OJ until I sat down, opened up a Tanach, and started reading. If it weren't for the Bible, I'd still believe what my parents do.
Ironically, my parents are 'ba'alei t'shuva' (born-agains, for anyone not in the know) and don't believe what their parents believe.
However, I think your point is very sound. And it's not just your parents... it's your wife, your friends, your community. You may not believe it, but WHERE YOU LIVE has a tremendous influence on your beliefs, your ideas, everything! And it's self-propagating, to a degree, since you tend to marry the people in your own community and talk with them.
On that note... is anyone reading this not Jewish? Just curious how pathetically insular this conversation is.
That was what ended my own belief in God -- the realization that my belief was based entirely on my parents' beliefs, not on evidence. I talked about this in my deconversion story.
p.s. I've been following your blog even though I'm not Jewish. I like the various atheist Jewish blogs because I think there are some fascinating parallels between leaving orthodox Judaism and leaving Mormonism. In both cases there's an identity, a tribe, and a culture (in addition to the religious belief system). And that leads to all sorts of family, social, and community complications when you leave the belief system behind. Your posts the other day about your wife's reaction (and wondering if you should continue to practice for her sake) are strikingly similar to things I see all the time over on the Mormon/ex-Mormon side of the Internet...
"Do your religious beliefs match those of your parents?"
Totally not.
And, as a genealogist, I can tell you I am far from alone. If you research the family history of most people, you might be surprised at the mixtures of Protestant and Catholic, liberal and conservative, etc. which most people come from. And who knows what the ancestry of present day Jews really is.
Religious belief is generally based on the question: What am I comfortable with at this point in my life?
That may or may not be related to what one's parents believe. Sometimes it may be specifically the opposite of what one's parents believe.
Some of my religious beliefs do match my parents and some don't. Most Jews no matter how Orthoodx are like that.
Ironically, after quite a number of years of my beliefs having diverged from my parents' dramatically, these days they are getting closer and closer to those of my parents.
i think there's somewhere around a 90% correlation between parents stated religion and child's stated religion.
That's not to say that they have the exact same level of observence, but sociolization into religious practices is pretty strong.
I was brought up in a Orthodox home. My siblings and my wifes siblimgs are all crazy farfrumt as is my wife herself. I at best believe in some sort of diety ( depending on the day and week ) But to actually practice serving this diety who never told me who he is or what he wants is insane. Judaism like all other religions is man made. Yet people run to shul to mummble hebrew words to this supernatural power which they believe in strongly, but have no proof that he exists. God help us all. AVI
>I at best believe in some sort of diety.
Wait, you say you believe in some sort of diety yet chastise those that want to actively believe him and pray to him????
So a nebach belief is ok, but one with strong convictions of that belief is insane?
I always thought I believed what my parents believe, until I went home after seminary and realized that they'd skewed over to the right while I'd skewed over to the left. But I still do believe what they used to tell me; that truth and information and knowledge are important and holy things, and G-d wants us to pursue them.
While the proportion of people who change their beliefs may be growing, because of mobility, internet, etc, it still seems pretty clear that the overwhelming majority of people of faith, including OJs, share their faith with their parents. In other words, if you are OJ, chances are 90+% that you were exposed to this growing up. (Although for the converse-- the chance of being OJ if you were raised that way, may be somewhat lower). I don't have statistics to prove this, but it seems to be life experience. Clearly environment is the dominant factor in determining faith. Although people like to talk about the teshuva movement, it is still marginal relative to the total number of religious people.
Wait, you say you believe in some sort of diety yet chastise those that want to actively believe him and pray to him????
HH. Point me in the right direction please. Which diety should I believe in strongly? So many Gods, too many to figure out in one life time.Do I think that people who believe strongly are weird ? You bet. Mummble words to the God of your choice, who has never even given any sign that he gives a damn about you. 6,000,000 Jews died. Lots of them pleaded with their God to save their children. A lot of good that did. Score lions 1 Christians 0. Avi
It is interesting that most people follow their parents’ religions, except for atheism. Atheists for the most part are products of theist parents.
Converts of one religion to another usually do so because they have fallen in love and wish to marry into another religion. This is not so for atheism. The latter, truly, are intellectual converts (generally speaking).
"HH. Point me in the right direction please. Which diety should I believe in strongly? So many Gods, too many to figure out in one life time."
Why don't you figure it out yourself. You present it as if all claims are equal just because they're there.
"Do I think that people who believe strongly are weird ? You bet. Mummble words to the God of your choice, who has never even given any sign that he gives a damn about you."
Says you and you're wrong.
"6,000,000 Jews died. Lots of them pleaded with their God to save their children. A lot of good that did. Score lions 1 Christians 0. Avi"
That doesn't prove anything. The Holocaust hits a bit close to me and still you haven't proven anything.
Yet you still believe in some sort of a diety.
"DrJ said...
While the proportion of people who change their beliefs may be growing, because of mobility, internet, etc, it still seems pretty clear that the overwhelming majority of people of faith, including OJs, share their faith with their parents. In other words, if you are OJ, chances are 90+% that you were exposed to this growing up. (Although for the converse-- the chance of being OJ if you were raised that way, may be somewhat lower). I don't have statistics to prove this, but it seems to be life experience. Clearly environment is the dominant factor in determining faith. Although people like to talk about the teshuva movement, it is still marginal relative to the total number of religious people."
Do you notice how the dominant factor for the skeptics are all things that are popular beliefs in their society?
R. Gamliel-- Your point is well taken and futher reinforces the idea that beliefs are acquired and not formed in a vacuum. This is true of any "ism" whether nationalism or whatever. Of course it says nothing about the truth or falsehood of a belief. If per chance I happened to be born in India, 99%+ chance that I would come to believe in Hinduism or Islam, with a pretty slim chance of Judaism. If I grew up a Palestinian, 99%+ chance that I would grow up believing that Jews are evil...
At the risk of sounding post-modern, "truth" is a bit of a problem....
"DrJ said...
R. Gamliel-- Your point is well taken and futher reinforces the idea that beliefs are acquired and not formed in a vacuum. This is true of any "ism" whether nationalism or whatever. Of course it says nothing about the truth or falsehood of a belief. If per chance I happened to be born in India, 99%+ chance that I would come to believe in Hinduism or Islam, with a pretty slim chance of Judaism. If I grew up a Palestinian, 99%+ chance that I would grow up believing that Jews are evil...
At the risk of sounding post-modern, "truth" is a bit of a problem...."
LOL You may assume that risk. However if you wish to say that there is an absolute reality now you are really in for the possibility of believing in G-d because G-d is not Zeus, some being that can only be learned about and not postulated except for one time by it's creator. G-d is able to be independently postulated by anybody. Generally skeptic bloggers I've encountered have taken an approach that denies reason as the final arbiter and instead in principle accepts tradition and then says Oh look so many traditions so none are true. With an approach like that arguing on reasonable terms have been closed to me basically and I am therefore talking to myself. But I will say this. The type of tradition that can begin to make a claim for us as regards to reality is not simply someone’s idea or cultural fads, religious or secular but rather the culture of a people tells them what is binding and nonnegotiable from the point of view of it's orthodoxy. This then becomes a part of the cultural language. They actually have shown that culture influences even the exact description of color. Amazing!
"Converts of one religion to another usually do so because they have fallen in love and wish to marry into another religion."
May I humbly suggest that what you are thinking of is what happens in NonOrthodox Synagogues?
BR,
"It is interesting that most people follow their parents’ religions, except for atheism. Atheists for the most part are products of theist parents."
That's just a matter of playing the numbers - there are just that many more theistic families. A good question would be to see the stats on the fate of children brought up in atheistic homes. I suspect you would see a good number turning to theism.
"Orthoprax said...
BR,
"It is interesting that most people follow their parents’ religions, except for atheism. Atheists for the most part are products of theist parents."
That's just a matter of playing the numbers - there are just that many more theistic families. A good question would be to see the stats on the fate of children brought up in atheistic homes. I suspect you would see a good number turning to theism."
That is what happens. People go back and forth. An intersting question is if Atheism could be successfuly imposed on an ethnic group so that it becomes what in that ethnic groups culture one must believe doesn't atheism become for that culture their religion? Does the word religion describe only theism? Was Buddha an atheist?
Orthoprax and Gamliel,
This is a good point. I wonder what happens to children of atheist couples.
I do not have proof, but I suspect that children raised in a society devoid of God culture and in atheistic families will overwhelmingly remain atheistic. I say that becuase I do not think that the idea of God arises from people de novo.
"badrabbi said...
Orthoprax and Gamliel,
This is a good point. I wonder what happens to children of atheist couples.
I do not have proof, but I suspect that children raised in a society devoid of God culture and in atheistic families will overwhelmingly remain atheistic."
Well most people have a tendency to be very influenced by their culture so if atheism could have ever become imbued fully into an ethnic group so that it is a part of their culture that one must deny G-d it will have a big affect on the ethnic groups members to conform.
"I say that becuase I do not think that the idea of God arises from people de novo."
It is a mystery how it arose to begin with. Every single people has had it's theism. That is not naturaly explained. Attempted explanations have even been recently downgraded as far as far as usefullness. I never found them convincing at least fully convincing. If everyone had contact with each other that would have been one thing but the world was mostly an unknown.
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