Is Judaism a religion or a race ?

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: Xtrozero

So you're talking about population genetics, which doesn't quantify people as being categorically "Jewish" or whatever. You have a certain amount of geographically significant markers in your DNA which says that someone from a particular nation contributed their genes to yours. That's not a membership card. Nor does it make you especially qualified to participate in their culture.

I often question the local community about their ethnic influences (if they try to brag about such background) and how much they have studied the language or dabbled in the customs of the region. Spoilers: not at all.

People use the term race to differentiate groups of people. There are many markers people use that are physically, culturally, genetically, regionally, religion and even politically to suggest a group of people are a race.

If people do not like the term race then what do people think it should be called.

What is it that you want to call it?

That's an interesting point. I looked up "race" - as it turns out, there's a whole lot of ambiguity attached to the word. We are all members of the subspecies Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Our genetic differences are really just a result of population isolation. This makes sense in terms of genetic profiles too. My profile shows 90% Eastern European pointing to the Black Sea area. There are Jewish genes mixed in there as well. And that's exactly where my family is from. Many still remain in the Crimea.

As an article I read said - there's really no line of demarcation for so-called races - in the far north people are light; as you travel south, people are darker until you get to Africa where people are much darker. But we all still belong to the same subspecies. No group on Earth (to my knowledge) has been characterized as being separate from this subspecies.

Given all the attention the word "race" currently receives (most of it bad), maybe the word should be dumped.

Neither

Hebrew is a 'race'
judiasm kabbalah is a cult

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: Xtrozero

So you're talking about population genetics, which doesn't quantify people as being categorically "Jewish" or whatever. You have a certain amount of geographically significant markers in your DNA which says that someone from a particular nation contributed their genes to yours. That's not a membership card. Nor does it make you especially qualified to participate in their culture.

I often question the local community about their ethnic influences (if they try to brag about such background) and how much they have studied the language or dabbled in the customs of the region. Spoilers: not at all.

People use the term race to differentiate groups of people. There are many markers people use that are physically, culturally, genetically, regionally, religion and even politically to suggest a group of people are a race.

If people do not like the term race then what do people think it should be called.

What is it that you want to call it?

Ethnos, as the Greeks did. It speaks to a psychological quanta that avoids the slippery terrain of biological classification. Keeping in mind that ethnos is about culture and not citizenship, aka your values and lifestyle as opposed to what your passport says.

JUDAISM:

The Jewish religious system. (Ga 1:13, 14) In the first century C.E., Judaism in its various forms was not based exclusively on the Hebrew Scriptures. One of the most prominent divisions of Judaism, that of the Sadducees, rejected the Scriptural teaching of the resurrection and denied the existence of angels. (Mr 12:18-27; Ac 23:8) Although the Pharisees, who formed yet another important branch of Judaism, sharply disagreed with the Sadducees on this (Ac 23:6-9), they were guilty of making God’s Word invalid because of their many unscriptural traditions. (Mt 15:1-11) Not the Law, which was actually a tutor leading to Christ (Ga 3:24), but these unscriptural traditions made it difficult for many to accept Christ. The Law itself was good and holy (Ro 7:12), but the traditions of men served to enslave the Jews. (Col 2:8)

“Of course, you heard about my conduct formerly in Juʹda·ism, that I kept intensely persecuting the congregation of God and devastating it; and I was making greater progress in Juʹda·ism than many of my own age in my nation, as I was far more zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” (Ga 1:13, 14)

JEWS:

Definition: As commonly used today, the term refers to people of Hebrew descent and others who have been converted to Judaism. The Bible also draws attention to the fact that there are Christians who are Jews spiritually and who make up “the Israel of God.”

Who Is a Jew? (Watching the World; Awake!—1989)

Who Is a Jew?

That question has recently stirred up a heated debate that affects millions of Jews, especially in Israel and the United States. The leaders of Israel’s 400,000 Orthodox Jews have long sought to change the “Law of Return,” which lets any immigrant Jew become an Israeli citizen, so that it would exclude those who were converted to Judaism by non-Orthodox rabbis, such as those of the Conservative and Reform branches. An outcry has arisen against such strict views of “who is a Jew,” especially from Conservative and Reform Jews in the United States. According to The Jerusalem Post, Israeli diplomat Abba Eban “criticized attempts to disqualify ‘a majority of the Jewish congregations, rabbis, temples and ceremonials in the world from the pride of their Jewish identity.’” Orthodox Jews make up less than 10 percent of Israel’s population.

What a debate. What a fuzz about the Whoopi Goldberg thingy as well.

Anyway, here's one I didn't do yet...

HEBREW:

A designation first used for Abram (Abraham), distinguishing him from his Amorite neighbors. It was used thereafter to refer to Abraham’s descendants through his grandson Jacob as well as to their language. By the time of Jesus, the Hebrew language had come to include many Aramaic expressions and was the language spoken by Christ and his disciples.​—Ge 14:13; Ex 5:3; Ac 26:14.

The book of Jeremiah (in the seventh century B.C.E.) shows the term “Hebrew” to be then the equivalent of “Jew.”​—Jer 34:8, 9, 13, 14.

In later periods Greek and Roman writers regularly called the Israelites either “Hebrews” or “Jews,” not “Israelites.”

Paul described himself as, first, a Hebrew; second, an Israelite; and third, of the seed of Abraham. (2Co 11:22) ‘Hebrew’ may here be used to show his racial origin (compare Php 3:4, 5) and perhaps language; ‘Israelite,’ his natural membership in the nation God had originally established as His name people (compare Ro 9:3-5); and ‘seed of Abraham,’ his being among those inheriting the promised blessings of the Abrahamic covenant.

originally posted by: ToneDeaf
Neither

Hebrew is a 'race'
judiasm kabbalah is a cult

How do you know? Have you studied it?

a reply to: whereislogic

Ergo, the nation of Israel is defined by ideological borders more than biological ones. That's the crux of the topic and why some are increasingly confused between genome and identity.

a reply to: Ravenwatcher
Why is it necssary to fix a specific category? That may be difficult when categories overlap (was Leonardo da Vinci a scientist or a painter?), and they are overlapping in this case.
Though, as your first responder points out, the word itself has the form which is applied to systens of belief.

If this doesn't answer your question there's surely a Robert Sepehr video that does