[WhaleBiologist]

My father was a holocaust survivor, and he was the exact same way. In fact, all of his surviving relatives were the same also. It seemed completely contradictory to me when I was younger (especially being raised as an atheist jew), but as I grew older I slowly understood. I think being persecuted like that made them hold onto their 'jewish identity' to an insane degree, despite the fact that all of them lost their religion.

[danbmil99]

It's understandable. When someone tries to stamp out your identity, the natural reaction is to double down on that identity to emphasize that you will not submit to that sort of subjugation.

I think in fact this has a lot to do with the stickiness of religion -- it's completely mixed up with family identity.

[jacquesm]

> I think in fact this has a lot to do with the stickiness of religion -- it's completely mixed up with family identity.

When you're Jewish religion and family identity are one.

But that still does not mean that you will end up believing in god.

When you're born into a Catholic family you can opt-out at some point, you can renounce the faith. But when you're Jewish you can stop believing in God all you want but you'll still be Jewish.

Being Jewish is a state, not a religion.

Edit: On another note, being Jewish is also something forced upon Jews that want to opt-out by the outside world. They can intermarry, they can assimilate all they want the rest of the world will still treat them as Jewish. The Jewish religion states the conditions for being Jewish, it's circular reasoning that could only stop when everybody involved would stop believing that this is true. But as long as there are people that believe that when you're born Jewish you will always be Jewish this will be to some extent true. There is an element of virality in there.

The Catholic faith (and most other Christian denominations) considered this a 'bug' in earlier religions and fixed it by having procedures where you are voluntarily (as far as you can speak about that after being instilled with certain ideas practically from birth) join the body of the church. There are also procedures for opting-out on a voluntary basis as well as a way of punishing those that fell into dis-favor with Church officials (for instance ex-communication).

Religion and being part of some religion is a very tricky area in that it all centers around what everybody believes in and it appears that to some extent these beliefs can effect real change in the people that have such beliefs. If you believe that some woman gave birth being a virgin then a lot of other things suddenly also become possible. If you believe that God chose a certain family blood line to be the chosen people believing that you can't opt-out from that can be a very real thing. After all, who can deny their mother is their mother?

[danbmil99]

I agree this tendency is strong among Jews due probably mostly to historical prejudice. But it's clearly the case among many Muslim communities (look up the Maldives) -- you don't even really have the option to give it up.

And as for Catholics, I have known many who say it's always there as part of their identity, regardless of their religious beliefs.

Protestant Christianity seems almost an outlier in the way people come and go in the various sects. But even there, especially in the Southern USA, I've heard people say it is so ingrained into their culture that the thought of professing agnosticism or atheism is a truly life-changing, possibly life-wrecking decision.

I stand by my premise, that religion is way more mixed up with family identity than would be the case if it were simply a pure expression of belief.