re israel an apartheid state in article may das harvard edu adam endor uucp adam shostack writes which was my point by converting to another religion i do not loose my cultural identity i just loose my religious identification i disagree by converting to another religion you certainly do change your cultural identity and lose that part of you which was jewish i would change one of the many parts that define my cultural identity if i loose a leg it might change my personality but i do not stop being a human being even more when someone gets a baboon heart that person is still human to be a part or not of the jeish nation is defined by my culture and not by my religion actually if i am an atheist which is in fact like converting into a non jewish in terms of religion i am still considered as part of the jewish nation no there is a serious cultural and religios difference between renouncing the jewish god and accepting a new one thou shall have no other gods before me conversion is a violation of this atheism you might be able to wiggle around with not really that is what differenciates agnostics from atheists as an atheist i do not believe there is a god nor do i believe that there ever was one so those commandments have no meaning to me also there are a lot of ideas that have no meaning to me the idea of a chosen people the idea of a given right to the land of israel the idea of keeping kosher the idea of opposing intermarriage the idea of having a torah that was inspired by god etc by being an atheist i cannot support the idea of the jewish nation as defined by a religious principle or based on a religious identity for me religion is just another piece in what constitutes the cultural identity of the jewish people i believe that as a people with a cultural identity they constitute a nation and have the same right as any other people in the world to have their own state the same right as the armenians have as the palestinians have as the french have and as anybody else have i cannot say that by accepting a different god someone has lost all cultural identification adam adam shostack adam das harvard edu aap
