Converting for the sake of it

[Ser_not_appearing_yet]

Yeah I've never heard of the adopting thing either. Could it be clarified?

[Prue]

Maybe the rule evolved due to not wanting children to inherit anything of a family's wealth if not related to them by blood?

[Sheep the Evicted]

What's supposed to be so 'ungodly' about adopting?? That's the first time I heard about religious objections against adoptions. Very strange. Surely it should be considered a good deed to give a child a good home?

Usually yes, but like i said there were complications with this adoption that made it wrong. I don't understand the specifics of it too well but i think if you adopt in Islam it has to be public knowledge they are adopted and you also have to let the child know who (i think its who - it might just be their names) their blood parents are. While with this adoption they are basically playing off the kid as their own - mainly because the Saudi Arabain laws force this subterfuge (not sure how but apparently they do) and i think partly because the wife doesn't want to be seen as a childless freak.

Only the couples siblings know that they've adopted but, according to my mother, others suspect it and rumours are flying, which was more fuel to the fire, because "the son of a whore" (the biological mother was in a country where you shouldn't have a kid unless married, she could have been a whore or a girl who just made a mistake, or a rape victim i guess) will have our family name.

So yeah the perfect storm of religion and social bigotry. But mainly religion.

EDIT - yeah i had it right. Here is a good article.

[jurble]

Remember what i said about my mother falling out with my uncle. The how's of it are complicated but basically my uncle broke some religious law when he adopted last year, they have tried everything else under the sun for the last 25 years and it just wasn't working so they decided to adopt damnation or not. Everyone else in the family either congratulated him or basically said "what your doing is wrong but its your life man". My mother refused to recognise their adopted son and called her sister in law a "godless whore that's dragging her husband to hell" (its the wife that can't have the child and she's obsessed about it while my uncle could probably live childless or - this being in saudi arabia - marry another wife) and the situation escalated dramatically from there.

Adoption is haraam. Guardianship is allowed. You may keep a ward, you may leave your ward your shit if you want, but you never lie to him and claim that he is your son (or she is your daughter). The point is that the child never forgets his lineage.

That is to say, Let's Asad ibn Saud adopted (became guardian of, in an Islamic context) Ibrahim ibn Ahmed. Ibn Saud could leave ibn Ahmed any inheritance and the like, but ibn Ahmed is forbidden to change his name to ibn Saud.

This happened with the Prophet's adopted son Zayd ibn Harithah. At first, I believe, he called himself ibn Muhammad, until the Qu'ranic revelation of guardianship came to the Prophet.

[palimpsest.]

Well here's the thing if i found out my little brother was dabbling with meth, than no matter how much i spout about freedom of choice and living your own life and so on, i would do everything i possibly could to get him off it and because i love him like i do it would take a hell of a long time for me to give up on him.

Eternal damnation is like that but on crack.

I understand. For me, marriage and meth are not exactly comparable, but I can understand how they can be for someone who truly believes in that kind of things.

It just makes me sad, though ... such beliefs don't really make anyone's life better; if anything, they do the opposite. I'd choose quality of my life on earth over quality of my life after death every time, but again, I see how the opposite can make complete sense for someone who actually believes in afterlife.

But this i don't understand. Look at the hell i would go through if i married someone unsuitable. Its not like i have a choice in the matter either; religion and family are not separate for me, i would basically be sacrificing most of my entire social support system.

While for you religion, or faith is a thing your not even sure of. All you have to do is pay lip service, and a very small amount at that and only to the devout, at a few family gatherings. It would be profoundly selfish of you not to.

Lucky that you have the option of not marrying, then :) But I can imagine it could be real trouble if you were with a girl who wanted to marry, but not to convert.

Edit: just saw that you can't have kids if you are not married ... damn, this really is complicated :/

For me, though, it's more than paying lip service from time to time. It depends on the situation, of course, but the in-laws can be real trouble even if they share your religious convictions. What if you, too, wanted kids but could do nothing else than adopt? What if your family wanted your wife to behave 'appropriate' and it would clash very strongly with her idea of how she should be behaving? Converting to a religion is not only a matter of belief, but also of personal principles and such.

That's why I said I would not convert - if my in-laws and SO were not very religious, then they should be able to survive me being an agnostic. If they were religious, however, this would probably mean a whole set of rules and beliefs that I'd probably not be comfortable obeying.

[Sheep the Evicted]

It just makes me sad, though ... such beliefs don't really make anyone's life better; if anything, they do the opposite.

Definitely. Though its probably how strongly someone holds to those beliefs as opposed to what they actually are.

I'd choose quality of my life on earth over quality of my life after death every time, but again, I see how the opposite can make complete sense for someone who actually believes in afterlife.

But again that's only because your unsure, or flat out disbelieve, in your life after death. If you were certain of both it makes perfect sense to pick the life that lasts for eternity as opposed to the one that lasts 70 odd years.

Lucky that you have the option of not marrying, then :) But I can imagine it could be real trouble if you were with a girl who wanted to marry, but not to convert.

Edit: just saw that you can't have kids if you are not married ... damn, this really is complicated :/

Well its all taboo but then there are varying levels of taboo. For instance having a devoutly atheist girlfriend would be less taboo than marrying her. Having and raising a kid out of marriage with said athiest girlfriend is probably more taboo than the marriage or about the same. Having the kid but then abandoning both the kid and mother would be the most taboo of all.

So yeah all in all its pretty ridiculously complicated.

For me, though, it's more than paying lip service from time to time. It depends on the situation, of course, but the in-laws can be real trouble even if they share your religious convictions. What if you, too, wanted kids but could do nothing else than adopt? What if your family wanted your wife to behave 'appropriate' and it would clash very strongly with her idea of how she should be behaving? Converting to a religion is not only a matter of belief, but also of personal principles and such. That's why I said I would not convert - if my in-laws and SO were not very religious, then they should be able to survive me being an agnostic. If they were religious, however, this would probably mean a whole set of rules and beliefs that I'd probably not be comfortable obeying.

Nonsense. Like i said any of the people of the book is kosher. You can just pretend your Christian - you wouldn't have to be devout at all, just say your Christian. Of course that won't stop my mother of disapproving but that's all she will do.

I was wondering though can Jews marry Muslims in turn ?

[Prue]

But what of the children? Would they be allowed to be Christians / Jews, too? Or would they have to become Muslim for the marriage of the parents to be allowed at all? Hmm, that would be a problem for a marriage between a Jewish woman and a Muslim man then actually, if her children are always considered Jewish, and the Muslim family would demand the children to become Muslim.

[jurble]

There is no compulsion in religion is a major tenet of Islam. If the kids chose some religion other than Islam (like my masjid's current's Imam's kids), they can't be forced to be muslim or anything. Depends on the community whether it reflects badly on the father. We're all pretty cool with the imam. His sons are cool dudes, everyone agrees. Somewhere more conservative, he'd probably be socially pressured to not be an imam, what with failing to keep his kids on the right path and all. Just depends.

[palimpsest.]

Nonsense. Like i said any of the people of the book is kosher. You can just pretend your Christain - you wouldn't have to be devout at all, just say your Christian. Ofcourse that won't stop my mother of disapproving but that's all she will do.

Oh, I misunderstood you - I was talking about actually converting to whatever religion the family is and act like I actually am devout whenever I'm around them. Just saying that I'm Christian would be no problem, especially if I only said it to the in-laws. I would do that for my SO any time. :)

I can still understand people who wouldn't want to do that, though, and they don't even need to be devout atheists - some people are very much against all of the 'people of the book', but are ok with, say, Hindu. Others just don't want to be involved with any kind of religion whatsoever because it'd make them uncomfortable.

[VarysTheSpider]

Its also just...wrong. I mean, I guess I sort of see the confusion, (though it dosen't make much sense to me, tbh. Its an ethnicity. And a religeon. Its not actually complicated.)

It's complicated enough, when you have something as inane as matrilineal descent. A lot of my family consider me Jewish, but I certainly don't. :angry2: It's just another religion to me.

[Sheep the Evicted]

I can still understand people who wouldn't want to do that, though, and they don't even need to be devout atheists - some people are very much against all of the 'people of the book', but are ok with, say, Hindu. Others just don't want to be involved with any kind of religion whatsoever because it'd make them uncomfortable.

I honestly can't. It would be an absurdly selfish thing to do in the face of the alternative, especially to someone you love.

[Samalander]

But what of the children? Would they be allowed to be Christians / Jews, too? Or would they have to become Muslim for the marriage of the parents to be allowed at all? Hmm, that would be a problem for a marriage between a Jewish woman and a Muslim man then actually, if her children are always considered Jewish, and the Muslim family would demand the children to become Muslim.

A bigger problem would be Muslim woman/Jewish man having kids - They would have no religion at all.

It's complicated enough, when you have something as inane as matrilineal descent. A lot of my family consider me Jewish, but I certainly don't. :angry2: It's just another religion to me.

If your Mother isn't Jewish then you aren't Jewish.

If your mother is Jewish, then you are a self hating Jew (and here we go into the whole right of self determination vs. society labeling of the individual thing which is a whole other kettle of fish...).

[aimlessgun]

I honestly can't. It would be an absurdly selfish thing to do in the face of the alternative, especially to someone you love.

Indeed. If youre not going to change their minds, just play along until they die. Waiting until the old fanatics die and making sure your kids don't turn into fanatics is pretty much how it has to be.

[Mad Monkey]

A bigger problem would be Muslim woman/Jewish man having kids - They would have no religion at all.

I'm not a theologian, but I believe the religion the children would be required to follow is... Zoroastrianism.

[ljkeane]

If your Mother isn't Jewish then you aren't Jewish.

If your mother is Jewish, then you are a self hating Jew (and here we go into the whole right of self determination vs. society labeling of the individual thing which is a whole other kettle of fish...).

Why should anyone have to follow your religion's definition of what makes someone Jewish if they have no interest in following your religion? If you go by the whole 'you're Jewish if you're mother is Jewish' thing some of my cousins are Jewish but since they have no interest in being Jewish and no association with any sort of Jewish culture or religion insisting on them being called Jewish is fairly ridiculous.

Sheep, why should someone you love have to compromise their beliefs for your convenience? That seems fairly selfish to me. If they're willing to play along fine, if not that's their choice.

[Datepalm]

It's complicated enough, when you have something as inane as matrilineal descent. A lot of my family consider me Jewish, but I certainly don't. :angry2: It's just another religion to me.

As opposed to the font of shining logic that is patrilineal descent?  ;)

A bigger problem would be Muslim woman/Jewish man having kids - They would have no religion at all.

Hey, thats me! How do I make it through a day? 

I think, personally, "jewish" comes down to what you consider yourself. Certainly the rabbinate isn't too fond of me. At the same time, I can't deny that its part of my identity in a way thats very organic, and being told that it would just make a lot more sense if it was just a religeon is every bit as infuriating as being needled to get a "proper" orthodox conversion. This is who I am, its none of your business, and either side can kindly fuck off. 

Although, I did work out once that if I ever wanted to elope, I would need to convert to Islam - Converting to judaism takes forever, and that whole baptism thing sounds frankly unhygienic. Coverting to Islam is really quick. 

[Stalker]

But Jewishness is rather complicated because it is BOTH a religion and an ethnicity, isn't it? There have been many famous persons (Sigmund Freud being the one I am most familiar with) who have quite adamantly insisted that they were atheists and Jews at the same time. And certainly most modern anti-Semitism, as shown most horribly in Nazi Germany, is based on the idea that Jewishness is a racial or ethnic category more than it is a religious category.

So for orthodox Jews being Jewish is as much of a nationality as a religion and "converting" is much more akin to being adopted or nationalized into a new nation than it is to simply espousing a set of beliefs. You don't become an American simply by proclaiming you believe in American ideals, and you don't become an ethnic Jew just by espousing belief in the Torah.

Though personally I think it would be better for most Jewish persons and for the world as a whole if Jewishness was considered simply a matter of religious belief, I think there is a long history that makes that nigh unto impossible for many people to accept.

I think identity would work better. Ethnicity tends to indicate a group that have extensive cultural similarities, or at least some. Nationality is especially problematic since Israel exists, yet not all Jews consider themselves Israeli.

[Prue]

Although, I did work out once that if I ever wanted to elope, I would need to convert to Islam - Converting to judaism takes forever, and that whole baptism thing sounds frankly unhygienic. Coverting to Islam is really quick.

What is unhygienic about a bit of water splashed on your forehead? ;)

Btw if judaism is an ethnicity and a religion, is a woman who merely converted but isn't 'ethnically' Jewish ever considered 'properly' Jewish?

edit: Thank you for the explanations about the adoption issue btw, that's an interesting legal problem.

[Datepalm]

What is unhygienic about a bit of water splashed on your forehead? ;)

Btw if judaism is an ethnicity and a religion, is a woman who merely converted but isn't 'ethnically' Jewish ever considered 'properly' Jewish?

it dosen't work that way - its not two seperate components. If you convert, you're jewish - legally, religeously, ethnically, whatever. Thats it. I know that that sounds wrong. How can you convert to an ethinicity, etc, etc, but there it is. Its a translated concept from a  culture where identity isn't defined this way, is all. 

[Kouran]

Not to confuse matters, but I have never really had the chance to sit down and talk about what it really means to be a Jew with a Jew. Conversly I have never really had the same chance with a Muslim. Even in the Army no one talked about their religon, it was pretty much assumed that what ever someone believed was their business and no one elses and you could go fuck yourself if you wanted to pry.

Would anyone have any good suggestions in reading material on the subject? Devoutly religous people are something of an enigma to me. I cant understand how people believe what they cant see, hear or touch. Yet I am not an aethiest either, go go contridictions.

I grew up where everyone is pretty much either Baptist or Catholic. While I understand the dogmas of both faiths I cant make the connection between the dogma and the practice. I think I may have met 1 or 2 people in my whole life that actually followed the dogma with their actions.

Religon just confuses the hell out of me. I cant understand a need for an outside agent to tell me what my moral code should be. I can decide on my own why I should or shouldnt do something, though in practice my decisions will be based on what is legal or what is more expediant and not likely to get me in trouble. Yet I believe people should follow the rules becuase rules are ment to be followed.