Beautifully honest and vulnerable Karina. Love the “well, I don’t know” to break up each section. As someone who loves attempting to specify definitions of worldly things, not all things require defining, especially when they’re beyond worldly things. Your questions and conflicts resonated quite a bit with me. Great piece
Strong take. I think one thing that stands out about you and your journey is indeed the Jewish lineage.
One thing to consider about the Torah and the Bible, often things were said to display, reveal, explain, or define God’s nature/ character.
For instance, he chose a certain group of people to show his glory, power, and nature. The “chosen people” are an example. He chose to reveal himself as a father. It’s an example. And lastly, he chose to send His Jewish son as an example.
He set up civilization through Jewish lineage, then when native rigidity set in, he made sure everyone was welcomed at the table. This was revolutionary. But cool.
My 1 cent. (I can’t have more than you— it just feels wrong).
Boxes. The only one who created “boundaries”, or boxes, is the Holy God. You are correct in rejecting any mortal that tries to present a “box” that “you should fit into.”
In an instant in time, just outside of Jerusalem, three men were crucified by being nailed to crosses, a Roman means of displaying pain & punishment. One was Jesus, and many prophesies were fulfilled to bring him to that instant. The other two were very bad crooks. One was hard and mocked the claims made by Jesus. The other believed that Jesus was who He claimed to be. The Bible records that Jesus died that day after telling the believing crook that, because he believed, he would be with Jesus in Paradise. If you want the reference, it is Luke 23:43.
So here is an unfettered example of the simplicity of Faith, first demonstrated by Abraham. The thief on the cross did not even need to be baptized, he only needed to believe Jesus’ claims.
No other boxes, no other conditions, a momentary opportunity in time while nailed to a tree, and he believed.
Can I send you a three minute video that use a DJ, paint taggers, a rapper & the background voice if Billy Graham? It has helped many persons who find themselves stuck in a quandary.
A key item that gets wildly confused -- I would argue on purpose -- is that being "Jewish" is like 5 very different things. Let's take up the obvious in short: When I was a child, I thought being Jewish was the same as being Methodist or Unitarian; it's a religion, right? So you go to a different church than me, so what? So does most everyone, here in America of +200 denominations.
That itself is different, because up to 1970 or something, you didn't just change churches and denominations like your car or your clothes, it once meant something, anything at all, and WAS part of your life, family, culture, and identity which it was profoundly NOT by 1969. They, We, were all Democratic Liberals by then, Humanists, and we all believed in the primacy of Man, who could just choose and unchoose whatever he liked. This is opposed to the Medieval or earlier view that man is Sovereign to God, and that you don't get any option to choose who you are born to, which nation and leader, or what rules exist here on earth. So I figured I could just go over to the Temple, pop in and be Jewish by Friday, which is surprisingly not the case.
The wider use of Jewish is cultural. One is Jewish, because, like yourself, they are Jewish. There is no other cause. Huh? This confounds two other things: one is that it is racial, but no matter how much, or how little Jewish blood is in your actual chart, if you say the word Jewish, you are 100%. So it's the "Single Drop of Black Blood" theory the KKK would use. Even though, by literal usage of people attending services, there might not have been an actual Jewish person by faith in 5 generations. This is most common in America I believe, having no faith any more than any other group. However, they don't call the rest of us "Methodists" because my grandmother was in 1901. Only one group.
This goes to "Cultural Jewish" which is the most common usage in America. That is, no one believes anything or attends any services, are mostly atheists, **but live in NYC.** That's it. There is but the vaguest and most tenuous attachment to anything Jewish because your grandfather happened to be Polish when he landed in 1895, and lived in a neighborhood of people they knew from the old country. So it's cultural, but not European, and not faith culture. They mostly believe nothing as equally as Americans believe nothing of Christ except for Santa, so it's easy to be in this category. However, it's even easier than that, as because of "The Single Drop of Jewish Blood" theory, if you are anywhere in New York, and anyone on any side has a single ancestor, and anyone still mentions Passover in the last 30 years, you're now 100% Culturally Jewish. Even if you don't believe a single thing. Again, this is merely an exaggeration of what it is to be "Christian" in America, since I think the honest attendance of service even once a year is 10%, and the actual belief Christ rose from the dead for scientific fact might be 10% of that. Yet they're booked as "100% American Christian" and half the population.
The last way you are Jewish is, if you do now, or have ever been, a member affiliated with Israel in any way. Switching flights in Tel Aviv makes you Jewish, it rubs off on you, and the Internet staples the Yarmulke to your head forever if you've ever talked to anyone who transferred flights through there. You're also 120% Jewish, not 100% like the other ways.
Even if you fled Israel because of their policies, or because of your overwhelming atheism and lack of faith -- which statistically, is most of Israeli population -- everything you say as a person is colored from now on. Nor can you decide: the Internet, Society, just decides who you are on your behalf and there is no appeal, regardless of how Atheistic -- or even Christian or Buddhist you are. Totally fair, right? Those are the Rules. That is how you come to know and believe in the Jewish Yahweh: Internet Trolls decide. They are the keeper of the tickets to Jehovah, and no one shall meet the Jewish Creator but by me. Fuentes is their present Pope.
This is considered true facts, and high logic, about religion and Judaism in America.
You can confirm or deny the above, Karina, but ultimately the internet trolls will decide.
* Note I am a life resident of NY and can attest that even here the number of serious, practicing Jews is probably on par with the number of Amish.
I’m not here to confirm or deny. Everyone has an opinion and I’m here for the learning experiences. I’ve lived in NY twice for a total of 10 years in the last 16 years. I’ve lived in Israel, too. I am not Jewish. I am not Christian, I am a person with questions.
I never know either. I hear you. I know I don’t believe in religion, I think it’s divisive but I grew up with a Bible and the stories stay with you and must have a part to play in shaping how you view these things. One thing I’m fairly certain of is that any god would be a kind and generous one and Ts & Cs as to religion or lack of it, would not apply.
Ahhhh my friend. The journey has verbalized itself. Searching for God outside of the tidy little boxes he is placed in by "organized" religion is a journey most all of us take. Most disengage from the journey when they get caught in the trap of frustration from observing the failures (sins) of "religious" adherents. Never focus on the fallability of mankind, focus on the Infallibilty of God. It is what separates him from us and makes him God. Keep Searching, Keep Knocking, Keep Swinging Your Hammer and you will eventually find him. He is worth the Searching.
Beautiful and so much more powerful to answer this way than with the zealous over-confidence of so many. I don't ascribe to a religion, but I ascribe to a soul journey and the more I know the more I realize Socrates was right: "I know that I know nothing"
Faith in God is an interesting concept. By definition faith means not knowing but still believing, and belief is all that believers are left with. There is no rational support for any religion. You have to take them on faith.
Christianity, for example, rests on the dogma of the Holy Trinity, which makes no logical sense. It comes from a political compromise using tortured terminology rather than anything profound. And Christian religions that reject this dogma have logical problems of their own. Mormonism, for example, is grounded on the Book of Mormon, which as time goes on seems more clearly to be a fabricated history. That's a fundamental problem.
Yet belief in religion can be good for the human soul. As Thomas Jefferson demonstrated with his Jefferson Bible, the ethical core of the New Testament -- distilled from its mysticism and religiosity -- is remarkable. Other religions have their own insights. They touch something deep inside us.
Sociology bears this out. Compare the life outcomes of religious people to the nonreligious and on average faith in God does deliver tangible benefits. Ross Douthat of the New York Times argues that everyone should join a church whether they are convinced of its truth or not. His book Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (2025) gives solid reasons why.
Physicist Freeman Dyson embodied this approach, calling himself a practicing but not believing Christian. Even Richard Dawkins, the great atheist, is a cultural Christian who continues to steep himself in the faith tradition. We humans can't seem to fully step away from God -- It may be true that there are no atheists in foxholes.
And I share your admission that I don't know. For several years I have been working on theories of evolution. The standard belief since Charles Darwin has been that evolution happens naturally, through random variation and natural selection. No intelligence involved.
Modern science challenges those assumptions. There is growing evidence that teleology --purpose, aim and function -- shapes the variations, not randomness. Selection likewise appears to be purposeful experiments that test and learn rather than passively filter. In other words, in evolution intelligence seems to be at work.
If so, that intelligence has been operating over billions of years to create the forms of life we now see. It must have the power not only to design in the abstract but also to create and test physical things in the real world.
Timeless. Powerful. Purposeful. Present but undetectable. Such a creative intelligence might just be a natural feature of the universe, following physical laws. So it's hard to say that it is God. At the same time, it's hard to say it isn't.
Actually the Trinity problem is wrong and I bring it up for two reasons: one, I just did a short piece on it, perhaps I'll see if I also posted on Substack, and Two, handwaving as illogical is very indicative of the larger problem.
That is, if you ask Christians...by definition you are asking living Christians...and they don't know. Yes. I almost completely agree, almost. However, as a scholarly type, I've actually found almost all the answers no Christian knows were commonly known and well-discussed for about 1,000 years in a row. Let's put it this way: for all the time up to about C.S. Lewis, who wrote down a very late, pop version, and then vanished for reasons unknown. Suddenly after 50 generations, no one cared? Not sure. But there are still a few in corners, or even on radio shows who will tell you what Augustine, eg said, or even describe it all in a direct and modern way, whether from common old readings from before 1900, or having re-discovered it directly again.
But while this answer is common, and I sympathize, it also shows me that you haven't bothered to really look, which is also extremely common. I'm not picking on you or Christianity, we say the same thing in Buddhism, or New Age circles. You can hand wave and buy a crystal, or you can sit in an Ashram for 7 years until your ego dissolves and you see the world directly, guess which is more common when you "go look". Going and looking is very hard and the answers are few at first.
Which is our host's article above.
I'll go find and be sure to post the Holy Spirit item, about 15m, video/audio.
This response is everything I wrote about, I am not being categorized as “not informed” and your assumption about what I’m asking isn’t landing either, I am asking humans, not the Bible. It’s easy to justify a position by minimizing someone else’s, I see it all the time.
You may be misunderstanding me. Who would you ask except "Humans"? And if Humans have a thought out, reasonable answer, that also doesn't mean that they are right.
Who was asking the Bible?
The point was, you may not know this answer unless you "ask, and keep asking," as the verse goes, for 2, 7, or 40 years. Same as in Buddhism or any such search. So if no one's heard, it would be no discredit and no surprise -- however it doesn't mean the answer isn't out there. Or that it wasn't simple, and well-known, once.
Ask, and keep asking -- isn't that the point of your article?
You said that it shows you that I haven’t bothered to look which took down everything else you said because you made it more about my lack of knowledge or my lack of “bothering” to look. Did I misunderstand that statement?
This was beautifully written with so much information, I am going to look into Freeman. I may get the book too. Jordan Peterson made an impression on me as well.
Actually, you are wrong. All Christians are great in God’s eyes because of the Cross and Jesus sacrifice. You are correct about the sinner part until you accept Jesus.
Beautifully honest and vulnerable Karina. Love the “well, I don’t know” to break up each section. As someone who loves attempting to specify definitions of worldly things, not all things require defining, especially when they’re beyond worldly things. Your questions and conflicts resonated quite a bit with me. Great piece
Strong take. I think one thing that stands out about you and your journey is indeed the Jewish lineage.
One thing to consider about the Torah and the Bible, often things were said to display, reveal, explain, or define God’s nature/ character.
For instance, he chose a certain group of people to show his glory, power, and nature. The “chosen people” are an example. He chose to reveal himself as a father. It’s an example. And lastly, he chose to send His Jewish son as an example.
He set up civilization through Jewish lineage, then when native rigidity set in, he made sure everyone was welcomed at the table. This was revolutionary. But cool.
My 1 cent. (I can’t have more than you— it just feels wrong).
This was so beautifully written and then you dropped the 1 cent. LOL!
Boxes. The only one who created “boundaries”, or boxes, is the Holy God. You are correct in rejecting any mortal that tries to present a “box” that “you should fit into.”
In an instant in time, just outside of Jerusalem, three men were crucified by being nailed to crosses, a Roman means of displaying pain & punishment. One was Jesus, and many prophesies were fulfilled to bring him to that instant. The other two were very bad crooks. One was hard and mocked the claims made by Jesus. The other believed that Jesus was who He claimed to be. The Bible records that Jesus died that day after telling the believing crook that, because he believed, he would be with Jesus in Paradise. If you want the reference, it is Luke 23:43.
So here is an unfettered example of the simplicity of Faith, first demonstrated by Abraham. The thief on the cross did not even need to be baptized, he only needed to believe Jesus’ claims.
No other boxes, no other conditions, a momentary opportunity in time while nailed to a tree, and he believed.
Simple faith, no complications. Just believe.
Blessings you will find the truth.
This is actually the story that gets me very confused about the “boxes” thank you for sharing your insight with me.
Can I send you a three minute video that use a DJ, paint taggers, a rapper & the background voice if Billy Graham? It has helped many persons who find themselves stuck in a quandary.
Sure!
Thank you
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bD30sEiJn7E&ra=m
It is a free gift.
A key item that gets wildly confused -- I would argue on purpose -- is that being "Jewish" is like 5 very different things. Let's take up the obvious in short: When I was a child, I thought being Jewish was the same as being Methodist or Unitarian; it's a religion, right? So you go to a different church than me, so what? So does most everyone, here in America of +200 denominations.
That itself is different, because up to 1970 or something, you didn't just change churches and denominations like your car or your clothes, it once meant something, anything at all, and WAS part of your life, family, culture, and identity which it was profoundly NOT by 1969. They, We, were all Democratic Liberals by then, Humanists, and we all believed in the primacy of Man, who could just choose and unchoose whatever he liked. This is opposed to the Medieval or earlier view that man is Sovereign to God, and that you don't get any option to choose who you are born to, which nation and leader, or what rules exist here on earth. So I figured I could just go over to the Temple, pop in and be Jewish by Friday, which is surprisingly not the case.
The wider use of Jewish is cultural. One is Jewish, because, like yourself, they are Jewish. There is no other cause. Huh? This confounds two other things: one is that it is racial, but no matter how much, or how little Jewish blood is in your actual chart, if you say the word Jewish, you are 100%. So it's the "Single Drop of Black Blood" theory the KKK would use. Even though, by literal usage of people attending services, there might not have been an actual Jewish person by faith in 5 generations. This is most common in America I believe, having no faith any more than any other group. However, they don't call the rest of us "Methodists" because my grandmother was in 1901. Only one group.
This goes to "Cultural Jewish" which is the most common usage in America. That is, no one believes anything or attends any services, are mostly atheists, **but live in NYC.** That's it. There is but the vaguest and most tenuous attachment to anything Jewish because your grandfather happened to be Polish when he landed in 1895, and lived in a neighborhood of people they knew from the old country. So it's cultural, but not European, and not faith culture. They mostly believe nothing as equally as Americans believe nothing of Christ except for Santa, so it's easy to be in this category. However, it's even easier than that, as because of "The Single Drop of Jewish Blood" theory, if you are anywhere in New York, and anyone on any side has a single ancestor, and anyone still mentions Passover in the last 30 years, you're now 100% Culturally Jewish. Even if you don't believe a single thing. Again, this is merely an exaggeration of what it is to be "Christian" in America, since I think the honest attendance of service even once a year is 10%, and the actual belief Christ rose from the dead for scientific fact might be 10% of that. Yet they're booked as "100% American Christian" and half the population.
The last way you are Jewish is, if you do now, or have ever been, a member affiliated with Israel in any way. Switching flights in Tel Aviv makes you Jewish, it rubs off on you, and the Internet staples the Yarmulke to your head forever if you've ever talked to anyone who transferred flights through there. You're also 120% Jewish, not 100% like the other ways.
Even if you fled Israel because of their policies, or because of your overwhelming atheism and lack of faith -- which statistically, is most of Israeli population -- everything you say as a person is colored from now on. Nor can you decide: the Internet, Society, just decides who you are on your behalf and there is no appeal, regardless of how Atheistic -- or even Christian or Buddhist you are. Totally fair, right? Those are the Rules. That is how you come to know and believe in the Jewish Yahweh: Internet Trolls decide. They are the keeper of the tickets to Jehovah, and no one shall meet the Jewish Creator but by me. Fuentes is their present Pope.
This is considered true facts, and high logic, about religion and Judaism in America.
You can confirm or deny the above, Karina, but ultimately the internet trolls will decide.
* Note I am a life resident of NY and can attest that even here the number of serious, practicing Jews is probably on par with the number of Amish.
I’m not here to confirm or deny. Everyone has an opinion and I’m here for the learning experiences. I’ve lived in NY twice for a total of 10 years in the last 16 years. I’ve lived in Israel, too. I am not Jewish. I am not Christian, I am a person with questions.
I never know either. I hear you. I know I don’t believe in religion, I think it’s divisive but I grew up with a Bible and the stories stay with you and must have a part to play in shaping how you view these things. One thing I’m fairly certain of is that any god would be a kind and generous one and Ts & Cs as to religion or lack of it, would not apply.
I couldn’t agree more, Julie.
Ahhhh my friend. The journey has verbalized itself. Searching for God outside of the tidy little boxes he is placed in by "organized" religion is a journey most all of us take. Most disengage from the journey when they get caught in the trap of frustration from observing the failures (sins) of "religious" adherents. Never focus on the fallability of mankind, focus on the Infallibilty of God. It is what separates him from us and makes him God. Keep Searching, Keep Knocking, Keep Swinging Your Hammer and you will eventually find him. He is worth the Searching.
As usual that's my biased 2.5 cents.
Thank you for sharing your journey Karina.
Thank you for being kind to me about this topic and not passing judgment or trying to box me into a category.
Beautiful and so much more powerful to answer this way than with the zealous over-confidence of so many. I don't ascribe to a religion, but I ascribe to a soul journey and the more I know the more I realize Socrates was right: "I know that I know nothing"
Thank you! Some of the comments are proving my point, it’s unreal.
Jesus wasn’t religious. He didn’t care about mankind legalism.
I don’t have any prophetic words, except that I believe in Him and I want to be in His presence for eternity.
🙏🏻
Faith in God is an interesting concept. By definition faith means not knowing but still believing, and belief is all that believers are left with. There is no rational support for any religion. You have to take them on faith.
Christianity, for example, rests on the dogma of the Holy Trinity, which makes no logical sense. It comes from a political compromise using tortured terminology rather than anything profound. And Christian religions that reject this dogma have logical problems of their own. Mormonism, for example, is grounded on the Book of Mormon, which as time goes on seems more clearly to be a fabricated history. That's a fundamental problem.
Yet belief in religion can be good for the human soul. As Thomas Jefferson demonstrated with his Jefferson Bible, the ethical core of the New Testament -- distilled from its mysticism and religiosity -- is remarkable. Other religions have their own insights. They touch something deep inside us.
Sociology bears this out. Compare the life outcomes of religious people to the nonreligious and on average faith in God does deliver tangible benefits. Ross Douthat of the New York Times argues that everyone should join a church whether they are convinced of its truth or not. His book Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious (2025) gives solid reasons why.
Physicist Freeman Dyson embodied this approach, calling himself a practicing but not believing Christian. Even Richard Dawkins, the great atheist, is a cultural Christian who continues to steep himself in the faith tradition. We humans can't seem to fully step away from God -- It may be true that there are no atheists in foxholes.
And I share your admission that I don't know. For several years I have been working on theories of evolution. The standard belief since Charles Darwin has been that evolution happens naturally, through random variation and natural selection. No intelligence involved.
Modern science challenges those assumptions. There is growing evidence that teleology --purpose, aim and function -- shapes the variations, not randomness. Selection likewise appears to be purposeful experiments that test and learn rather than passively filter. In other words, in evolution intelligence seems to be at work.
If so, that intelligence has been operating over billions of years to create the forms of life we now see. It must have the power not only to design in the abstract but also to create and test physical things in the real world.
Timeless. Powerful. Purposeful. Present but undetectable. Such a creative intelligence might just be a natural feature of the universe, following physical laws. So it's hard to say that it is God. At the same time, it's hard to say it isn't.
Actually the Trinity problem is wrong and I bring it up for two reasons: one, I just did a short piece on it, perhaps I'll see if I also posted on Substack, and Two, handwaving as illogical is very indicative of the larger problem.
That is, if you ask Christians...by definition you are asking living Christians...and they don't know. Yes. I almost completely agree, almost. However, as a scholarly type, I've actually found almost all the answers no Christian knows were commonly known and well-discussed for about 1,000 years in a row. Let's put it this way: for all the time up to about C.S. Lewis, who wrote down a very late, pop version, and then vanished for reasons unknown. Suddenly after 50 generations, no one cared? Not sure. But there are still a few in corners, or even on radio shows who will tell you what Augustine, eg said, or even describe it all in a direct and modern way, whether from common old readings from before 1900, or having re-discovered it directly again.
But while this answer is common, and I sympathize, it also shows me that you haven't bothered to really look, which is also extremely common. I'm not picking on you or Christianity, we say the same thing in Buddhism, or New Age circles. You can hand wave and buy a crystal, or you can sit in an Ashram for 7 years until your ego dissolves and you see the world directly, guess which is more common when you "go look". Going and looking is very hard and the answers are few at first.
Which is our host's article above.
I'll go find and be sure to post the Holy Spirit item, about 15m, video/audio.
This response is everything I wrote about, I am not being categorized as “not informed” and your assumption about what I’m asking isn’t landing either, I am asking humans, not the Bible. It’s easy to justify a position by minimizing someone else’s, I see it all the time.
You may be misunderstanding me. Who would you ask except "Humans"? And if Humans have a thought out, reasonable answer, that also doesn't mean that they are right.
Who was asking the Bible?
The point was, you may not know this answer unless you "ask, and keep asking," as the verse goes, for 2, 7, or 40 years. Same as in Buddhism or any such search. So if no one's heard, it would be no discredit and no surprise -- however it doesn't mean the answer isn't out there. Or that it wasn't simple, and well-known, once.
Ask, and keep asking -- isn't that the point of your article?
You said that it shows you that I haven’t bothered to look which took down everything else you said because you made it more about my lack of knowledge or my lack of “bothering” to look. Did I misunderstand that statement?
This was beautifully written with so much information, I am going to look into Freeman. I may get the book too. Jordan Peterson made an impression on me as well.
Sorry, no such thing as a Great Atheist.
Nonsense
That would be the definition of an atheist. Thanks
😂😂😂
There is no such thing as a Great Christian either. Why? Because we are all sinners. None of us are all of us.
Actually, you are wrong. All Christians are great in God’s eyes because of the Cross and Jesus sacrifice. You are correct about the sinner part until you accept Jesus.
This is why I struggle so much, because there is a “wrong” and “right” and that doesn’t make any sense to me when it comes to spirituality and faith.
Don’t struggle. Just Trust God’s Grace.
Judaism is a binding contract with God
a covenant etched upon your soul
the "religious" aspect has no bearing upon this
believe, do not believe
makes no matter
Still a Jew
still bound to the covenant underneath it all
still a peculiar person set apart by God
in this way (and many more ways) we are different
to all other peoples and all other religions
and is also the reason for the relentless Jew hate
because underneath it all
they know it too
Chosen. It doesn't mean what they think it means....
Now, we are finally getting somewhere.
Right? It was time.