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Ik blijf benieuwd! (DB) For moderns, religions are (more or less) fixed sets of convictions with (more or less) well-defined boundaries. We usually ask ourselves:

What convictions does Christianity forbid or what practices does it require? We ask similar questions in regard to Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, & Buddhism, the so-called 'great religions of the world'? Such an understanding, of course, makes nonsense of the idea that one could be both a Jew & a Christian, rendering it just a contradiction in terms! Jews don't fit the definition of Christians, & Christians don't fit the definition of Jews. There are simple incompatibilities between these two (& most other) religions that make it impossible to be BOTH?!

Daniel argues in his book that this conception doesn't always fit the facts, & especially that it doesn't represent well the situation of Judaism & Christianity in the early centuries at all! We usually define members of religions by using a kind of check-list. For instance, one could say that if someone believes 'in the Trinity' & 'incarnation', she is a member of the religion Christianity, but if she doesn't, she isn't a proper member of that religion? One could say, conversely, that if someone does not believe in a Trinity & incar-nation, then he is a member of the religion Judaism, but if he does believe in those things, he isn't!

One could also say that if someone keeps the Sabbath on Saturday, eats only kosher food, & circumcised her sons, she is a member of the Jewish religion, but if she doesn't THEN she is NOT a member of the (a) Jewish religion? Or, conversely again, if some group believes that everyone should keep the Sab-bath, eats only kosher food, & circumcises sons, they are not Christians, but if they believe that these practices have been superseded, then they are Christians ... this is, as we (might) have seen, our usual way of looking at such matters!?

However, this manner of catego-rizing people's religions runs into difficulties. First, someone has to be making the checklist. Who decides what specific beliefs disqualify a person from bein a Jew?

Throughout history these decisions have been made by certain groups of people or individuals & are then impo-sed on other people (who may, however, refuse ~ unless the deciders have an army etc.)! It's a little bit like those "race" checklists on the census forms.

Some of us simply refuse to check a box that defines us as Caucasions or Hispanic or African american because we don't identify that way, & only laws, & courts, or an army could force us to if they chose to ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's our case in a nutshell: are we 'human', what does it mean in relation to religion, ideology, superficiality & following their fashions?