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Originally Posted by dlk9s
I'm Jewish. Went to Sunday school, Hebrew school, had a Bar Mitzvah, my grandfather was president of our synagogue (and taught Sunday school before I was born - Bud Selig was a student of his), etc.
I send my kids to Sunday school and Hebrew school and they will have Bar/Bat Mitzvahs (save the dates just went out for one of them), but at the same time, none of us really believe in god/religion. We're probably going to let our kids stop going to religious school after their Bar/Bat Mitzvahs. My son bought into the whole god thing initially, but he pretty quickly decided it didn't make sense.
It's kind of dumb, I know. I guess, like a lot of things we do in life, we're kind of doing it as an obligation, partly to not piss off our parents, partly because...I don't know. Judiasm is a bit different, as there is very much a cultural/community part that is separate from the religious part. And the nice thing is that my wife, whose family was completely unpracticing, has really enjoyed the community aspect of joining a synagogue. I really like our rabbi, too. Just chatted with him yesterday. And I appreciate our synagogue - it's extremely welcoming. It's even expressly pro-LGBTQ - there used to be something on the website about it, but I can't find it now. I know there's a flier about LGBTQ issues posted in the hallway at temple.
This is the norm in most of the developed world as far as I can tell. You actually see this with churches Korean churches, Japanese Shinto temples, and Chinese Daoist/Buddhist temples. Most people going aren't really religious at all.
I saw the same thing with Europeans going to church and Turks going to mosques when I visited. Most attendees just go because the religious centers are also social centers. From what I heard, for the most part, it's the same way with Hindi temples in India.
Personally I also know a lot of "non-practicing" Catholics (I am one). At this point I am much closer to being a Deist, leaning Agnostic/Atheist even, than an actual Catholic but in a broad survey, if such a category were available, I'd probably be marked as "secular Catholic." And I think most "Catholics" in Europe would fall into that category.