Judaism (you knew it was coming, right?)
So, the last pre/post shows got me thinking. I guess this is a question for Greg. I know very little about Judaism, so excuse me if I come across as extremely ignorant. I could google this stuff, but I'd still get a hundred different opinions, and I prefer to have the opinion of people I have a "feel" for. It's easier to contextualise it that way.
OK, so Judaism has no afterlife? My immediate thought was "where's the big stick then"? Most religions I know of seem to maintain belief out of fear. Even if people don't admit that to themselves, the reason for obeying some invisible dude who never proves (or even leaves the tiniest smidge of evidence for) his existence, and hands down commandments via the medium of very old, mistranslated, and conveniently unverifiable stories was simple. Fear. If you fail, you MIGHT go to hell, but if you succeed, you'll PROBABLY go to heaven. Also convenient, since nobody can send an email back from the pearly gates saying "awesome choir of angels doing Metallica's One acapella, and I just got laid by 144 virgins. Wish you were here. Love, dead John".
Why would Jews obey their god? Just because he asked them to nicely? Or is it fear of punishment in the here and now? The celebration of life thing is cool. Is that the key? The big bully god will make life suck if you don't do what he says?
Anyway, feel free to turn this into a flamefest - it's been ages since we have had one, and I don't mind what you guys call me. ;) I'm serious in wanting to know what makes Jews continue to follow their religion though, I promise I'm not trolling. I was thinking about Jeff's statement, which also rang very true for me, that after you've met people of different creeds and cultures it's very hard to maintain prejudices. NZ is quite good like that, since most of the world seems to send representatives here to live! The average school classroom looks like one of those posters for multicultural acceptance. Anyway, it made me think that if we took religion (which is intentionally divisive - "my values are right, yours are wrong") out of the loop, then prejudice would be dealt a massive blow at the same time. I like that idea.
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There's a quick answer, and
There's a quick answer, and a long answer. The quick answer suffices, but the long answer embellishes.
Quick answer: Marketing.
Long answer: Look at the approximate amount of people following religions today, according to that bastion of all that is factual, Wikipedia:
Christianity: 1.9 Billion
Islam: 1.1 Billion
Judaism: 14 Million
There's a pretty huge discrepancy there. And part of the reason, as you identified, is Judaism doesn't have the "hook" that those other two provide. Oh sure, there have been interpretations of Judaism that mesh somewhat with the whole "afterlife" idea, but those are some out there Kaballah nonsense stuff. Most Jewish religious scholars note that quite specifically, there is no afterlife in the Jewish texts. Which means, no Heaven. It also means no Hell. So there's no infinite torture when you die, either. You die, that's it.
Now Judaism is arguably the first monotheistic religion, at least the first one to take hold, and one could in theory see how it would make more sense to an uneducated bronze-age person - and certainly be easier to follow - that there's just one god who does everything instead of a hard to memorize and overtly complicated pantheon of gods. So Judaism's original hook was, hey, it's easy. And it's pretty apparent in the texts (forgive me, those of you who believe in the literal truth of the Bible) that the stories were all geared towards obeying authorities unconditionally, and in most cases the priesthoods in those societies were the upper class and the rulers. So they had the good life.
Then along came Christianity and in addition to usurping the Jewish texts, they added this whole new dimension - become a Christian and you get to live forever! That whole death thing? Don't worry about it. Unless you don't believe! Then you get nothing but pain and torture, not for a little while, but for ever and ever and ever. Brilliant marketing strategy, that. It caught on.
Islam came around after a series of conquests in the middle ages and is more or less an extension of fundamentalist Christianity with a slightly different face. The rewards in the afterlife are more spelled out (although there is some argument on the point) and its success is mostly due to middle ages military success in spreading, as well as the fact that during a great period of the middle ages, the Arab world was the absolute center of modern philosophical thinking. At least till they declared math evil and the work of the devil. Go figure.
Most Jews that are around today (particularly of the American persuasion) are of the secular variety, that appreciate not necessarily the overall religious truth of their respective texts but the sense of community and insularity that the Jewish culture entails. There's no proselytizing in mainstream Jewish culture. For instance, go to a church or a mosque and say you want to convert, and they'll start you off on the path right away. Go to a synagogue and try the same thing, and the very first thing a rabbi will try to do is convince you not to convert. If after all that you still want to convert, it's a long, arduous process involving learning Hebrew and a whole bunch of other stuff. Ask anyone who converted for, for instance, the purpose of marriage. It's not an easy thing to do.
And the whole insular nature of the Jewish community is part of its strength (why people stick with it) as well as part of its downfall (why people look upon Jews with suspicion) because it seems to be some sort of exclusive club with people thinking "hey, we're better than you." And in some cases, in some people's minds, it is. In most people's minds, it's just that feeling of belonging that the brain so desires.
There's no question that Christianity and Islam have better hooks, with the whole afterlife thing. So what is the hook on Judaism? The community aspect, and that's about it. I dunno, maybe that Madonna Kaballah shit, too.
This is, again, from a non-religious scholar, but that's my interpretation.
Wow
Thanks Greg, awesome answer, and makes a lot of sense. I was saying NZ was very multicultural, but I realised I don't know a single Jew. I've never understood the whole "anti Jew" thing that pervades (what I see of) American culture. This clarifies it a bit. I do wonder why there's not such antipathy towards, say, Freemasons, or some of the weird exclusive christian sects. Maybe they have better marketing people? ;)