In a message dated 7/23/2000 10:34:54 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
sentience@pobox.com writes:
> perhaps even perverted - to try and have the culture
>  without the beliefs.  Nowadays, I simply no longer care; religions don't
>  have logic, they just happen.  Even so, I would still claim not to be
>  Jewish
My Russian Namesake loved to poke fun at the whole thing. Like the first 
Spudboy comment, which was a humorous one, people WILL "know" by your last 
name. 
Which Damien points out is silly, but still it happens. Especially in (what's 
the politically correct term for racists these days...hmm... let's see..) 
CULTURALLY DIVERSITY CHALLENGED individuals.
Her last name was Stein. She lived thru the first Russian civil war and 
escaped to Paris, then New York. In New York if your name is Stein, you're 
gonna be considered Jewish. My other friend who's name is Cohen has strange 
ladies wlk up to her in stores,  & ask her if she'd like to meet their son. ; 
- ) ...no seriously..
Nadine Stein would often say "I'm a Jew, but I'm atheist, yet Jewish means 
religious, how can that be?" and laugh. She also was extremely vocal about 
being an atheist who celebrated Christmas, Easter, Halloween, anything. She 
would say "I love to celebrate! Any excuse to celebrate is a good thing."
Note: She dies in 1987 @ 97 years, -mostly by calorie reducing/lowering 
(though not through 'early life starvation' she was a normal weight until she 
was 75ish, and she always ate butter and good quality meats) she just ate 
smaller and smaller amounts as she got older - I think she would have made it 
longer, but she was diabetic). 
She also ALWAYS used to say to me, "By the time I get old enough to die they 
will have found a cure for that". She really did believe that. That's where I 
first heard of technology providing immortality. That's why it has never 
seemed 'weird' or "unethical" to me, I'd been hearing about it since I was a 
baby.
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