There is a horrible arrogance to any being who thinks they are judge and jury to another's faith.

When I expressed that I am a convert to Islam, another poster responded that due to my liberal views I am technically an apostate. Not true!

Well, Judges, all I had to do to become a Muslim was declare my believe in 1 God and acknowledge Muhammad as a Prophet. All Ruth had to do to become Jewish was say Your God is my God and your people my people.

So it would appear that those (usually quite sinful themselves) who get off on judging others have put in writing a most-likely man-made and oppressive and patriarchal myriad of laws for political control and to suppress the masses.

Ignore these Idiots. Faith is between you and your God. What does it matter what these very human and fallible beings think?

To understand how religious hierarchies and political hierarchies seek to repress the masses,
I would recommend to EVERYONE, the amazing eye-opener entitled:

THE CROWD: A Study of the Popular Mind by

Gustave Le Bon

Did not Tamar and Rahab get any credit for professing heart felt conversions? So...Ruth might not be the very first?

You're saying you went to *Coney Island* to post that, JJ?

You got the goods *why* again?

Oooopppsadaisy: CORRECTION: Caption should Read;

'Global PROLITATIAT Party Of the "JOKTAN" Chosen-EBERU-RACE against YE un-Holy "PELEG" Eberu race'

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Note: 'ECLATi(OFF's)', not Allowed to join!

Well, it seems no one's touched this one... I suppose we don't hear too much from those overly familiar with Orthodox Judaism in particular.

I know someone who converted in order to be buried with his wife, that was pretty demanding, and I'm not sure what branch of Judaism was involved.

"With this episode as a backdrop, a question remains – who is Jewish? Or more broadly, what are the standards if someone says I want to be a Catholic, a Buddhist, or a Jew? While not every religion has a supreme court, the underlying question remains the same. Does a person’s faith have to be proven through a lifelong adherence to strict religious law, or is their faith shown by the fact that they are converting in the first place?"

Certainly one might expect one should know the orthodoxy to be orthodox, but I observe there's a lot of variation in different religions as to what constitutes a member. This certainly seems to confuse Christians about what constitutes a Pagan to no end. :) (This is one of those debates within the Pagan community that only goes so far before one can't really lock down a definition any further, (Really just as, in one sense, much as a Christian might broadly accept someone as being a Christian in one sense, then saying they aren't 'real' Christians on another... but people have to get pretty far afield before they aren't considered part of the general dialogue about their divine figures and stuff.) and this is generally, something which works, practice is about a process, not a product to be consumed or some such...

For some faith groups, it's about tradition or practice, primarily, for some, about basically signing on to submit to some authority or other, for others, a body of tradition, for others, about questing, and that seems to be an integral part of the diversity of religions in the world in the first place... Though to some it seems like a competition, there isn't some universal standard of how to draw the lines between said groups.