i have come up with a brief summary of my system of belief. i am very proud of it, because if is concise but, to me, says a lot.
here it is.

I am a spiritual atheist.

I don't believe in a supernatural deity or

any for of God, but rather that

the Universe itself is so essentially unfathomable

as to become a mystical entity

of its own.

bored angels

in all honesty, heaven sounds like a drag. eternal life in a land of perfection, where nothing goes wrong and there is nothing to remind you why life is good. perfection, being the norm, would become mediocrity! there would be no surprises, no progress. and worst of all, nothing better to aspire to. it would be like being a millionaire with no possibility of running out of money. you can always have whatever you want, so you get no thrill in a purchase. you are immediately gratified in your desires, and you have everything you need, so there is no anticipation of pleasure. there is no benefit in having more money, as you have an unending supply, so there is nothing to work for. your life is directionless and insipid, though everyone who sees you thinks you must be the happiest person on earth. Without the possibility for improvement and anticipation of something better, their can be no joy in the moment. without knowing what it is to be sad, an angel could never recognize their own bliss.

homosexuality. it was a sin in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah because it was the embodiment of pure lust. in that city, there was no love, there was no reproduction, it was simply selfish pleasure however they could get it. however, these sins of the flesh were equally heinous between men and women. the sin lay, not in who the sex was with, but in its loveless and lascivious nature. however, from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (along with some other quotes, i know, but largely this) people have deduced that all homosexual relations are sinful. I would argue, however, that homosexuality is not a sin so much as meaningless sex is a sin. if sex is not just pleasure, but the embodiment of it's better term, making love, than whether between a man and a woman or two of the same gender, it is not sin. and about the argument that homosexual sex is pointless as it doesn't create a child, I would like to argue that most heterosexual sex it's for the purpose of making a baby, but rather to enhance the bond between you and your partner and the express the love you feel for them. this is true also for homosexual couples, and is just as important. also, while they cannot physically create a baby, many homosexual couples adopt children, so the bond which love making helps to nurture is just as important as with straight couples.

i know several people who say that having the feelings of homosexuality is not a sin, but acting on them is. I say that feeling love is never a sin, and sex is only sinful if it is done without love, and then it is sinful no matter who you do it with.

This is an angry post. I'm sorry if I offend anybody.

to put off happiness in this world in favor of a promise of happiness in the next. This idea terrifies me. To have so much faith in achieving the destination that you're willing to sacrifice the journey seems to me ridiculous. I'm not talking about general morality and "being a good person", I'm talking about painful, life altering sacrifices made for the sake of getting to heaven. Not following goals, pursuing dreams, or accepting love because "it is against the service of God". Who is to say whether or not God would approve? the bible writers? they aren't god, they don't know what He/She would think. Passion and love are virtues, and a life half lived is a life wasted. I cant think that any kind God would want its creations to live in fear, plotting and planning all their life, not on how to best improve their world by being the best they can be, but on how to get into heaven.

I loved Red, and I really wish I could have been there for the discussion. I liked its take on morality, and on who judges right and wrong. Particularly the scene in which Valentine was going to tell the neighbor wife that her husband was having a homosexual affair. At first she seems to be in the right, it is good to tell a wife her husband is having an affair, it is the moral decision. Then she gets to the house, and morals are turned upside down. Telling the truth would not be a charitable service to the family, but a selfish act to make herself feel better. Valentine enters believing the generally accepted morals that truth is good and deceit bad, but she leaves seeing that the world is a much more complicated place than that. The family survives on self deceit, as clearly the daughter knows about her father's affair. They choose to live life ignoring its imperfections, so to undermine that structure would be wrong.
I also like the ex judge who spends his retirement questioning whether he deserved the authority to judge. He was put in a position to determine right and wrong, but he realized that his decision is no less biased than that of anyone else, that no judgement is free of fault. The judge may condemn in hatred and the model , one of the most beautiful women in France, is lonely and in an abusive relationship. No situation is straight forward, no person is as they seem, and there can be no single truth.

the hands of God, or just a cloud?

Looking at the Pollock paintings in class made me think about the human drive to find meaningful images in non-representational or non meaningful objects. On the surface it is a silly thing to do, a figment of the imagination taking a panel of paint squiggles and turning them into a scene with human forms and a story. Our discussion in class, however, reminded me of an article I read in the Kohler bathroom about seeing images in clouds or faces in potato chips. The image above is a photograph of clouds that many people believe to be the hands of God reaching down to earth. The article stated that it was evolutionarily stable to recognize faces and objects everywhere, even in unlikely places. For example, if you think you see something that could be a face in the leaves of a dense forest, it is best to run. If you were wrong, you're none the worse. If you were right, you're not dead. Thus the gene for recognizing or imagining faces and images grows in the gene pool. Nowadays that has spread to not just recognizing potential dangers, but seeing things everywhere. The seed for abstract recognition was planted, and as we evolved it expanded.

modesty: sin or virtue?

Adam and eve were punished for developing a sense of shame and modesty. Covering their naked bodies was a sign of their disobedience to God, their "fall". Why is it then that nowadays the stereotypical "preachy Christian" is an image of a woman covered in clothing, from her large flowered hat to her stockinged, high heeled shoes, scolding america's youth for their immodesty. 'where is your shame!' she might say. Where indeed? And if shame is so abhorent to God as to make him kick out adam and eve, why is it so desireable today? I know that, nowadays, nudity wouldn't be the same as it was for adam and eve. we are aware of our nudity, they weren't. I just find it ironic that things went from nudity being the "ultimate good" to fully covered from head to toe being the "ultimate good".

just a thought.

Meditation

I have yet to talk about the meditation. I would like to describe what I felt in the meditation, and the process with which I personally approached it. It is a process with which I am rather familiar. My brother taught me to meditate years ago and I've sporadically practiced it since then. Every time is different for me, but I have specific ground rules which help me stay in the game. I can’t think about my plans for the day, I can’t think about mundane things. I can’t "make the gestures of profound thought", which is a frequent danger for me. I am a very dramatic girl, so the temptation is to skip the first part, in which I calm down and clear my head, and skip right to the "deep thoughts" part. This results in tawdry and cliché "revelations" that reveal nothing of my real thoughts and can ruin an entire meditation. My particular attempt at meditation in class was unusually successful. As usual, I started out focusing on my body. I stretched, I practiced deep breathing, and I attempted to relax every muscle in my body. This made me hyper aware of my actions. I focused on the feel of air moving in my lungs and diaphragm, I moved my joints around, and I relaxed facial muscles that I hadn't even realized I had. Then I looked at my skin. The patterns of it, its texture, its color. I knew that my fingertips had a pattern, but I looked at the whole hand. I have a swirl on the upper pad of my left hand, but a loop on the right. The entire thing looked like the surface of a lake, with currents and waves. Skin brought me to a whole new level of self awareness, and pushed me into a scientific mindset and then a religious one. Because I had allowed myself so much focus, I released myself to "ridiculous thoughts". I stopped controlling my mind and just let it wander without censure or regulation. I even allowed myself to think about God as a reality. I took down my assumption that didn't exist, and thought as if I thought it did.
Here is what I thought in a rambling and nonsensical fashion. Feel no need to read this; I just don’t want to forget it.

Why do people believe in a soul? People don’t think of themselves as their bodies. We are our thoughts, our beliefs, and our actions. We are something different from our bodies, because, even after we are gone, our bodies are still here. If our bodies can stay when we're gone, we must be something different. But then why does god look like a man, why does he have a body? God never leaves his body- he is ONLY thought and intention, so why does he need the shell that humans have to house their real selves? If god is purely what we are inside, then god must be pure soul- he is soul embodied. If god is a soul, then how does he make souls? Souls must then, be an extension of him. God is pure energy, bodies are pure matter. The soul within the body- the thing that makes us human- is an extension of god's soul within each individual.

It was a good meditation and I came up with new ideas and a new idea of how to look at god which meshes well with my life force view of deism.

Atheism at last

Thank heavens we finally talked about atheism! In a class about religion, many people take it for granted that atheism need not be discussed. After all, many see it as religion's antithesis- the absence of God must mean an absence of religion. And don’t all atheists proudly and adamantly declare themselves religion free? There are so many misconceptions about atheism, that it is often completely excluded from the realm of belief. I'm hoping with this blog, not necessarily to explore what atheism is, because that is different for everyone, but to solidify what I believe it is not.
Atheism is not something you believe because you are afraid of to believe in God or because you don’t have the faith to believe in a God. Atheism is not a fall back or an act of cowardice. Atheism, like every religion, requires strength of conviction, faith and inner reflection. It isn't easy to believe we're alone in this universe, that there is no loving entity watching out for us all. It isn't easy, when faced with troublesome times, to have to rely on your own strength and the love of friends and family. And it isn't easy having to believe that some things happen without a purpose and without an explanation- that sometimes things just happen for absolutely no reason. None of that is easy. But as an atheist I face those difficulties because my beliefs require them. Every religion comes with its corresponding trials and tribulations, but people pull through them because they are dedicated to their beliefs, and find the fulfillment that provides to overcome the discomfort they may feel.
Also, the idea that atheists don’t believe in a god because they want to escape moral judgment is, to me, completely false. If I wanted to be immoral, I could do it just as easily as a Christian as I could an atheist, because whichever belief I subscribe to, I will have the same sense of guilt knowing I'm doing wrong. Atheists are just as moral as anyone else, but we have to monitor ourselves. Our motivation to behave morally must come from an inner desire to behave, not a fear of punishment from God. For example, in many small shops on College Ave, there are signs saying "these dressing rooms are monitored by God" or something along those line. Clearly, they are reminding people to behave morally by invoking the guilt associated with disobeying the bible. The same approach is used in court (so help me God) etc. As an atheist, I don’t have this omnipresent reminder to behave, with role models, stories, punishments and reward all laid out for me. I have to rely on my own strength of will.
It is not true that atheists have no metaphysical beliefs or that they only believe in proven scientific facts. While I don’t see the world as created by or controlled by a god, my entire creation story and my ideas on how the world continues to function is based on blind faith. Almost none of the theories I support are or ever can be proven, and most of them are just as awe-inspiring, beautiful and utterly impossible to ever fully comprehend as is an idea of a god. For example, the idea of other dimensions or string theory. Both are possible and could help explain the world as we see it, but they are so wonderfully complex that I can sit for hours just trying to wrap my mind around them and finish with no more certainty of their truth, but feeling as if the world is a more beautiful place and that I am more fulfilled for attempting to understand it. For me, thinking about the universe and the very fact that I will never fully understand it is like meditation, prayer and study all in one.
Atheism is not an escape from belief, but an alternative one. I find my religious satisfaction in observing and contemplating the world I see around me and the world I can imagine instead of a world of God. I suppose you could say that the world is my God, and my morals and metaphysical needs are fulfilled by exploring it.

I am writing about a Wicca website for my website review, and learning more about this religion has made me think about some new things. Wicca is arguably one of the oldest, or one of the newest religions. It is a rejuvenation of ancient, pre-Christian pagan beliefs, but it only appeared as "Wicca" in 1954. Today, Wicca is largely regarded as a "weird" religion; people mistake their practices for devil worshipping, and are confused or afraid of their "magick", spells and potions. Yet, in spite of the hardships in believing, Wicca has many faithful followers. It seems that all new religions go through this aggressive period. People look at the beliefs, so incredibly different from their own, and say "how could anyone believe that? It's nonsensical, it's impossible, it's just plain wrong." And some of the new religions do look a little ridiculous. Scientology, for example, ardently believe that aliens stuck to our bodies are the cause of many of our problems. However, in a time when, in Rome, religion consisted of many powerful Gods, each watching over a specific aspect of your life- how strange and cult like it must have seemed to suddenly have a group of people dedicating their lives to a man with no religious experience- a carpenter, nothing more! who is saying that none of the Roman Gods exist, there is only one God, and that he happens to be that Gods son? I would never believe it! All religion is nonsensical, because it requires a leap of faith. There has to be something amazing about it, or nothing will separate it from the hum drum of daily life. the only difference between Christianity and Wicca are what leaps of faith they make. talking to a big guy in the sky, hoping he'll help you out is just as "weird" as appealing to the spirit of the earth by using plant spirits to make helpful potions. And on Scientology...I don't know, maybe in a thousand years Ron Hubbard will be the new Jesus, and Isaac Hayes (the voice of Chef in South Park) will be one of his disciples.

Secular Vs Religion- who calls the shots

In class we discussed whether religion shapes, conforms to or has a symbiotic relationship with societal change. We all seemed to take one position and argue that, if one were true, the others must be false. This to me is a misguided assumption. Religion is not one single thing, but a title given to a wide variety of beliefs, rules and assumptions. Some aspects of religion are fluid and changeable over time, while others are more foundational and solid. Religion and secular culture exist, not only with parts of the other. In these clashes between the two "teams", you could consider each to be divided into thousand of little "battalions", each one comprised of one ritual or belief or norm. If a strong, solid religious belief comes into conflict with a fluid, unsteady secular one (such as the evil religious symbolism of devils horns clashing with an up and coming trend of wearing them to dinner parties) then the religious battalion will win. However, when strong secular beliefs class with shaky religious references, then secular culture will win (the 1920's desire for female liberation overriding the biblical requirements of modesty in dress and behavior). Yes, occasionally religion causes enormous, spectacular changes in secular culture and thus completely reshapes a new society (the founding of America) but then secular drives and beliefs do that too (Lutheranism). It is impossible to overriding say that "religion shapes secular culture" or "religion conforms to secular changes", because they are constantly changing each other.

Fitting the glove to the hand, or the hand to the glove

Do religious texts reflect the world, or shape it? How much does writing make the morals so.The bible has created scores of rules and taboos that, before its creation, society lived without. For example, the condemnation of homosexuality. Homosexuals had been socially acceptable in many of the countries that, after Christianity, condemned it- such as Rome. Was this a product of public needs and sentiments, or was it the sentiments of the small group of bible writers who then riled the rest of the people? How many of our "intrinsic moral instincts" would exist without religious systems guiding our thought?
I grew up without the immediate presence of any religious text, but have recently had the privilege of discussing my world views with a devout Christian woman. The conversation showed me how essentially a religious text can change the way you see the world. It changes the way you develop ideas about what's "normal" or "acceptable", and with or without a book, it can be very difficult to make judgement calls. My friend sees the world through a lens that deeply includes the contents of the bible, but it is very hard to come to terms with the fact that, sometimes, she disagrees with it. I see her going through an internal struggle, trying to both follow the contents of his bible and remain true to herself. Unlike my friend, I have no book laying my guidelines before me. This can make it difficult to be confident in my moral choices, however, it saves me the tribulation of trying to bring my own beliefs to terms with a book that I'm supposed to follow faithfully. I wonder how many people in the world twist and reshape their own beliefs to fit their faith, repressing ideals or resisting acceptance because the writers of the bible, two thousand years ago, tell them that something is wrong.

The discussion in class about kebra negast took me by surprise. In reading, I had missed most of the intentions of the text and its underlying intention of including Ethiopia in the christian history. I had seen it as a somewhat bizarre and inconsistent story about the goodness of Solomon and how he spread his righteous seed. It had seemed to me a very strange story, but I accepted my interpretations because it fit with many of my assumptions of what religious stories are: a little nonsensical, a little strange, but you just have to take them as a moral and ignore the counter intuitive details.
However, my interpretation was entirely wrong. Instead of searching for meaning in the text, I passed it off simply because it was religious. It is this prejudice that I'm trying to battle in this class. We looked beyond the surface of the text, like the Torah's garment, to the moral, political and social motivations of the text. I am too quick to label something as "justifying the desired status quo" (aka, genesis justifying sexism and domination of the earth) or as political jargon to control a faithful public. When I make these decisions I often stop thinking, satisfied that I understand enough. I'm learning my lesson, though, and in future readings I will think harder before I dismiss the text out of hand.

The Contradictions of King Solomon

After reading the first part of kebra nagast, I'm left a little confused. the first half was almost all a dry recital of lineage and factual history. so and so ruled over so and so, this son was followed by this son... a list, more than a lesson! And then the second half spent so much time detailing the virtue of King Solomon, his wisdom and trust in God, but then he turns around a tricks a virgin queen into only semi-consensual sex! The story is clearly meant to promote wisdom through the knowledge and obedience to God, yet that message seems to be constantly contradicted within the text. Solomon justifies sleeping with a thousand women by saying that his actions are not caused by lust, and that his sons will fulfill god's commands throughout the land. However, he clearly demonstrates lust toward the queen and actively plots to sleep with her against her will. his intentions were not virtuous, nor his means. He made an oath not to sleep with her against her will in exchange to her oath not to steal anything from his palace. Then he plotted for her to be thirsty, plotted for her to unwittingly break her oath y drinking water, and plotted for her to want the water badly enough that she would agree to let him break his oath in return. As a woman, I'm not really digging this guy as god's chosen sage!

Also, it really bugs me when people in stories all of a sudden make radical world changing decisions, at the drop of a hat. The queen decided that she would never again worship her gods, that her entire life's religion was false. And then at the end she decides that queen shouldn't rule, but only sons should? Sounds like a religious post facto explanation of the loss of matriarchal rule. Surprise surprise that patriarchy came to her land at the same time Christianity did. That's something that always frustrates me when I read these texts, is the unjustified enormous decisions that are presented as being justified and reasonable simply because they are "inspired by god". If I'm going to read a book about a divine intervention into the existence of an entire society, I want more detail than simply stating "henceforward a man who is of thy seed shall reign, and a woman shall nevermore reign". I don't need to know what happened, I want to know why, and how God could possibly have been involved.

Religion and music

Yesterday in choir rehearsal, we were singing the Brahms requiem, movement V. I've been singing this all term and liked it, but not really deeply connected with the text. But yesterday our director, Mr. Bjella, had us take a moment to think about the Virginia tech tragedy, and the music hit home in a way that amplified both it and the event.

You now are sorrowful;

grieve not: I will again behold you,

and then your heart shall be joyful,

and your joy shall no one take from you.

Look upon me:

I suffered for a little time;

toil and labor were mine;

and I have found, at last, comfort.

I will give you comfort,

as one whom his own mother comforts.

I started crying for the students who were killed, as it hadn't occured to me to cry before. The music became so meaningful, the idea of heaven so comforting. It made me feel closer to everyone around me, closer to the victims, none of whom I knew. It was a moment of understanding for me. This is what religion can provide. Community, comfort, faith that the tragedies of the world aren't quite so bad as they seem, and that you will see your loved ones again. But what I found most interesting was that, even to one outside the music's assumed religious group, it provides that same comfort. With or without the religious beliefs, music has the power to unite people and to intensify emotion. This must be why it plays such a huge role in religious ritual, from tibetan monks to amazing grace. Music can be its own religion.

In alex's post "Defining Religion", he questions the possiblity of living an entirely non-religious life. "Does religion dictate humanity or does humanity dictate religion?"

This is a question that I also ask. I do not belong to a religion, but I have very distinct morals and beliefs. Alex seems to identify this as a form of religion, and indeed it does match one of his six quoted definitions of religion, number six:
"Something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience: [i.e.] to make a religion of fighting prejudice."

However, when is something religion, and when is it just a way you choose to live? My particular spirituality is more involved with realizing and standing in awe of the very fact that chance and evolution allowed everything to exist, and that there's no possible way for us to know what is going on outside our little world. It could be best described, I suppose, as an awe of science and the way things are. These beliefs are not directly involved with morality, there is no diety telling me what's right and wrong or offering sage advice in its example. My morals are designed to help me lead a life without hurting myself or others, and to grow up respected and loved and respecing and loving others. They are created to suit my individual life and updated as I grow. Thus I dont fit with any of the other definitions of religion, all of which center around adhering to a predetermined set of morals.

I would argue that morality is not purely the realm of the religious. It is possible to have morals and beliefs without attributing them to any supernatural or higher power. To live without religion would not mean "not having guidelines of any kind to living." as Alex argues, it would simply mean that these guidelines are not spiritual.

At the center of Monday's discussion was the idea that all of religious texts can be boiled down or simplified to a basic rule by which you interpret all the rest of the text, and thus the entire religion. This idea is appealing, and it seems to make sense. One religion, one set of morals, one message: love=good, lust/egotism=bad. the problem lies in the fact that one religion isn't a unified item. It is an evolving set of ideas developed over hundreds or thousands of years by people with different world views and different interpretations of the text that came before. To try to take the huge mass of parables and lessons and advice from so many people over so much time and turn it into one all encompassing message is utterly impossible. Aside from this, it undermines the purpose of the text itself. Religious texts show the evolution of the beliefs; they provide the insight of hundreds of faithful believers, it shows the development of societies, the changing of morals. We should embrace the contradictions we find in the text as natural reshaping of the religious beliefs instead of an abstract puzzle laid before us by God. It is vital to remember that, while it was written by men who deeply believed in and followed God, religious texts are still written by men, with all of their faults and humanity. Thus, it is ridiculous to try to strain out an "interpretive rule" to tell you which parts of the bible are literal or metaphorical, because violence may just have been violence, not symbolism for "defeating sin". you cannot find the answer to God's rule in your bible. you can only find man's interpretation of that rule, and it's going to vary from person to person, from story to story, and from book to book.

"You can't draw lines or die while trying to defend them. You find yourself in a circumstance where, as Lear puts it, "the very acts themselves have ceased to make sense."
the goals or ends of the Crow way of life have been made impossible. The result is a kind of confusion, mingled with shame. As one Crow woman said in the aftermath: 'I am trying to live a life I do not understand.'"

This whiplash in finding yourself suddenly without cultural guidelines, in a world where all of your beliefs are made unapplicable, has always been unbearable. And it has been going on for thousands of years. The conquering of a people, the destruction of their dieties and attempting to assimilate survivors into your own society. Eventually, however, there came a time when leaders wanted to switch their own religions and ways of live - switch cultures. they couldn't slaughter their own people, and they wanted to switch to be smooth and relatively painless. Such was the case in the Roman transition to Christianity. Like the native american chief, who used a central part of his own culture- the profet dream- to smoothly transition to westernization, romans adapted pagan holidays and rituals, such as the spring festival, into their new religion. Religion as we know it is shaped by the need to prevent whiplash. to keep ones citizens from feeling like they are "trying to live a life [they] don't understand".
This fluidity in religious/cultural beliefs I believe is the best way to be. Allowing rules to change with the times so your beliefs keeps up with your renewed understanding. If you dont cement your culture, if you follow Coups example of adaptation, you hold more of a chance of surviving with the core of your beliefs intact, instead of being torn apart because you wouldn't let go of the details. "We have encouraged an identity, a self-definition, of which the core is the ability to 'reinvent' ourselves". Many see this as a defect, a cop out modernization of good religion. But I see it more from Coup's point of view. It's a smooth transition to a new world. you dont know exactly what's coming, but your bending with the times, and thus your core, for lack of strain, will hold strong.

In lamentations, God punishes Jerusalem with such a ruthless force that anyone could easily look on him as an enemy to the city. It is difficult to see it otherwise. He brings enemies to the city, drives mothers to cannibalism and slaughters an entire city. It is easy to ask, "How could this God love these people? How could he want the best for them?" And yet this story isn't just about Gods power and his vengeance, it is also an example of his love. He was "like an enemy" but not one, because he had the good of their souls at heart.
At its core, this is a story about hope. Hope that whatever happens, so matter how terrible, how far you seem to have fallen from grace, that god has a higher plan and the good of you soul in mind. That he will give you another chance. "the lord is good to those who wait for him...it is good for one to bear the yoke in silence when the lord has imposed it...for the lord will not reject forever. Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone. (Lamentations "3:25-3:33)
In the early days of Christianity, the extremes found in Gods biblical punishments were not uncommon in the real world. Famine, war, murder- they were all real occurrences and people needed explanations and reassurance that it wouldn't happen to them, or that it would end. No doubt the Lamentations is an explanation of the fall of a real city; all stories have their basis in fact. The comfort of the story is that is was Jerusalem's fault, for they had sinned. And their punishment would end when God felt it was the right time.

I believe that Ellen Frisbie's post Religion and Spirituality in Prehistory is an excellent way of thinking about the difference between paleolithic spirituality and the later organized religion. Before the creation of symbolic language, it would have been almost impossible to communicate the deeply abstract and personal views on "religion." Each would have ideas based on their own life experiances and they would not be able to fully express the details of these ideas to each other. With the invention of language came the ability to spread a single personals ideas, in full, to others.
Ellen's idea of the change between individual focused the group focused is also interesting. at first is seemed semi counterintuitive. wouldn't one be focused on a group while struggling to survive and relying on each other for the hunt, and then self focused in the comparative surety and safety of a city? but no. after greater thought, one is focused purely on survival and how others immediately relate to you in pre-settlement times. once you live in a city, you all relly on each other not just for raw survival, but as a solid identity when you encounter another group. Also, specialization takes away the autonomy of the individual. it needs the group now to achieve it's task. survival is no longer an individual option.

religion originally helped to seperate people into their tribal groups, to establish who is "us" and who is "them". This was neccessary for territorial and reasons and to help decide who should share the resources of your tribe. But in a modern world where any one person has multiple identities and belongs to many "tribes", how should religion come into play? Many modern religions have rules and regulations which may come directly in conflict with one's other beliefs, and religious identity may clash with one's other interests and identities. Which identity should win out, trump your other "tribes", and determine in who's pack you belong?

While I imaging that most people see this question as overly simplistic and "black and white", thinking that surely a civilized person may have more than one identity, that society can handle a degree of uncertainty, but when I look around me, I see that this is not quite true. It is a matter of enormous difficulty, for example, to identify as both a Catholic and a homosexual. They are both identities, each have a respective group and a respective set of conflicting expectations and stereotypes which are hard for the public to ignore. While an individual may grow to be comfortable with their conflicting beliefs and shape them in order to make them fit, this tailoring is not so easy of the rest of their groups. With membership in a group, their is an expectation that they will follow the same rules, share the same general beliefs. If one member is cutting and reshaping those beliefs, is he or she still part of the group? How does one decide, in this modern day where choice is possible, where loyalties lie? Religion is no longer our only way of defining beliefs, but it still holds enormous force and to alter it often surprises or angers its members. The example of extreme Catholics and homosexuals is particularly obvious, because often if a member of the catholic "tribe" finds out another member is homosexual, they attempt to "save" that person, thus removing them from the homosexual tribe, or they cast them out of the catholic group. Either way removes the conflict. In general, People no matter how modern and civilized we are, want their beliefs to be unchallenged and untwisted. One cannot be on both the red team and the blue team. You must choose. In this way our civilizations and social choices have evolved much, much faster than our capacity for understanding.

Metaphor. I learned about it in middle school englishclass, in our poetry unit. "he's a tiger on the field", said Ms. Athorn. "this is not to be confused with 'he's like a tiger on the field', which is a simile". I thought this was neat and wrote my little class poem, but i didn't think very deeply about the implications of this seemingly simple language tool. The idea of metaphor, after all, was nothing new. I had grown up with it, though I hadn't known its name. Nothing was ever what it appeared to be, especially for imaginative little me. I was famous for "metaphorical outfits", each articel representing something different- a feeling or a season. As you can imagine, these fashion artworks results were garishly clashing and tragically incomprehansible to anyone but myself. But I deeply understood their significance. Every child takes this ability for metaphor for granted. It's only natural that a stick should be a sword, a rocking horse a noble steed. But it is this ridiculous ability that seperates humans from the rest of the animals.

When an animals looks at the world, it sees necessities: food, shelter, mate, predator. It sees things for their immediate significance and reacts accordingly: eat, strut or run. Beyond that, they dont try to explain or compare the world around them. Humans see the world as more than what it is. We draw connections between what they experience, connections which are not at first obvious. This ability helped us to hunt more creatively, with weapons that might not even look like weapons to an animal. it requires metaphorical thinking to see a string on a stick as a weapon, but the bow and arrow provides more forward thrust than any arm could, and allows it from a safe distance. It also gives us art and religion and religion and myth. These are the keystones of our being, so it's hard to imagine any intelligent species, especially one so closely resembling our own, not having the ability to think this way. However, we have to remember that the entire world lives that way- seeing the world for what it is and how it immediately effects them. While we percieve our way of life to be better, we are only capable of judging from our own standard, in which the presense of religion, excess and unncessary food, and art, which is fundamentally inpractical, play a central role. Ours is a beautiful and leisurly life compared to the animals, and we enjoy that. But we have to remember that everything else in the world is happy the way they are. So dont pity the Neanderthals, because they're judging by a different standard, and they're doing great.

Margaret Rhatican refered to the snake in genesis as the devil, using information from her new testament. It is important to keep seperate the original texts and stories with which we are currently dealing and the way they were interpreted and used later. In Genesis, the snake is not the devil, it is merely temptation. Those are seperate. While temptation was later associated with the devil, the devil was not invented until much later when they needed him to counter other religions like the Roman religion. thus the devils Pseidon "pitchfork" and Pan-like fawn horns and feet. Well, with that image of him at least.

Religion is a tangled web of imagery and political statements. Remember to deal with the imediate text at hand.

The effects of damning.

"Atheism is a form of hiding, hiding from god, from judgment, from prayer"...
This comment was made in class, and on first hearing it I bristled and thought up a hasty retort. "Atheism isn't hiding from god- my reasons for not believing in him have nothing to do with fearing his judgment"... but then I realized that to scrutinize a religion so deeply in class, to pick it apart, to look at it as a social instead of a divine entity, may be just as hard and bristling for a Christian as that comment was for me. So I held my tongue.

Attacking a person’s belief is one of the most effective ways to anger them. At least for me, it puts me on the defensive faster than any other insult. I believe that this is because, generally, people want their beliefs to be relatively stable and secure. No matter how liberal, it is natural to want to be certain of one’s self image, world image and moral values, all of which are deeply affected by religious beliefs. When you say that someone’s beliefs are invalid, or as happened in class, simply a form of cowardice, you call into question the entire way they live their lives, and effectively tell them that their beliefs make them inferior.

I do not intend to focus this post toward that one class comment. My discussion is based largely on my experiences in middle school when a large group of Christians discovered I was an atheist, and began to bully me. They passed me a test they had made quizzing me on “how did the world begin, check one”, and “what happens after you die, a, b or c?” They kicked my chair as they passed and told me I was going to hell. Obviously I was very upset, and my mother and I discussed why they were doing this, why they cared so much that I didn’t believe what they believed. What we decided was this. Their beliefs, how they interpreted the bible, was that only a Christian was a good person, and thus only a Christian should be happy and have good things happen to them. I was very happy, had recently been given the lead in the school musical and me, the sinful atheist, got better grades than they the Christians. I didn’t have to say anything to be questioning their religion; my very happiness went against the rules of who’s allowed to be happy and who’s supposed to be wallowing in sin. I hoped that this petty, childish behavior was just a middle school thing, that once I became a “grown up”, stuff like that would never happen again. Boy was I wrong. The world today is filled with exactly the same nonsense. Too many religions hold the belief that all other religions are wrong and its members damned. That’s a very dangerous belief because it leaves you vulnerable to contradiction every time you see someone of another faith getting something good. If your beliefs are true and god punishes non-believers, shouldn’t they be hit by lightning instead of winning the Nobel Prize? Why did that happen? So many people go around telling people that they’re damned, the damned people turn around and say, “We’re not damned, you are!” Then the entire world starts damning people in a “fire ze missiles” kind of way and everyone gets damned. And no one is happy when their damned.

Response to Daniel Fulton

"I would interpret commercial software as parallelling more formal "book" religion, our religion in boxes. Formal religions often intentionally denounce each other and are "incompatible." There adherence to rules and accepted practice make them slower to change. There is no strong modern parallel to "open source religion." Religious communities exist, but very few consciously work to dynamically change to suit the religious needs of their adherents. What would be necessary for a consciously dynamic religion?"


I thought that this computer metaphor was an excellent parallel, especially about the traditional "book religions" purposefully canceling each other out. I would briefly like to address the question of open source religions. Back home in minneapolis, I sang in the choir of Plymouth Congregational Church for two years. While at first I went to church each sunday suspicious of the congregation and paranoid that they would try to convert me, I quickly realized that this was a flexible and open minded religious community, accepting of other religious beliefs and aware of the fantastical and metaphorical quality of the christian religious texts. They emphasized the unity of world religions and the importance of embracing all beliefs, whether christian, jewish, hindu, atheist, agnostic or wicca. I know that many religions are expanding their views to "comfortably provide religion to the modern educated, open minded individual". They have changed their rules to fit the needs of the consumer and to collaborate with neighboring religions. I think this fits the qualities of an "open source religion".

In todays discussion of "What is Religion", one of the ideas was that religion provides comfort and security and that it explains natural phenomena. By believing that there is "someone up there" watching and taking care of you, one can be certain that everything happens for a reason. Both bad things and good things are earned by the recipiant, so as long as you know and abide by the rules, you can control whether good things or bad things happen to you. The ancient greeks and Romans are perfect examples, offering sacrifices to particular gods when they want something, and blaming someone for offending a god if something bad happens to them. Its a very comfortable way to see the world, to know where everything came from. But that cant be all that religion is, a desire to manipulate a higher power and thus control one's destiny. Though I am an atheist, I am very spiritual, and the connection I feel with my beliefs cannot simply be explained as guidelines to get "good things" instead of bad. With my beliefs comes a sense of fulfulment and wonder that doesn't lie in the security is gives me but rather the unknowns it leaves me to answer.
It seems likely to me that in the earliest days of religion, it's sole purpse was to reassure the believer that they were in control of their fate, that the world wasnt a vehicle of random chance. Evolutionarily, this makes sense-a hunter will be more fearless after performing rituals, the confidence his certaintly gives him will attract a mate. However, today, the evolutionary advantages have become irrevolent, and left the brain with the structures which desire religion, leaving our more complex brains to develope huge societal structures around the originally simple idea of surety. Like Henig's example in "Why Do We Believe", religion is like breasts. Desiring large, full breasts has a definite evolutionary advantage, but that desire has been expanded to be used in unnecesary and unrelated areas such as selling beer. Thus has religion moved away from its original evolutionary motives and been developed into something widespread and incredibly complex. Our brain doesn't even know why it wants it anymore. Like a man watching a beer commercial, it only knows that it looks mighty fine.