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.