Bible as Legitimate Source?

There was an interesting in-class discussion about Margaret Fell and her argument for Quaker women speaking in worship services. Relating Fell to Harris caused quite a stir, ultimately it seemed like she, unlike Harris, took passages in context while arguing for a tangible goal. The question came up whether or not it is ever possible to prove anything using the Bible. It seemed like people generally agreed that in taking it as allegory it is possible, but there are various levels of convincing.

I think it’s tricky to legitimately prove anything (besides distinctly religious cases) with the Bible as a primary source. Allegories allow quite a bit of room for interpretation, and nothing is definite because the Bible itself is not composed of facts. The Bible is, however, a respected holy book; when addressing religious issues (like Fell did) it can be used as a legitimate source. She did selectively interpret the Bible, but also addresses how she justifies her arguments with the entirety of the Bible. Margaret Fell ultimately gained much more credibility than Sam Harris because she had an argument and a proposed course of action, for one thing, and she managed to justify her selective interpretation of the Bible, rather than take passages completely out of context and expect them to sound credible.

"Yeh, Holy Mount Zion"

Related to Ethiopian Christianity (Some Ethiopian Christians consider themselves Rastafarian in ideology), Rastafarians also used the Kebra Negast to glorify Ethiopia and its head of state, Haile Selassie (whom they call Jah- God incarnate). It was interesting to read how, initially, Rastafari promoted African supremacy (some still do) rather than equality. However, Selassie explicitly condemned racism in a speech that turned around that movement into more of one of equality.

The lack of structure in the “religion” made it quite interesting to read about. I don’t know if it can be called a religion, as there is no strict doctrine or worldview pressed upon its believers. There is a huge focus on the self, finding inner spirituality through various channels. The use of marijuana as a central aspect for “seeing the light”, and the abstinence from alcohol and meats were also pretty unique aspects of this movement.

I’ve visited the Caribbean a couple times and have been surprised by the huge glorification of Bob Marley (apparent everywhere) both times. My sister had completed a school project on Bob Marley and Rastafarianism shortly before (and she has been obsessed ever since), so she purchased a Bob Marley necklace in a small store (in St. John, V.I.) and the woman shopkeeper spent about 5 minutes discussing the greatness of Bob Marley. It was a lot of fun, my sister was thrilled, and it really stuck out to me as a unique experience to that part of the world. After reading more about Rastafarianism, and listening more closely to Bob Marley’s actual lyrics, I can see why he would be an emblem for the movement.

I can accept the general peace-loving, equality-promoting ideologies as such, but the religious aspects of Rastafarianism (I word I shouldn’t be using) are trickier to codify and declare a “religion”. Though, if considering the overlying frame definition of religion, this definitely qualifies as a frame for ones life, a way to live.

Trick or Agreed?

Reading chapters 1-33 of the Kebra Negast, I was struck by how it relates many of the same stories as the Old Testament of the Bible and, in doing so, how it often references the Bible. Ultimately, the meat of this book- the detailed explanation of the Tabernacle, the description of the Solomonic line of kings and the conversion of Ethiopia to Orthodox Christianity is unique to the Kebra Negast.

Even after the discussion of these chapters in class, I have a (slightly more tempered, but still) negative view of Solomon. I can accept his polygamy, because that generally accepted in his culture, but his blatant manipulation of the Queen of Sheba into sleeping with him is still difficult to justify. If Solomon was not supposed to be an all-good, just and fair spiritual leader to his people, his unfair tactics could be shrugged off as human weakness. In all other facets of life he is hardly equated to your average human, so why in this does he display a flaw? Perhaps it could be argued that it is not weakness, but his strength and cunning that enables his trickery in the first place. I do not see that. It was either basic human lust or the desire for a perfect male heir via the Queen that tempted him to act deceitfully.

Moving beyond what exactly King Solomon’s actions were, perhaps in relating his manipulation of the Queen of Sheba in such a way gave people faith that men still held sway over women. Their culture could continue unimpeded by a strong-willed seemingly indomitable queen.

It could be argued, however, that it was strongly implied in the Kebra Negast that the queen did actually want to sleep with Solomon (considering she was so enamored by him), and the deceit was only on the surface, beneath that there was complete consent from both parties. In that case, the Queen of Sheba’s indomitability would not be in question and no sex (male/female) issues need be raised.

The fact that the King of Solomon desires a male heir with the Queen of Sheba could be considered perfectly natural and appropriate a desire for him to possess. Maybe this in no way undermines his kingliness.

As I have established no real conclusion, perhaps I shouldn’t end here, but this could be argued ceaselessly without conclusion, it is so fascinating.

Chickadee-y Allegory

I am opting not to comment on the Harris reading, as my post would most likely digress into an angry rant, of sorts. Instead, I'm going to discuss "A Different Kind of Courage", or at least what the brief New York Times review had to say about it. While rereading the review of "A Different Kind of Courage" (after having read “Conceptual Blending” and the Zohar), I was struck by how easily Plenty Coups' actions can be related to conceptual blending or allegory.

When Plenty Coups and the rest of his Crow tribe were relocated to reservations, he took initiative by using traditional practices and blending them into the Crows’ new, foreign situation. He used the ancestral custom of going into nature to seek revelation through dreams to convey to his people what they needed to do. Plenty Coups' "dream" told of the end of the old Crow way of life, but also promised a sort of survival, provided they could listen "like the chickadee". The chickadee "had an established position in traditional Crow life", so the blending of this traditional symbol and practice (of seeking revelation through dreams) with the message to cooperate enabled other Crow to accept Plenty Coups’ proposal without a lot of difficulty.

Plenty Coups found courage as a "mean between cowardice and rashness", in how he coped with the situation. He proposed a policy of "wary and vigilant cooperation" with the U.S., rather than complete non-cooperation, which is what Sitting Bull sanctioned. Courage is another example of an allegory that, when translated into their new life situation, helped the Crow adapt to their new culture. “Courage had a very definite sense in the traditional culture, but this is now inapplicable, and so it is no longer clear what courage involves”. There needed to be a complete redefinition of the term, and in his actions, Plenty Coups exemplified this new definition. One could adapt the Crow’s specific definition of courage from “the military virtue of facing clearly identified danger steadfastly and without irresponsible rashness” to “courage, one might say, of lucid action, rather than indulging various kinds of consoling illusion or succumbing to blind but powerful emotional responses”. This revamped definition now applies to all cultural situations, rather than a specific few.

There were many other terms that needed redefining for their new cultural situation, but through Plenty Coups' use of conceptual blending and allegory, the Crow were able to pull some sort of a life back together. The human ability for this complex process of transferring well-known practices to completely foreign situations is essential in a situation like that which the Crow were thrown into. Without it, “nothing” might have continued to happen for them.

Reconciliation of Science and Religion

This is somewhat of a response to Carissa's "Blending and Religious Beliefs" post and Daniel's "Empiricism, A Religious Experience" reply to her post.

I agree with Carissa that "Conceptual Blending and Analogy" by Gilles Fauconnier was a fascinating chapter. We never think about how many "easy" actions we perform daily are actually incredibly complex conceptual blends. The computer mouse example really struck me, as it is something I use every day without devoting any conscious thought to it. Obviously, at one point in my life I had to consciously learn the coordination to manipulate a mouse about a computer screen, but by now that action has become so natural that essentially no conscious thought is needed to do it.

This reading highlights the "remarkable human capacity for building novel conceptual/physical domains"(Fauconnier 278). This is the essential trait for creating religious beliefs, and as we discussed earlier in the term, something the Neanderthals were lacking. Without this quintessential human ability, it would be impossible to link definite real-life events to abstract descriptions of them. Therefore, all abstract religious belief would be nonexistent and so would any other abstract scientific descriptions of nature (taking off of Daniel's post) like quantum mechanics or relativity. Basically, any way that people attempt to describe observable physical effects with non-observable causes (Dan mentioned electric field) would be impossible for humans without this conceptual blending capacity that Fauconnier describes.

Carissa clarified her position by countering Dan's post with, "when religion looks for explanations of phenomena, the explanations are very broad as opposed to restricted to certain situations like an electric field". I would argue that although the electric field is one specific case, if you combine that explanation with all other scientific explanations for other observable phenomena, there is a generally excepted scientific "religion". This "religion" is constantly evolving as more applicable theories are introduced to replace obsolete ones, similar to how religions are evolving to better explain human nature. (Which Dan mentions as well).

Carissa also mentions in her reply, "the scientific theory [of evolution] only deals with the evolution of animal species while the God 'theory' deals with the creation of the entire universe". I completely disagree that evolution "only deals with the evolution animal species" because, basically, it doesn't just deal with the evolution of animals. The theory of evolution encompasses all living things, not just animals. So, that theory along with other physical theories can describe the physical world in the same way that religion describes human nature and dynamics. However, it seems like religion also attempts to describe the physical world, so I'm not sure how to connect that with my argument. I suppose that I use physical laws and theories as sufficient explanation for the world around me, and in the same way many use religion as sufficient explanation for otherwise incomprehensible phenomena.

The striking connection between religion and empiricism definitely makes me want to delve into this subject a bit more.

Woe to the Wicked

The Zohar presents a less formal approach to religion that provides much more room for personal interpretation than, say, the Bible or Torah. The entire first chapter we read was titled, "How to Look at Torah" which advises the reader to look for a deeper meaning behind the stories presented in the Torah, and specifically to not take them literally.

Woe to the wicked
who say that Torah is merely a story!
They look at this garment and no further.
Happy are the righteous
who look at Torah properly!

The Zohar emphasizes how stories in the Torah are not merely stories, but allegories with much deeper meaning than the superficial. There are four levels of increasingly secretive interpretations of Biblical text (known as PaRDeS) presented in the Zohar, which closely analyze biblical text without imposing outside ideology onto them. In my opinion, the Zohar seems to be an archetype religious text. It strongly encourages personal interpretation, while presenting its own interpretations in a conversational way, interacting with the reader, not monologuing to the reader.

The controversy behind the authenticity of the work is pretty interesting, and the fact that many rabbis censured it because of its mystical nature (though many others held it in high acclaim directly because it opposed religious formalism). If I were to possess religious views of any sort, I would much appreciate a text like the Zohar to guide me through my interpretations, at least initially. If only I were a 40 year old Jewish man... (Though that has probably changed by now, hopefully)

Explaining the Unexplainable

When tragedies occur, people need a way of explaining them in order to move past them. We build stories to explain and make sense of things we can't possibly understand, and often those stories are related to religion. Religion provides a narrative lens to view historical events through and decipher them, and this is exemplified in Lamentations in the way religion is used to explain the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC.

Lamentations describes the horrific destruction of Jerusalem as God's punishment for leading sinful lives. After acknowledging the faults of the people, the narrative proceeds to ask God for forgiveness and pleads, "that we may be restored; renew our days as of old"(5.13 22-23). They create hope by taking decisions out of their hands and placing them in God's. In this case, giving up control is a way to move on past the tragedy. Even though life is horrible now, there is significant hope that it will improve, because God is forgiving and basically Good.

As we discussed in class, there is a significant parallel between the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC and the 9/11 crisis in 2001 AD. People responded in similar ways to make sense of the tragedy, with both religious and secular narratives. The process of unloading emotional trauma in a creative way is a universal human trait. In any tragedy, the same sort of emotional responses occur as in Lamentations. Religion has a way of bringing people together, and post-tragedy, the last thing one wants to feel is alone. The sacking of Jerusalem and the emotional response of "the city" parallel many tragic situations and the typical human response to them; narratives are created to explain the unexplainable catastrophes in life and provide hope for the future.

Religion as Dividing Force

Religion binds one to others with the same beliefs, while alienating them from others with conflicting beliefs. Religion divides as well as coalesces, drawing invisible "do not cross" lines between humans and humans, and especially between humans and nature. "Grizzly Man" offers insight into the difficulties of "crossing back" into nature; Timothy Treadwell attempted to dwell with bears, and encountered much criticism from fellow humans in the process (and ultimately from the bears themselves, if you can call it that).

In the Paleolithic Age, humans and bears inhabited similar terrain and hunted the same large mammals, and they generally kept to themselves directly because they were competitors for the same resources. Though no religion had strictly divided humans from the rest of the world at that point, animals did not live in a happy Paleolithic commune cohabitating with different species. The myth that humans once convened with the bears is not supported by logic or proof. Now, religion has molded society and strictly divided humans from nature through beliefs of the sort found in Genesis: "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth'"(1.26). The divide is clear; humans have control over all other animals so we cannot possibly live in the same sphere of existence.

As religion initially forms a line, technology and "progress" thickens that line, creating an even larger divide between humans and nature. Technology enables us to do so much more than our animal friends, so we see ourselves as increasingly superior to them. Interestingly enough, advanced technology was absolutely necessary for Treadwell in his return to nature.

It was miraculous how long Treadwell managed to survive in that environment, despite his insistence of the inherent similarities between humans and animals and his complete lack of fear of the bears. Unlike Paleolithic hunters, Treadwell had no respect for differences between humans and animals and treated bears like humans, though they are obviously much stronger and more aggressive. Most of the interviewees wasted no time in attacking Treadwell and his beliefs, some insisting that he "did more harm than good" in trying to protect the bears by living with them. Despite that his project was a result of more than just a desire to protect the bears (his early years were riddled with drug and alcohol abuse and other personal issues, so living with bears was an escape for him), I believe it is too severe and unnecessary to be critical of him after his gruesome death. Even though I don't agree with Treadwell's beliefs, I still respect him for living with those beliefs through the enormous amount of criticism he encountered along the way.

Response to J.B.'s "Indian Mounds of Wisconsin"

I definitely enjoyed reading J.B.'s "Indian Mounds of Wisconsin" post, especially his speculations derived from R. Clark Mallam's quote that "effigy mounds were built to symbolize and ritually maintain balance and harmony with the natural world within the context of ceremonialism to renew the world."

J.B. asserted that there are two possible ways to interpret that quote. Although his wording implied only two possible ways (total), maybe he meant that he dealt with two interpretations, not that those were the only two. I will briefly address both of J.B.'s interpretations of the quote, and then any other interpretations that were prominent in the reading.

In his first of two interpretations, J.B. attested that ceremonial mounds were built in appreciation for natural gifts (plentiful harvests or hunts, etc.). The mounds represented the overwhelming gratitude the Indians felt for the cause of their good fortune (e.g. God). The second interpretation was a little less clear, and I do not want to alter J.B.'s views, but it was definitely another valid speculation as to Mallam's meaning. In this case, the mounds were not built out of gratitude, but instead almost as a bribe to their higher being. The Indians basically believed in karma, and therefore found reason for inexplicable natural occurences in their own past actions. If that were the case, why do they build mounds at all? This seemed like the logical question to ask of this interpretation. However, since they do still believe in a higher power, building the mounds might create positive karma that would influence their prosperity in the future. These both seemed like possible explanations, more so in the context of the quote and Mallam's interpretation.

Forgetting about Mallam for a minute, the article mentions numerous other possible explanations for the effigy mound building, yet still asserts that "the origins of effigy mound ceremonialism are unclear"(140). It is impossible to know, with complete certainty, the reasons people had for creating huge ceremonial mounds hundreds of years ago. Since "the Late Woodland was an unstable period of rapid technological, economic, and social change; population growth; warfare; and physical movements of tribes and bands"(140), people either needed a way to bring "the world back into balance and harmony"(141), or to "define themselves in relation to intruders and competing ideologies"(141). This reminds me of the transition from the Pleistocene into the Holocene, and how these huge cultural changes spawned a new sense of spirituality. People generally need a gradual transition into a new lifestyle, especially if the change is as dramatic as the culture shift the Late Woodlanders experienced; religion offers a welcome explanation for the new, uncomprehendable circumstances.

Reflections of life in art, Pleistocene into Holocene (Part II).

As a continuation of my previous post, I'm going to venture into the Holocene era and explore the dramatic differences between the culture in this, and the Pleistocene time periods.

The drastic lifestyle changes that began in the Holocene were initiated by a hugely drastic climate change, "the greatest consistent change in Earth's climate that had occurred throughout the entire span of our species", in fact. (Guthrie 409). As temperatures rose, animal and plant life became abundant, and the previous hunter-gatherer bands of the Pleistocene morphed into larger tribal groups. This floral and faunal abundance enabled tribes to store surplus food, thereby assuring a constant supply.

I don't want to get bogged down in miniscule details of the book; so basically, the relatively (compared to Pleistocene) comfortable lifestyle of the Holocene resulted in larger tribes where people had concerns other than basic survival. This excess of time resulted in the contemplation of myths and magic as well as tribal concerns, rather than individual hunting worries. Confusion occurred when conditions weren’t favorable; "when bad luck did arrive, it may have seemed very strange and unreasonable, a matter of who or what to blame"(Guthrie 418). They began to ponder spiritual notions, which is reflected in their symbolic, exaggerated, non-realistic artwork.

After reading about the numerous problems with this new tribal lifestyle, I think that I would have rather lived in the Pleistocene than the Holocene. The Pleistocene people did not war, or have significant nutritional deficiencies, or easily acquire numerous various diseases. In the Pleistocene, children were raised with much more care and attention; people understood the natural world and didn't blame their bad luck on some spiritual higher power. It is interesting to me that the Holocene held the first occurrences of religion and war. While tribal groups developed their own identities they naturally viewed neighboring tribes as potential competitors, and the "us" versus "them" mentality took hold. Guthrie even mentions some current conflicts that resulted from "too much emphasis on old tribal identity"(421), like between Israel and Palestine, among others.

Religious nature was sprung from the same womb as a warring nature, and as they were linked 9000 years ago, they remain so today. Unfortunately, I see no easy way out of the puzzle of strong group identity leading to warfare. Group identity is an inconceivably large force in our lives that the concept of reverting back to Pleistocene bands is basically ludicrous. However, some sort of balance would be nice.

Reflections of life in art, Pleistocene into Holocene (Part I).

R. Dale Guthrie's "The Nature of Paleolithic Art" is quite compelling in its implications about our past and for our future. His overwhelming theme is how art reflects and is reflected in the culture of humans throughout various time periods. I believe art does provide significant insight into a culture, while still it is merely a stylized view of that culture.

The art of the Pleistocene was decidedly naturalistic, with the majority of images being large mammals (large ladies included), and some sprinkling of game fish and birds. Since the Pleistocene, humans' entire culture revolved around hunting, and their art focused, logically, on this same theme. As Guthrie states, "Survival depended on exquisite attention to one's natural surroundings"(Guthrie 404), and that preoccupation with nature found its way directly into their artwork. The lack of symbolism in Pleistocene artwork also attests to the strictly survivalist, naturalistic nature of the people at that time. Their demanding lifestyle left little room for abstract or symbolic thought, though they certainly had the capacity for it (just as modern humans do).

The climate during the Pleistocene and into the Holocene greatly affected the culture of humans in those times. In the Pleistocene, the frigid, dry, barely livable conditions assured that "Paleolithic people never regularly obtained sufficient resources to sustain individual bands of large size or any but the thinnest regional density of bands"(Guthrie 406). This isolation from other bands resulted in the Pleistocene people having an underdeveloped sense of self-image, which was inherent in their lack of detailed human figures in their artwork.

Though Pleistocene people had the capacity for spiritual thought, their culture as a whole would have been at a distinct disadvantage (from an evolutionary survival perspective) if they had pursued much abstract thinking. Instead they remained focused on logical methods for hunting and survival, evident in the majority of the recovered art from that time period.

I feel like living in a time when humans were a part of nature, rather than a distinct, outside, destructive force on it, would be a refreshing challenge. We humans have gradually separated ourselves from the rest of the world, and are finally realizing our hugely destructive power and attempting (in some sense) to return to an equilibrium (of some sort). Based on how much has changed in our past, I wonder how religion will change over the next thousands of years?

Effect of Religion

I recently read Stephanie Zastrow's first post which expresses her views on religion, and I felt inclined to respond in some way, or at least express my own opinion on the subject.

I'll start by giving a brief description of how I was raised with respect to religion. I attended an Episcopal church for about eight years (during my formative years, I suppose), and before that was raised Christian from the get-go. Although I attended church, I would not have called myself spiritual, I basically went through the motions, not really questioning what I was being told. After my family moved I stopped going to church and began to try and figure out what exactly I did believe. I suppose I really want to believe there is a God because that option is so much more pleasant than the alternative- that I have no purpose, I'm just a speck in the Universe. However I'm still searching for a set of beliefs that I can accept and live with, without feeling constrained by them. I have a lot of trouble accepting ideas that cannot be proven so a belief in an all-powerful being seems completely ridiculous, I need to work on the "faith" concept.

Ok, back on track. Stephanie Zastrow's post definitely made me think about religion in a different way. In class, we had mostly discussed the unifying power of religion, and barely touched on the dividing effects of it. It is impossible for me to imagine a world without religion so I cannot infer whether the world would be a "better" place without it. I feel like if people never even imagined that they had a larger purpose in life or something to aspire to, they would have much less reason to live. In that case, morals would be much less prevalent (non-existent?), and individuals would lead selfish, meaningless lives. Though I'm not really sure that would be the case (it is a difficult scenario to imagine), but a world without religion seems much less favorable to me than a world with multiple clashing religions. If only we could all realize that all beliefs are inherently the same so there is no logical reason to fight about "contesting" ones, the world would be great!

I'm not really sure where I ended up with this post, but at least now I have more to think about (is that a good thing?). Thanks Stephanie for the interesting post.

Neanderthals and Spirituality

While reading "The Singing Neanderthals", I started to notice inherent similarities between aspects of that article and the New York Times article "Why Do We Believe?".

The Neanderthals were presented as a very spiritual people who communicated through singing, body-language and vocalizations rather than a set language. Though this prevented them from any cultural evolution, they survived for about 300,000 years before dying out, thanks in large part to their incredible cultural stability. Since they lived in small social groups, "Neanderthals had detailed knowledge about the life histories, social relationships and day-to-day activities of all the other members of their group, and rarely came into contact with 'strangers'"(Mithen 225). This intimate knowledge of one another enabled them to communicate successfully, and even to pass down knowledge of complicated weapon-building without language.

This inherent cultural spirituality affected the actions of individuals within a social group significantly. Instead of abandoning an injured comrade, as would seem the "best" option in terms of evolution and survival of the fittest, fellow social group members would nurse the injured one back to health. This reflects a group altruism that seems to connect closely with the "Why Do We Believe?" article's possible explanation for the evolution of religious belief. Instead of individuals acting only with their own interests at heart, group altruism enabled an entire Neanderthal social group as a whole to benefit. Though religion itself was not mentioned in either Neanderthal article, there is evidence of it in their way of life. (I'm taking religion to be defined as any set of beliefs one lives by, either formal or informal.)

Besides taking care of injured friends, Mithen hypothesized that Neanderthals would also use 'music therapy' as a way to reduce stress of those in pain and also ceremoniously buried their dead. These are a few more examples of non-individual centric actions, but instead brought the group closer together and enabled them as a whole to survive longer. These altruistic actions stemmed from a religion of sorts, albeit undefined, that permeated a social group. From this religion of sorts, Neanderthals lead longer, happier, more stable lives than they could have without it (and with their lack of fluid thought).

Ultimately, the Neanderthals are an interesting example of an early belief system and how it was evolutionarily favorable to possess those beliefs.