Papa, can you hear me?

[free blog #3]

In his recent blog, Peter mentioned the violence depicted in the Psalms, and his blog prompted me to think about something else from the Psalms. I too noticed the violence (I think it's impossible to ignore), but another thing that I keep getting stuck on are the pleas. It seems like wedged in between all the Psalms about vengeance, and the few lovely ones actually about spiritual love and connection, there is an enormous amount of Psalms about crying out to God in despair.

Honestly, what struck me the most about these sorts of Psalms is just the lack of faith. Religion is built on faith, and it was always my understanding that the purpose of Psalms and hymns was to foster that feeling of connection to God, but when I read Psalms like Psalm 60 (which starts off with "God, You have abandoned us, breached us."), I can't help but feel a little confused. I understand that there are times in a person's life when they feel completely disconnected to the Divine source(s) that they usually align with, and that it can be really quite distressing and depressing when the link feels lost, but a lot of these sorts of Psalms boarder on whiny, or act as if to give God an ultimatum. Some, like Psalm 44, are a puzzling mix of awe and admiration, and admonishment.

I guess I just find it strange because when you read the Psalms straight through, you get this weird, moody picture of a follower, and some of the desperate Psalms make it seem like the winger/writer is about ready to give up on God, and that's a huge step for any religious person.

Translation is Key: What is being put into a translation?

Q: For your next blog read the assigned psalms for Wednesday, then look at the Bay Psalm Book, for which there is a link on our Moodle site. Read Psalm 2 in the Bay Psalm Book and then also look for how another psalm that you enjoy is translated in it. For your third assigned blog you will discuss some difference or transformation that happens in this translation. How do the psalms change as they move into another social context? Support your argument with at least two citations from the Bay Psalm Book.


A: It's incredibly interesting to see the ways in which the Psalms have changed, and the ways in which they have not. After re-reading Psalm 2 in Alter's book, and then reading it in the Bay Psalm Book, a few things stood out to me. Generally, the greatest differences were in structure and in clarity of wording, however a few particular phrases stood out.

One selection that caught my eye in particular was verse 11, of the second Psalm. What surprised me was the difference in tone between the BPB version and Alter's version. The use of the word "reverence" invokes a sort of true awe, which makes this line a little bit less stern than the one in The Book Of Psalms, which reads, "Worship the LORD in fear, and exult in trembling." To me, this is much more foreboding, and far less inviting.


Another line which interesting me was verse 10, mostly because of the second line of the verse, which has a rather indecipherable word in it, but seems to read "judges."Again, perhaps this is a perspective which will be shared by none other, but the use of "judges" in the original text, as compared to the use of "rulers" in the more modern translation, brings about an entirely different image of the role of these kings in society. Granted, rulers often have ultimate authority in judgment, but judges are not usually seen as rulers.


The last verse in Psalm 2 that interested me is really one that struck a purely curious chord in me, for I'm not sure exactly what the original text might have meant, if I am indeed reading it correctly.

It's entirely possible that I'm misreading this line, but it seems to read, "Kisse yee the Sonne..." which is contrasted by, "With purity be armed..." I'm can't tell you what the difference is (besides the obvious wording), but but it seems like there's something slightly different being said here.


Next, I looked at one Psalm which I was particularly entranced by when I first read it, Psalm 8.
Aside from obvious linguistically differences between the original translation and the more modern one, a single specific line stood out.

In Alter's translation, he uses "gods" in verse 6, whereas here "Angells" is used.
These are both possible inferences of what Alter attributes the original Hebrew to be (elohim which, as Prof. Amihay mentioned, is often used as a personal name of God, written as GOD/G-D, but is actually the plural of eloha, the word for a generic god).


This all brings me to my point: Translation is key. Today in 'Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,' which Prof. Amihay teaches, he mentioned something about Alter's translations in general, which is that he has no theological leanings in his translation. In the BPB, the translators wanted the readers to enjoy and gain spiritual comfort from the words, but Alter does not care so much about this because his translations likely not intended for use in a service. I think it's really important to read different translations of ancient texts, especially religious ones, because there are always different messages to be found.

The Bramble and the Rose: Finding the Difference Between Culture and Religion

[Free Blog #2]


Today, I'd like to touch on something that was brought up in Wednesday's class, and that is the defining line between culture and religion. The more I thought about it, the harder it became to try and tease the two apart, and yet, there is a very distinct, almost tangible difference between the two.

Some very dedicated Packers followers.

When I think of 'religion,' I automatically start thinking of the world's major religions, but I then remember that those religions revolve around spirituality, and there is a definable difference there. So then, when you take the spirituality out of religion, what does it become? What I came to is that it turns into something a lot more like what we would consider 'culture.' To use a very popular example, think of Packers fans. There are plenty of fans (including some of our wonderful Lawrence staff members) whose dedication could only be called religious in nature. They may have shrines, idols, groups, and times committed to the worshipping of the Packers, but we can pretty safely assume that none of them look to the team or any of the players as some sort of god (except for in playful terms, perhaps), which excludes spirituality from their practices. I think it can generally be agreed that would just call this kind of fervor 'Packers Fan Culture.'


Conversely, all cultures in the world developed entwined with religious and spiritual beliefs and practices. The ancient Egyptians would not have been the extremely powerful and influential culture that they were, without their religion, and modern Egypt would be at all what it is today without that sort of history. The same story goes for all cultures, races, and peoples across the world. Many cultures today are intricately enmeshed with their religion, for instance the Hindus of India; everything is somehow related to their religious and spiritual beliefs. Ultimately, I think that it is impossible to historically separate the evolution of culture and religion, and when it comes to the current era, specifically in Western culture, I think the only thing that really separates religiosity and culture are spiritual beliefs, or the lack thereof.


I feel like I could go on further about this, but I'm afraid it would end up being too long, and then no one would read it. :p

A General Order of Mounds

An areal photo of a group of effigy mounds found in the Effigy Mount National Monument area.

Q: "Explain how these mounds reflect the 'system of symbols' in Geertz's definition of religion. Another way to think about this would be to ask how effigy mounds 'formulate conceptions of a general order of existence.'"
Geertz's definition of religion: "A system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."


A: As a sort of disclaimer, we will never truly know the reasons and thoughts behind the construction of effigy mounds. That being said, I am of the opinion that they were more than burial sights or art work. I take this position from looking at other ancient earth-based religions and spiritualities, in particular the ancient Irish idea and importance of the three realms of Sky, Land, and Sea, which correlate with categories (or "realms," as the book puts it) that the effigies are put into: air, earth, and water. These sorts of similarities bring me to firmly believe that these mounds (and their depictions) should be thought of in the realms of both spiritually and religiously relevance.


I doubt that we can ever fully know what these symbols mean spiritually, but my guess as far as religious symbols would be that these mounds represented the needs or traits of the tribe who built them. For example, think of how in some places there would be a number of bird mounds, but then one or two bears or snakes built as well. It seems sort of like an equation, doesn't it? Perhaps they were trying to draw in the power of "air" or "bird," but needed to balance it out with "earth" or "water." Or, maybe, as the book mentioned, it had to do with the status of the tribe. Maybe a surplus of bird mounds represented a warrior clan. In either of these ways, I think the symbols could (and would, if these hypotheses were proven true) provide a common mindset among those who made them, and certainly show some sort of uniformity. 

A magnificent serpent in Ohio.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe that there is something deeply spiritually about these mounds, even if they also served more "practical" purposes, such as burial spaces or status symbols. From this perspective, it's easy to see how the regularity in the spread and use of the effigies could "establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods" among tribes and their people.

The Caves of Religion

[Free Blog #1]

I am not unfamiliar with the paintings at Lascaux. I remember in 6th grade when my English/History teacher covered the walls of a side classroom with brown paper and had us draw animals in chalk on it during our prehistory unit. However, it wasn’t until I was reading our assigned article, “Paleolithic Art and Religion,” that I started thinking about those paintings (and any similar paleolithic art) in a religious light. When Will mentioned his similar thought in class, I started thinking some more about it.

We tend not to think of prehistoric people as religious, and usually only see practicality in their tools and aesthetic pleasure in their art. I think we generally think of the dawn of religion beginning around the time that forms of writing were being developed, but it doesn’t make sense to think that religion only sprung up once people were able to record it through symbols. Surely, the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Indians had rich religious practices even before their writing systems were developed. The Celts had very strong religious beliefs and practices and conquered much of Northern Europe, but had no widely-used system of writing.

I just find it really interesting that when people think of “cave art” they generally only attribute it to the doodles of the people of that time, as something that they did for pleasure. It seems so obvious to me now that, of course, there was more too it than simply drawing as a past-time. Perhaps the reasons most people don’t claim that the drawings are religious or shamanistic in nature are because we can’t know for sure, and also because we don’t want to force religion onto a people who can’t defend themselves. Either way, it’s intensely interesting to think about what their intentions might have been, and what was passed on from their practices to ours.

"Why We Believe" and "Why We Should Ditch Religion"

Q: "For your inaugural blog read the article "Why We Believe" on Moodle and then watch the short video clip by Sam Harris on ditching religion. Write your own reflection on whether or not religion is something that should be ditched by people. Does the article "Why We Believe" contradict the notion of ditching religion? Is there an alternative way of thinking about how we should respond to religion?"


A: Religion is something that’s had an interesting place in my life, in that it was often not there, and yet I gave a lot of thought to it. What’s most interesting is that the attitude towards most religions in the city I was raised in is not entirely positive; many people are so liberal that they become narrow-minded and start filing biases against certain religions, namely Christianity. I’ve gone from agnostic to atheist, to Beatles-ist to a true-blue spiritual person with my own brewing pot of labels and titles that I like to tack onto myself. Coming from this background, reading this article and watching the clip were very interesting. I really enjoyed the article because it seemed well-balanced, without to much of a leaning in one direction or another, and a lot of thoughtful observations. I thought that their proposal of researching why we, as humans, believe in any sort of divinity, rather than “whether or not a god exists,” is a wonderful perspective to explore. There is no way to scientifically prove whether a god exists or not, but we can certainly look at the ways that spirituality and religion affect us now, and how they’ve come to be such a natural part of our behaviour.

That being said, I was not so fond of the clip. It wasn’t that Mr. Harris didn’t have important points, as he most certainly did, but it seems to me that there are plenty of people in the world who are both religious and moral without being so simply because “God told them so.” Not to mention the people who are religious without being spiritual. Without any sort of religiosity, I think it would be incredibly difficult to make huge social and political movements work; community, devotion, faith in the cause are absolutely key. I do feel like the clip was a contradiction of the article because the article simply seemed to be saying that there may be natural causes for being and feeling religious, whereas Mr. Harris seemed to want to disregard this perspective entirely and throw these normal behaviours.

Personally, I’d rather see people work with the good-will of religious people rather than try and change their mindset so that their good-will and work is coming from a different vein of thought. Yes, many awful things have happened in the name of a religion, but most of the horrible events in the world have happened under a group mindset of any kind. I simply wish that people would realise that everyone is religious about something, and it affects their lives immensely, whether spirituality is involved or not, and that is not a bad thing.