Similarities

I always seem to come back to comparing modern religions that we study with that of the ancient Greeks and Romans. In the reading about The Hakluyt Society, I again noticed many similarities between the religious and cultural aspects of life for the different Ethiopian cultures, particularly in their marriage and burial rites. In cases of adultery, the offending party, whether it be the man or woman, need only to compensate the other with animals or goods because the man and woman both provide for themselves independently. This is similar to the practice in Roman culture of manus which refers to how women pass down their wealth from their fathers when they are married. In ancient Rome, women also were allowed to own their own property and to manage their own funds. Even though this was only allowed with the guidance of the woman's father or male guardian, it meant that the property and wealth the woman held was not tied to her husband.

Another similarity between classical cultures and the Abyssinians is how they mourn their dead. The Abyssinians literally lament their dead, much like the Greeks did, women in particular. The Gafates, another Ethiopian culture, "give themselves very large wounds in the head and arms" and "scratch their faces". This is very similar to how Greek women mourn for the dead by scratching at their faces and pulling out their hair.

This is a Geometric krater from the Dipylon cemetery near Athens from 740 BC. It shows Greek women surrounding the dead man, mourning by pulling their hair with their hands.

The Lawrence Pilgrimage: Documentary of a Sacred Event or Outlandish Video?

I really enjoyed the Kebra Nagast readings that we had assigned. I found it really interesting the discussion that we continued in both class periods about how the book was written to explain events and give reason to the Ethiopian culture and society. It seems that we draw a lot on how or why things happen or why things are the way they are in this world. It is important for us humans to have an explanation for everything, which is a theme we continue to address throughout this class.

I also found the video on the Lawrence Pilgrimage to be interesting and not only entertaining, but enlightening as well. Since it seemed to us to be such an outlandish perception of common place things that make up Lawrence University, such as the gazelle on the crest and the random artwork outside of Briggs, it was hard to take it seriously. But it made me think and question: Is this any more farfetched of an interpretation and explanation of common everyday things in the Lawrence community as it was to explain events and things in books like the Kebra Nagast or even the Bible that we consider to hold great religious value? Someone in class made the comment that perhaps the reason we don't view the Lawrence pilgrimage video as a real explanation and something sacred is because it is too recent and hasn't had any time to develop a mystical sense to it. Would people hundreds of years from now who discover or view the video believe that a giant gazelle reigned over the entire Fox valley? Popular opinion would say, no. We know too much about the world and we have progressed too far scientifically and technologically to make that sort of an assumption from a simple, college student video. But have we? Would it be possible that in some situation we would take that video to be the truth and to be an explanation for things we don't understand? I just find it very interesting how much circumstance and situation has to play into the development and belief of a religious text and the forming of a religion.

The Kebra Nagast

Wikipedia calls the Kebra Nagast "clearly a composite work", a definition with which I wholeheartedly agree. While I was reading these passages, I noticed how all the citations were from many different sources, such as books of the bible, psalms and other holy texts. The citations also gave some enlightenment as to how the stories in the Kebra Nagast compared to those in the traditional bible, for example, pages 10 and 11 have citations that give comparison with the book of Genesis. This is also something I noticed, though I am not well versed enough in the actual text of the bible to make concise comparisons, I was able to identify that some of the stories in the Kebra Nagast were obviously variations on traditional stories in the bible.

To me, this indicates the versatility of religion. The Ethiopian Christians have a somewhat different representation of all the stories in the bible that are written in Western Christianity. And I am sure that there are differences between every variation of Christianity. I find it inspiring that religion can cross boundaries like that and become useful for different peoples and cultures. The Ethiopian Christians and Rastafarians have this book which explains their origin and how the Queen of Ethiopia gained wisdom from King Solomon and basically outlines their entire origin as a Christian culture. It is adapted to fit their societal history and their beliefs much as Western Christianity has the bible which fits their history and culture.

Sam Harris: King of Unfounded Conclusions

After searching through the blogs tonight looking for someone who had read or written on the Sam Harris article, I was thrilled to see that Sarah had found the article as preposterous and offensive as I did. While I did not address this in my own post on the Harris article, I certainly felt some of the same shock and distress Sarah portrays in her post about Harris' views on the Islamic religion.

I agree with Sarah, it is possible to prove anything that has any grain of truth to it if you take a view general facts and make a bunch of unsupported claims. I did not find any sort of usefulness in many of the examples that Harris threw into his argument. It was as if he took a bunch of random facts that had something to do with violence in the Islam religion and said "here, read this and believe that I am right".

Thank you Sarah, for recognizing that Harris completely ignores the parallel between Islam and Christianity and their subsequent advancements which you dub the terrible twos. This I did touch on in my blog post and would like to argue further for it makes me just as annoyed and disappointed as it seems to have made you.

Different lenses

As a Western civilization, we Americans are always trying to force our opinions and our beliefs onto others. In reading Harris' article about the violent advancement of Islamic religion, I got the distinct impression this is exactly what he was trying to do, put the views of Western civilizations onto the Muslim people and their religious beliefs. Harris talks about how the Muslims "expect victory in this world" (p.111) and that they will do anything, especially committ acts of war and violence under the principle of jihad (the holy war) to further their religion. What Harris says about the deliberation of the Muslims to invole their religion on the rest of the world to me seems oddly reminiscent of some of the ways Americans have tried to impose their traditions and religious beliefs on other peoples in the past.

The concept of "manifest destiny" in early American history is one of these examples. The American settlers continued to move throuhgout the country which they believed to have a rightful claim over. They took over other peoples already settled and set in their own beliefs and ways because that was what God intended for the American, Christian, settlers to do when they reached America. It was their duty and their destiny to spread their beliefs all over the new land, regardless of who they crushed on the way. Surely this concept is not all that different from what harris is proposing about the advancement of Islam.

It seems to me that throughout the ages every civilization or culture has been guilty of attempting to spread their own beliefs and values to others. The problem lies in that an individual culture tries too hard to see different cultures and religions through their own lens which is undoubtably biased from the history of their own peoples and their beliefs. Harris invokes a double standard on Muslims for doing what every other culture, including American, has done throughout time. the only reason Harris views what the Muslims are trying to do as wrong is because it is another culture, rather than his own, trying to impose their beliefs on us. We would have no problem busting in and placing our values on them. From our standpoint and through our lens we are only doing what is right. But according to the Muslims, what they are doing is right for them. By no means am I in support of violence and the imposition of beliefs on other people. However, I merely want to realize that who is right and who is wrong all depends on your point of view and the lens through which you view the world.

Questions

I find it interesting that so many religions are consumed with determining the source and original author or authors of texts and writings. I understand how it can seem important to be able to identify where a text comes from and when it was written. The time and place and circumstances all have a lot to do with the meaning of a text and the way it was written. However, I think almost too much emphasis is placed on this aspect of studying religious texts. Breaking it down into such historical analysis and theory takes away from the beauty and experience of reading and appreciating religious texts. Not only is this seen in the Origen readings we had earlier, but also in the readings about the Zohar. The Wikipedia entry focused on how the commentaries of the Zohar were met by different Jewish denominations. Some accept the book as authentic and others do not. Even those who accept the book argue about who wrote it and when it was written. This makes me think of the way classicists have argued over who wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey and whether it was Homer the entire time or not. The long debated "Homeric question" is the same sort of problem. However, in looking at the different theories about the origin and authors of the Zohar, the Wikipedia article makes it seem that a lot of the theories are far flung and random. It would certainly make sense that the book was written either by de Leon or by a group of people with de Leon as the leader, since it is a mystical commentary on the Torah. But this still puzzles me, because I don't really understand why people need to find answers as to who wrote what and when. Does it really matter? Would it make that big of a difference whether it was written by de Leon or by a group of people with de Leon at the top? Either way, this is how the religion has evolved, through this commentary. Admittedly, you can't go around believing every random book or commentary that is thrown out there, but with something like the Bible, the Zohar and even the Iliad and the Odyssey, isn't it enough to take it for what it is?

Is God human?

Since we started this class, I have been trying to draw relationships between Classical gods and goddesses and the religious figures we are studying. I am thrilled to see that someone else, Dave Skogen, has also seen the connection and drawn some similarities between the two. I agree with Dave, that God is portrayed as a human and assigned human attributes. It is obvious from our Bible readings that God is portrayed as human. Dave notes that the Greek gods, and the Roman as well, were created as representing the city-state. Later, in the high classical period, particularly Greek gods, acted as representations for abstract concepts such as the goddess of hope, Elpis, and the god of medicine, Asclepios. I think that across the board, gods and goddesses, no matter what religion they come from, are portrayed as inherently human. This happens because people identify with each other and form their personal and cultural identity as being human. God is traditionally represented as being human because people can easier relate to a human God. The Greeks represented their gods in the same way, as do many other cultures with different religions and different deities.

Granted, these gods are not only human, but superhuman, a larger-than-life representation. For the Greeks and Romans, the gods were an extension of humans. They had no consequence for their actions, no regret and no conscience. This made them more liable to act in ways that humans themselves could not act for fear of death or punishment. Gods would throw fits, destroy things, and cause mass pandemonium, sometimes merely because they were bored. I don't want to say that the God in Lamentations destroyed Jerusalem because he was bored, but I do want to draw a similarity between the way Greek and Roman gods acted on a large scale to how God was portrayed as acting in the sack of Babylon. Perhaps this will be something I can expand on further in a later post.

Timothy Treadwell

In Grizzly Man, Timothy Treadwell said he was going out to become one with the bears. I don't think that could ever be possible. As we discussed in class, there is what I consider to be a distinct line between animals and humans, particularly between large, dangerous animals like bears and humans because these larger animals present more of a competitive nature to humans. The line between humans and bears represents a difference and corresponds with the existence of a mutual respect. Past cultures recognize this difference. Native American's and even the paleolithic people respected and revered larger, threatening animals. Because these animals are at the same level, if not above the level of humans as far as strength and aggression goes, it is important to observe the disctinction between human and bear that the line holds.

Along with the recognition of the line and respect for the bears, Native Americans and other past cultures also revered them. As we saw in our readings about Paleolithic art and the Effigy Mound Builders, people used animals as symbols and felt a connection with them that continued to develop through time. There was a spiritual and religious relationship between the humans and animals which was shown through art. Paleolithic people and Native American's respected animals that were larger than them and that were competing for the same level of hierarchy as themselves. Timothy Treadwell on the other hand, did not.

Treadwell had something of a warped perception of the relationship between humans and bears. He wanted to educate the world and prove that bears had been misunderstood. He also fancied himself as a protector of the bears, a feat which proved to be impossible. How can one human protect bears? I don't believe any Native American, nor any paleolithic person would ever dream of connecting with bears and protecting them like Treadwell did. Over time, I think we humans, particularly Treadwell and others like him, have lost track of what it is like to live with nature. Living in harmony and being one with nature does not necessarily mean one has to interact with animals, like Treadwell did with the bears. Harmony and spiritual connection with animals has just as much to do with with how we don't interact with them as it does with how we do interact. It is much more of a harmonic and spiritualistic relationship if we live life by leaving the bears alone. In my opinion, Treadwell did not understand what it really meant to be living with the bears. He should have observed them more and interacted with them less. Yes, he believed and it may have been true, that he needed to show them who was in charge in order to stay alive. However, in bullying them around like he did, while he secured his safety for some time, he was not completing what he considered to be his mission to become one with the bears. At that time, he was more of a protector of the bears, which I have already identified to be a silly aim.

Ultimately, Treadwell tried to do too many things. He could not be one of the bears, a bear protector and a human educator all at the same time. At this time in our development as society, I think it was easy for Treadwell to be disillusioned about what being in nature is really about. We read and study about Native American tribes and the paleolithic people and how they held nature and animals close to their hearts and their spiritual rituals, but we don't realize that they also respected and revered the animals they lived with. They understood that the animals were dangerous and had a certain power over them. It was sort of a push-pull relationship that had to be delicately balanced. This is what Treadwell lacked. The knowledge and understanding of the relationship between animals and humans. A relationship that has lasted for years which he chose to ignore.

Neanderthals to Mound Builders

The Effigy Mound Builders picked up where the Neanderthal, Paleolithic and Holocene people left off. In each culture, the people are looking for a way to explain their existence and the events that make up their daily lives. The progression from Neanderthal to Paleolithic to Holocene and finally Effigy mound builders is all connected to the environment the groups lived in and the changes that happened over their course of existence.

The earlier cultures, the Neanderthals, Paleolithics and Holocenes, created art that reflected what they saw in everyday life, like men being killed, such as the painting in the Lascaux cave we studied on Wednesday. They painted pictures of animals that they had a connection to; animals that they interacted with and related to. This is much the same as what the mound builders did with their images on their pottery of the upperworld and lowerworld. They obviously are representations of animals, such as birds and serpents and fish. Perhaps this is where the earlier cultures, like the Paleolithic people, were going when they painted images of deer and bison. These were animals they saw and interacted with on a regular basis. The people knew the animals were powerful and important to their daily life and their general survival, or in many cases, their death. So they painted them and represented them. Perhaps they were trying to glorify them in the only way they knew possible.

The mound builders certainly succeeded beyond the efforts of the earlier cultures in glorifying their spirits. Instead of just painting them, they connected with them in a way even the Holocene people failed to do. They gave them symbols, they turned them into burial mounds and held elaborate ceremonies to honor the dead buried in the figures. According to Robert Hall, the representation of spirits in mounds and on other forms of art actually connect with the symbols or totems belonging to Indian tribes. The mound builders really tried to make a connection with these animals and bring them into their lives as a way to find harmony and connection in their world.

The Nature of Paleolithic Art

Analyzing Paleolithic art seems to be a very exhausting process. Many questions arise with answers that lead to different interpretations. Is there religious meaning behind certain representations? What does it mean that the art is only found deep in caves where it may not have often been seen? It is possible that the reason art is so abundant in caves is that it was supposed to be religious or sacred. However, Guthrie argues that the obscure placement of artwork in caves has no implication of sacred or religious meaning. It is possible that the reason we have evidence of artwork only in caves is because other forms of art, such as that drawn on paper or made out of clay, would not have been as easily preserved. This may very well be true, but I don't believe it is enough to completely discount the religious or sacred meaning of the Paleolithic art we have been studying.

Religion for Paleolithic people may have meant something entirely different than what wetake it to mean today. Religion has not always been organized in the same way we practice it, however, I believe it has always been present in everyday life. I feel it is necessary to acknowledge the differences and similarities between what we consider religion and what we also consider culture. They are often linked together but also can be seen as being quite different. I wonder if the shape of religion the Paleolithic people had was more of what we may today consider to be tradition and culture. I think it is important to recognize that we are probably trying to place our own constraints of religion on the artwork.