The Unsolvable Argument

            Religion is arguably the number one source of conflict since humans first devised the concept.  Though the majority of conflicts that arise are between different peoples perception of god there is a growing trend that religious conflict in the United States, particularly well publicized conflict, involves the argument between established religions and atheists as to whether god exists at all.  This argument will, most likely, never be able to be resolved.  The cultural logic of each group begins at point that cannot be reconciled between the two groups.

            In Olympia Washington, next to a nativity scene, is a placard that reads: “At the season of THE WINTER SOLSTCE may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angles, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world.  Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds”, that has bought the debate between Christians and Atheists to a front.  Christians argue that that the sign attacks Christmas, and the Christian religion, while Atheists argue that the Nativity scene is a statement of hatred condemning all non-believers to an existence of eternal damnation.  Since each distinct cultural group has an inherent logic built into their culture, each group is correct both in their assertions of the correctness of their religion, and the attacks by the other religion. 

            The assertion if the Atheist group is that atheism offers freedom from the aspects of religion that can cause people to make negative decisions or have a negative influence on people lives.  A further argument of the atheists group as expressed in an ad campaign with the words “why not be good for goodness sake” demonstrates that groups focus on religions focus on doctrines and not morals.  The fact that the Atheist group sees the Nativity scene as a representation of the Christian belief that non believers will be condemned to eternal damnation is correct, because it follows the logic of Atheist culture. The assertion of the various Christian groups that are in poison to the sign is hatful is correct, because theses groups see the sign as an affront to their own culture and cultural logic. The beginning point for the Logic of Christian Groups is the existence of god.  As atheist groups would argue the existence of god cannot be proven, however as Christian groups would respond the existence of god cannot be disproven.  Consequently, to state the benefits of atheism, freedom from rule by religious decrees, is an attack on Christianity.   There will be no way to reconcile the differences between theses two groups, as their logic is mutually exclusive and found on different culture premises.

 

Works Cited

Simon, Mallory. "Atheists take aim at Christmas." Atheists take aim at Christmas - CNN.com. 5 Dec. 2008. CNN. 5 Dec. 2008 http://www.cnn.com/2008/living/12/05/atheists.christmas/?iref=mpstoryview.

Teaching Religion in America

              American culture and its perception of the legality or appropriateness of discussing religion in schools has formed a cultural disjoint between understanding the context of innumerable current world events and world history.  The religious pretext of conflicts that the United States are currently involved in are undeniable.  The entire premise of the war on terrorism is to defeat the Islamic fundamentalists that would harm the United States citizens.  American politics have overtly involved a heated debate about abortion for over half a century in which conservative Christian groups are strongly associate themselves with the “pro-life” cause.  Regardless of the blatant involvement of religion in these and innumerable other contexts in American culture, Americans remain astoundingly uninformed about religions. 

            The lack of textual religious information in American culture has drastic repercussions.  Rev. Joan Brown Campbell stated, “We’re impoverished by our ignorance… You can’t draw on the resource of faith if you only have an emotional understanding not a sense of the texts and teachings”(Grossman).   This emotional knowledge can lead to the same errors that lack of textual information given in any field.  Cathy Lynn Grossman, writing for USA Today, cites an example of this the highly circulated story that the Quran foretold that U.S. invasion of the Middle East. This claim is false, but with out knowledge of the text of the Quran citizens were unable to combat the inaccuracies of the claim. 

            The reason for the lack of knowledge about religion in the United States is the cultural understanding of the first amendment.    The First amendment of the Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  The 1963 decision of the Supreme Court that disallowed religious instruction in school is widely believed to state that United States law prohibits discussion of religion in school.  However this is not the case, and the Supreme Court’s decision even makes it clear that a knowledge of religious texts is important for education, but the formation of the cultural Understanding that religion must not be a part of school.  Regardless the cultural understand of this case , not the legal understanding, is that religions shall not be mentioned in government funded schools.

 

Works Cited

Grossman, Cathy L. "Americans get an 'F' in religion." Americans get an 'F' in religion - USATODAY.com. 14 Mar. 2007. USA Today. 4 Dec. 2008 http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-03-07-teaching-religion-cover_n.htm.

Commercialization of Holidays in a Politically Correct Consumer Culture

            It’s the time of year when stores paint their windows with fake snow and cover every inch of their display in festive cheer in an effort to seduce consumers into spending every last penny in an effort to buy that perfect Christmas.   Christmas has long been a topic of great debate.  The puritans made the celebration of Christmas through “forbearing labor or feasting or [celebrating] in any other way” a crime (Cohen). The holiday then began to gain more respect as a respectable holiday after the introduction of St. Nickolas and the domesticity of the event.  More recently the later part of December has come to be know as the holiday season, rather than the Christmas season in an attempt to show respect for other religions and the religious celebrations of those religions.

            The most notable religious ceremony in the United States that occurs during the “holiday season”, aside form Christmas is Hanukah.  However, to those who practice Judaism Hanukah is not a major holiday.  Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut, who studies the commercialization of Hanukah, stated, “Hanukkah has always been a minor holiday, not on par with the Jewish New Year, the Day of Atonement and not even on par with other high holidays"(Manekin).  This minor Jewish holiday that has been cast into eminence in the united sates owes its prestige to the commercialization of the “holiday season”.  The rampant consumerism of the American Christmas carried over into Hanukah forming commercialized holiday that is more of a cultural than religious event. 

            The conflict between Christmas and the Jews culture is not isolated to modern American culture.  In European comminutes, according to Plaut, it was often the case the Jews would either isolate themselves from Christmas, or accept the holiday on cultural, rather than religious grounds and host Christmas parties of bring Christmas trees into their homes (Manekin).

            This awkward relationship between different religions, the attempt to from a cohesive culture, and in America to use this culture to fuel consumerism has come to be exemplified by the phrase “happy holidays”.  Sores that capitalize on the advantageous situation of consumers that are more willing to buy freely in this time of year have adopted the phrase, or other similar phrases, to entice as large a percentage of the population as possible with out offending any possible customers. Implicit in this modus operandi is the American cultural presumption that religion can be truncated and separated from popular culture.  While it is true that form may people that meaning of Christmas has everything to do with the presents, or consumer culture of America, and nothing to do with religion.  This does not, however, mean that that foundation of the holiday is in any way exculpable of its religious pretext, particularly when observing that American cultural attempt to avoid confrontation or alienation of those people who are not Christian. 

            This then is paradox of happy holidays in American culture.  The holiday season had transformed into more of a cultural rather than religious event, with a strong religious pretext.  By becoming a consumption-based holiday Christmas has created the spirit of consumerism associated with the time period that has then trans-mutated Hanukah into a major holiday on a cultural bases, rather than a religious bases.  “Happy holidays” has then come to me something bizarre and particular to American culture.  It essentially means to enjoy spending money on gifts for the sake of culture, any cultural events that occur in December, and any religious pretext that may be associated with those gifts.

 

Works Cited:

 

Cohen, Adam. "This Season's War Cry: Commercialize Christmas, or Else." This Season's War Cry: Commercialize Christmas, or Else - New York Times. 4 Dec. 2005. The New York Times. 4 Dec. 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/opinion/04sun3.html

 

Manekin, Michael. "Hanukkah bolstered by Christmas rivalry." Hanukkah bolstered by Christmas rivalry Oakland tribune Find articles on Bnet. 15 Dec. 2006. Oakland Tribune. 4 Dec. 2008 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_/ai_n16903960

 

Mckee, Steven. "An Unreasonable Fear of Christmas." Business Week. 7 Dec. 2006. Sales and Market. 4 Dec. 2008 http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/dec2006/sb20061207_345299.htm?campaign_id=bier_smc.g3a.rssd1207zz

Growth of Jewish Food Culture

Food plays a demonstrative roll as a statement of culture.  The Jewish religion has both a very strong culture and string dietary guidelines that bind observant practitioners to a small number of foods, when compared with that amount of food available the rest of United States culture.   With the recent growth of culturally variant foods that have become popular in the United States there has also been a growth thin the popularity of kosher foods (Applebome). Sales of kosher food have grown to a $14 billion a year industry (Applebome).  This growth has brought traditional kosher food to a larger audience, but has also brought created a demand for a more diverse range of kosher products such as white grape Matzo, Concord grape matzo, spelt matzo, thin tea matzo, yolk free matzo, apple cinnamon matzo, non dairy cake frosting, even kosher Spanish pilaf mix (Applebome).   These are all non-traditional foods, by the normal standards of the culture, but the interest of those people who are not a part of the Jewish cutler has produced an economic demand for these new multicultural food products.   While many of these new products are made for the new non-Jewish market, some of the new products are, no doubt, consumed by Jews observing kosher dietary practices.  This represents the confluence of cultures to some extent, but to what extent is not clear.  According to Rabbi Yaakov Y. Horowitz “It’s the process that has to be traditional not the food that comes form it” (Applebome).  This statement makes the rules of kosher very clear, that safe handling of food, and not dietary restrictions are the central focus of kosher traditions.  The more interesting part of this statement it that the traditional process that Rabbi Horowitz refers to in this circumstance is a state of the art, fully automated, high speed manufacturing plant.  Rabbi Horowitz demonstrates that there are very specific parts of the process have to be kept traditional, and with a large number of rabbi inspecting the new machinery there is no doubt that the process adheres to these cultural and religious guidelines.

 

Works Cited:

Applebome, Peter. "Matzo Sells Like Hotcakes." Matzo Sells Like Hotcakes - New York TImes. 13 Apr. 2008. The New York Times. 2 Dec. 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/nyregion/13towns.html?_r=1.

Religion and Social Networking

            

            America is a nation of many religions. The Pew Institute U.S. Religious Landscape Survey crated a statistical analysis of people affiliated with various religions in the United States.  From the survey of 35,556 people the pew institute calculated the percentage of people in the United States who identify with any religion and what religion they identify them selves as. 

Religion	Percentage
Evangelical	26.30%
Catholic	23.90%
Protestant	18.10%
Historically Black churches	6.90%
Mormon	1.70%
Jehovah’s Whiteness	0.70%
Orthodox	0.60%
Other Christian	0.30%
Jewish	1.70%
Muslim	0.60%
Hindu	0.40%
Other World Religions	<.3%
Other Faiths	1.20%
Don't Know or refused	0.80%
Unaffiliated	16.10%

 

            From these numbers it is easy to see that the United States is predominantly a religious nation. American culture there are places that are more appropriate for displays of religion.  There is also a cretin amount of religious presence that pervades daily life.  The newest space in American culture is the Internet, or cyber space.  There are countless websites dedicated to religion, but with in social networks, or the social space on there internet, is little religious presence.  Facebook has 39,055,940 users that identify as living in the United States. The problem with statistics on face book is that they are only as accurate as the users want the statistics to be as there is no prerogative to not lie.  The advertising function on Facebook allows users to measure the size of the demographic that list particular words in their interests.

Word in interests	Number of people who use word interests	Percentage of total Facebook population
God	456,200	1.168068161
Jesus	140,040	0.358562616
Jesus Christ	106,160	0.271815248
Christian	368,920	0.944593831
Christianity	35,780	0.091612185
The Bible	1,181,780	3.025864952
The Holy Bible	61,480	0.157415236
Bible Study	55,380	0.141796613
Bible Studies	7,400	0.018947182
Studying the Bible	5,180	0.013263027
Reading the Bible	14,700	0.037638321
The Book of Mormon	26,120	0.066878431
Islam	27,240	0.069746113
Quran	18,140	0.0464462
Quraan	280	0.00071692
The Holy Quran	7,260	0.018588722
Jew	26,640	0.068209855
Jews	1,780	0.004557565
The Torah	4,620	0.011829187
Buddhism	12,420	0.03180054
Buddha	2,200	0.005632946
Orthodoxy	2,740	0.007015578

 

From these statistics it possible to see that Facebook like other social space in the United States is not seen as place for religious interaction.  It is not surprising that religion is not prevalent in the social sphere of the internet, but because Facebook provides the opportunity for people t write themselves into existence it is surprising that such a small percentage of people choose to mention their religion given their overwhelming percentage of the population.

Works Cited:

Facebook. "Advertise on Facebook." Facebook What do you want to advertise? Facebook. 28 Nov. 2008 http://www.facebook.com/ads/create./http://www.facebook.com/ads/create

Pew Institute. "Afiliations." Church Statists and Religious Affiliations - U.S. Religious Landscape Study - Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Pew Institute. 28 Nov. 2008 ./http://religions.pewforum.org/affiliations

Relationship with a Father

God, in the Christian faith is often referred to as the “heavenly father”, and people of the Christian faith in America often speak of their relationship with God. Because of this the understanding of God is to some extent determined by the fictive kin relationship that they establish. In the case of the this particular relationship God does not actually supplant the father, but instead becomes more important. As with any relationship there are things that rare understood as a duty and as a privileged. The duty of a person of the Christian faith is to pray to god and devote themselves to Christian teachings, and the benefit that they receive in return is the love of god in life and admittance to life after they die. This relationship provides an important aspect of the cultural relevancy with I the Christian faith. The understanding of God as a benevolent and forgiving father, but also very demanding and restrictive creates a cultural framework for. In the words of the student I interviewed, “God is like our father when you want a hug you can get a hug, but with god you have to be patient an it’s not on your terms.” This context is important because allows and understandable contextual reference to be applied to the idea of god. With out the context of God as a demanding father it would be much harder to understand the exact relevance of God, or the relationship that many Christians have with God.

You need to jump in

I interviewed a student and Wheaton about her religious faith. The student that I interviewed is a practicing Lutheran and was raised in a Lutheran household. Currently she is attending church once a week, and previously she attended church four times a week. Aside from attending church on a regular basis this student also prays on every day when she is not in church. When I asked her to describe her relationship with god she told me, “its not like any other relationship. God is like our father when you want a hug you can get a hug, but with god you have to be patient an its not on your terms, some times it doesn’t seem like he is real then there are sings and you just know that he is”. I asked what kinds of signs she meant and she used as an example if she was working hard for a grade, or was trying o be friends with some on and it wasn’t working, but then it managed to work out more beautifully than she ever imagined.
I the student if she hade ever done anything that went against her religious teachings, and she immediately answered that she had. What she told me was that she had been drinking and done something bad while she was drinking. She told me that afterwards she apologized to God and took it as a sign form God that she should not participate in those activities.
The most important thing that I learned from this interview was something that I did not even ask. What she told me was, “As some one who is not Christian you can’t really understand this you can’t just dip your toe in the water, you have to jump in.” This statement demonstrates how important cultural relevance is. It also shows that the logic of the Christian faith is based around the existence of God. I asked her if she had ever questioned her fait and was told that she had, but that she has always concluded to that God was real an that Go had always existed. In order to understand the logic of people of faith is imperative to accept the existence of God as the founding for cultural relevancy.

René Descartes and the Existence of God

The prevalent scientific understand of the world does not rely on he existence of a God, and because God’s existence is no long a predetermined understanding the conclusion of the scientific world is that God does not exist. However, the principal of god is not necessarily based in science, and in order to understand the culture of people who believe in God, it is necessary to understand the arguments that accept or perpetuate the existence of God. René Descartes a philosopher who lived from 1596 to 1650 established new guidelines for philosophical thinking. The main teaching of Descartes was to rely less on the senses for perception. With the removal of the senses from the understanding of philosophy Descartes was able to produce a method of philosophical thinking that began only with the concert understanding of his own existence. Beyond this Descartes was able to deduce that he could think. This model allowed Descartes to remove all doubtable philosophies from his own thinking. Regardless of Descartes new construct for philosophy he was able to use accept the existence of god.
In order to prove the existence of God Descartes began with the theory of cause and effect. The effect in this instance is the existence of god. With out a cause the belief in God there would be with out reason, hence the reason to believe in God must be the existence of God. The other proof that God exists comes from the perception of an idea as the total of its parts. God, in the case of Descartes, refers to a Christian god, or the idea of god, is a perfect being. Descartes considered existence to be inherent trait of perfection. Therefore because God was thought of, and all that Descartes could initially accept the existence of was himself and his ability to think, God must exist, and because the thought God was created with the acceptance of the perfection of God the thought of God proves the existence of God and the thought of God as perfect includes the implication in perfects of existence that god must exist.
It is possible to argue to the contrary of Descartes, but what is more important is that Descartes creates a clear logic in his understanding and acceptance of god. In a sense Descartes provides the argument of the logic inherent in the culture of faith, or the cultural relevance of God with in the culture of Faithful people.

Works Cited:

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. "Descrates: An Overview." Descrates: An Overview [The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy ]. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 24 Oct. 2008 .

Religulous

Religulous, Directed by Larry Charles written by and starring staring Bill Maher, is a comedy that is intended to display what the movie perceives as the big questions of religion.  Which also results in Bill Maher insulting the majority of the people in the world.  The Movie focuses on Christianity and Islam with a few divergences to various inquiries about other religions.  The major questions that the movie asks of Christianity are: why, if so many things stated in the bible are so unreasonable and there is so little evidence that there is a presence of God, do people believe in Christianity? Why is it so important to the church that homosexuality is considered a sin, especially given that it is only mentioned in the Old Testament and that Christ preached about acceptance? Why do so many Christians go to such length to deny the theory of evolution?  And why is a combination of religion and government so common?

            The film demonstrates that the culture of faith is often a sub-culture of the over all culture, as is the case I the United States, and because of this the logic of the culture is much more commonly called into question.  While the movie has many political implications, what the film mainly does is to question the logic of the culture of faith.  One of the movies presumptions is that the existence of God is illogical, however the basis of basis of logic within the culture of faith founded upon the existence of God.  The simple answer to all of the questions asked by the film is that people of faith believe, the logic of the culture of faith is bases around the understanding of the existence God.  

Works Cited:

Religulous. Dir. Larry Charles. Perf. Bill Maher. Film. 2008.

"Reliulous (Trailor)." Youtube - Reliulous (Trailor). 3 July 2008. Youtube. 24 Oct. 2008 .

Why Faith?

For the majority of human history each society has accepted a particular faith and made it an interregnal, if not defining, aspect of their culture.  As an agnostic I am an exception to this historical normalcy.  Because of my lack of faith, I interpret the teachings of religion as nothing more than the foundation for a homogeneous moral code. In my ethnography I will attempt to explore the culture of people who do not see religion simply as a set of social values, but as the word of God, or their gods depending upon the faith, and devote them selves entirely to those teachings and the God of religion every day. 

            The culture of devout faith consist of dozens of sub cultures of religions and sects within those religions, yet are similar in some ways because of their devout faith.  Each religion has its own particularities, but what I intend to study is not the religions themselves, but devotion to God as manifested in different religious acts. I intend to investigate this culture by doing contextual research on the particular religions, interviewing practitioners, and possibly being a participant observer at religious ceremonies. 

            Through this cultural study I intend on gaining a full understanding of why people devote them selves so fully to a religion, and once they, become devout practitioners, how the display their devotion and use it to inform their daily perspective. I hope that this process will also enlighten my skeptical perceptions of religion and gain the cultural perspective of devoutly religious peoples to inform my own perspective on American culture and my own life.