Showing posts with label Deep Thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deep Thoughts. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
I'm Too Young For This Shit: Me & My Heart Attack
Ok, it's been a while. Things have been a bit busy, what with the moving cross-country, starting a new job, and having a kid. Through it all I'm continuing to deal with an existential quandary about my place in and relationship with organized Judaism, so the blogging about religion has somewhat tapered off.
Oh; also there was a heart attack.
As you may have heard around Facebook, I had a minor "major health incident" almost three months ago. You may not have know the details, though, because at first I was hesitant to post them online. Then I was... embarrassed. Not sure why that's my reaction, but it is. I decided it was time to write this post, though, and be a bit more open about the whole thing for one particular reason:
There are absolutely no resources out there for people who have heart attacks in their 30s. Or at least none I can find online.
Granted, the over-50 crowd make up the bulk of coronary heart disease (CHD) patients so it makes sense to cater to them, but you would expect with the hyper-niche formation that has become emblematic of the internet that something would be out there. I have my own theories about why it's like this. First, I suspect that, like me, many younger CHD survivors are too embarrassed to talk openly about their experience. Add in the rarity and it becomes nigh-impossible to gather a critical mass. Second, I suspect that, like me, 30-somethings refuse to accept the possibility they are having a heart attack.
So there's not enough of us who survive the experience in order to bond over it.
I wouldn't have gone to the hospital myself if it weren't for my loving, wonderful, hyper-protective wife. I had been feeling fine, or at least not noticeably bad, and spent the afternoon gaming with some friends. On the way home I started feeling some pain and assumed it was tension-related. When I got home I told Alex; she said that if I wasn't feeling better in 10 minutes we were going to the hospital - "just in case". Nine and a half minutes later we were in the car.
Many experts recommend that if you even think you might be having a heart attack or other life threatening emergency you should call an ambulance rather than drive yourself because you'll get seen sooner. I now agree. We walked into the ER, I told them I was having chest pains, and they directed me to a lovely blue plastic chair where I sat for nearly an hour. Then to the exam room. The nurse hooked up some wires, checked my EKG, and promptly ran out of the room.
That's usually a good sign, right?
She came back in, strapped me to the gurney, and pushed me into the hallway, alternately yelling at people in her way to either move or help.Then I met the nice doctor who got to tell me I was having a heart attack.
Oh.
There followed some crying and some staring quietly into space while they prepped me, inserting and withdrawing various objects and substances as appropriate. I'll spare you for now the details of the operation and my stay in the ICU, although I may tell those stories sometime, to return to my main point:
It sucks to have a heart attack in your 30s.
Granted, there is no good time to have a heart attack but having one so young adds a special twist. When I go to physical therapy I'm the youngest person in the room by an order of magnitude. Many of the people I meet there tell me they took or are considering early retirement to reduce their stress load - not so much an option for me. They talk about their children coming back home to help or spending as much time as possible with their grandchildren while they can; meanwhile I'm wondering if I'll be around long enough to see my 7-month old son graduate from high school. Or get married. Or learn to walk. Even if I do, will I be able to play with him? Will I be able to teach him sports ("That's great, doctor, because I couldn't play sports before the operation!"), take him camping, or wrestle with him, or will I be the perpetually weak, tired father on the sidelines his whole life? Having to take more than ten medicines a day or stick to a harsh diet plan for the rest of your life means something very different at 63 than at 33.
I should add that as of now I'm recovering as well as could be hoped. Physically, there was little damage and few lasting side effects. Pharmacologically, it'll take a while longer to get used to the new pills - and the inevitable experimenting until we find the right cocktail. Emotionally...I'm getting there.
I hope in writing this that I can reach other people my age who have CHD to let them know they are not alone. We are here, we are survivors. If you you just went through this and need someone to talk to, contact me. Likewise, if you went through this a while ago and have any advice, I'd be glad to hear it. I'm trying to remember that, long run, this will be a good thing. We found the problem early and with minimal damage, giving me time to learn to manage it. When I reach the age where CHD becomes a more common, more serious problem, I'll already be an expert on the medication and lifestyle.
I know that. It's just hard to internalize.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
The Last Ten Years
A few years back my sister introduced me to a musical called The Last Five Years. It tells the story of a relationship from first date to break-up. What makes it memorable is that the woman's story is told in reverse chronological order while the man's is told chronologically, so we see her broken heart overlying his excitement about meeting her, and his eventual good bye matches up with her anticipation of seeing him "tomorrow". This juxtaposition makes the pain of their break-up especially poignant. (It's possible I've mentioned this musical in an earlier post; like I said, it stuck with me.)
I had somewhat the same feeling this weekend watching the 9/11 memorial programming, Especially when they showed people's reactions at the time, contrasted with their feelings today. I remember one reporter talking about the "effects of this day staying with us for weeks and months to come", and feeling slightly mournful for his optimism. Another time a clip showed one of the survivors rejoicing to be alive a week after the attack, and I couldn't help but notice she was conspicuously absent from the interviews with her saviors today.
We didn't know how much worse it would get.
We didn't know that it would eventually get better.
Such is always the way, right? As we sit here, nearing the top of the cycle of the Jewish year, we are reminded of both how similar and how different this coming year will be from the last. Some who are with us today will not be; some new people will take their place. Are the 9/11 attacks different? Were our dually misplace optimism and pessimism something unique, or just...bigger?
It's hard to say. Leon writes about seeing the day as an outsider, an ex-pat at the time. I had in many ways a similar experience. Safe in central Illinois, I never worried that I might be next. I forgot my uncle actually worked in the building until after I'd heard he was ok, leaving nothing to fear but what might have been. Other than that, all it was to me was something happening on tv.
No; that wasn't all it was.
I remember the day. I had the day free, so I was sleeping in and taking a lazy morning of it. After showering I turned on the radio and heard, "The president will be making a special address momentarily regarding this morning's acts of terrorism."
My first thought was, "What did that moron do this time?" I jumped straight to a conspiracy theory smokescreen to distract us from what a bad job Bush was doing as president. So I went to the living room and turned on the tv.
Just in time to see the second plane hit.
In moments of extremity, I tend to go emotionally cold. I have dispassionately cleaned and bandaged my own lacerated arm while simultaneously reassuring those around me and organizing them into helpful tasks. Useful as survival instincts go, but it also means I tend to ask questions like "How are you feeling?" only when I come to them on my checklist. That includes asking the question of myself. By the time I checked with my own emotional response the dust (literal and figurative) had somewhat cleared. I knew I had seen not only the deaths of thousands of people, but also of a chapter in American history. It was obvious we would be going to war, and quickly; the only question was how soon we'd be able to get out of it.
Ten years later, we are still asking that question.
We have been a nation in mourning for the past decade. Every conversation about our country, no matter the topic, eventually is about that day. Watching the coverage this weekend, I think it's possible we as a nation have post-traumatic stress disorder; to paraphrase the West Wing, we need to be able to remember that day without reliving it.
It is my hope that today will mark the end of this decade-long shiva. Remember, always remember, but hopefully now the healing can truly begin.
I had somewhat the same feeling this weekend watching the 9/11 memorial programming, Especially when they showed people's reactions at the time, contrasted with their feelings today. I remember one reporter talking about the "effects of this day staying with us for weeks and months to come", and feeling slightly mournful for his optimism. Another time a clip showed one of the survivors rejoicing to be alive a week after the attack, and I couldn't help but notice she was conspicuously absent from the interviews with her saviors today.
We didn't know how much worse it would get.
We didn't know that it would eventually get better.
Such is always the way, right? As we sit here, nearing the top of the cycle of the Jewish year, we are reminded of both how similar and how different this coming year will be from the last. Some who are with us today will not be; some new people will take their place. Are the 9/11 attacks different? Were our dually misplace optimism and pessimism something unique, or just...bigger?
It's hard to say. Leon writes about seeing the day as an outsider, an ex-pat at the time. I had in many ways a similar experience. Safe in central Illinois, I never worried that I might be next. I forgot my uncle actually worked in the building until after I'd heard he was ok, leaving nothing to fear but what might have been. Other than that, all it was to me was something happening on tv.
No; that wasn't all it was.
I remember the day. I had the day free, so I was sleeping in and taking a lazy morning of it. After showering I turned on the radio and heard, "The president will be making a special address momentarily regarding this morning's acts of terrorism."
My first thought was, "What did that moron do this time?" I jumped straight to a conspiracy theory smokescreen to distract us from what a bad job Bush was doing as president. So I went to the living room and turned on the tv.
Just in time to see the second plane hit.
In moments of extremity, I tend to go emotionally cold. I have dispassionately cleaned and bandaged my own lacerated arm while simultaneously reassuring those around me and organizing them into helpful tasks. Useful as survival instincts go, but it also means I tend to ask questions like "How are you feeling?" only when I come to them on my checklist. That includes asking the question of myself. By the time I checked with my own emotional response the dust (literal and figurative) had somewhat cleared. I knew I had seen not only the deaths of thousands of people, but also of a chapter in American history. It was obvious we would be going to war, and quickly; the only question was how soon we'd be able to get out of it.
Ten years later, we are still asking that question.
We have been a nation in mourning for the past decade. Every conversation about our country, no matter the topic, eventually is about that day. Watching the coverage this weekend, I think it's possible we as a nation have post-traumatic stress disorder; to paraphrase the West Wing, we need to be able to remember that day without reliving it.
It is my hope that today will mark the end of this decade-long shiva. Remember, always remember, but hopefully now the healing can truly begin.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Siyyum
Siyyum represents one of my favorite concepts in Judiasm, one of the things that, I think, really sets us apart and reminds me why I am still Jewish as opposed to, say, another religion more in keeping with some of my other...interests.
According to JewishEncyclopedia.com, siyyum is:
Now obviously not just any book is grounds for celebration; stopping for a party every time I finished a comic book on a Sunday afternoon would get exhausting, and some books I have celebrated completing only because it meant I didn't have to read them anymore (I'm looking at you, Wide Sargasso Sea!). The concept originates in the Talmud and clearly carries the implication that one has been reading sacred books (and really, what else would one want to read?). I believe, however, it is allowable and proper to expand the concept to include any well-loved book or rigorous course of intellectual development. I would not look askance (much) at a friend that had a siyyum upon completing the Harry Potter series, especially, at this point, if the point of the celebration was finally catching up on the past 15 years. Likewise, a friend that had just finished working through a MCAT prep book would be well justified in throwing a siyyum.
A more interesting question would seem to be, in our increasingly multimedia age, does it have to be a literal book or will any similarly challenging academic pursuit qualify? If one has a siyyum for the Potter books, what about for the Potter movie? For completing a difficult post-graduate course? I am torn on this. On the one hand, the siyyum is celebrating learning, which would suggest the medium is unimportant; on the other - and this might be because I am a sentimentalist - it seems to lose much when divorced from the concept of a book. I therefore have somewhat of a compromise position: I would personally only hold a siyyum for a book, but would not begrudge a friend that wanted to celebrate something else.
I also see value in embracing the siyyum as a national practice, regardless of religion. The siyyum could make reading cool again. I referred to the Potter books because when they first came out many people were thrilled that they were getting kids to read again. Rather than wait for the next mega-popular book series to come along, the siyyum heightens the concept of reading itself, regardless of what one reads. I can see teachers using this in school; would students be more willing and eager to read the classics if there was a class party waiting at the end?
The modern book club could be seen as a form of siyyum. In theory, most book clubs select works of some academic or social importance (it's debatable which of these Oprah's imprimatur would be). The group then comes back together to celebrate and discuss; that seems to be exactly what the sages were describing.
According to JewishEncyclopedia.com, siyyum is:
The formal ceremonial act of completing the writing of a scroll of the Law, or the formal conclusion of the study of a division ("massekta") of the Mishnah or Talmud. In the former case the ceremony is called siyyum ha-Sefer; in the latter, siyyum massekta.Either way, it's the celebration of the completion of a book. What a marvelous concept, especially for a people that highly value education and language, and claim to be of the book!
Now obviously not just any book is grounds for celebration; stopping for a party every time I finished a comic book on a Sunday afternoon would get exhausting, and some books I have celebrated completing only because it meant I didn't have to read them anymore (I'm looking at you, Wide Sargasso Sea!). The concept originates in the Talmud and clearly carries the implication that one has been reading sacred books (and really, what else would one want to read?). I believe, however, it is allowable and proper to expand the concept to include any well-loved book or rigorous course of intellectual development. I would not look askance (much) at a friend that had a siyyum upon completing the Harry Potter series, especially, at this point, if the point of the celebration was finally catching up on the past 15 years. Likewise, a friend that had just finished working through a MCAT prep book would be well justified in throwing a siyyum.
A more interesting question would seem to be, in our increasingly multimedia age, does it have to be a literal book or will any similarly challenging academic pursuit qualify? If one has a siyyum for the Potter books, what about for the Potter movie? For completing a difficult post-graduate course? I am torn on this. On the one hand, the siyyum is celebrating learning, which would suggest the medium is unimportant; on the other - and this might be because I am a sentimentalist - it seems to lose much when divorced from the concept of a book. I therefore have somewhat of a compromise position: I would personally only hold a siyyum for a book, but would not begrudge a friend that wanted to celebrate something else.
I also see value in embracing the siyyum as a national practice, regardless of religion. The siyyum could make reading cool again. I referred to the Potter books because when they first came out many people were thrilled that they were getting kids to read again. Rather than wait for the next mega-popular book series to come along, the siyyum heightens the concept of reading itself, regardless of what one reads. I can see teachers using this in school; would students be more willing and eager to read the classics if there was a class party waiting at the end?
The modern book club could be seen as a form of siyyum. In theory, most book clubs select works of some academic or social importance (it's debatable which of these Oprah's imprimatur would be). The group then comes back together to celebrate and discuss; that seems to be exactly what the sages were describing.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Speaking out
Last Friday ginandtacos asked, at what point should you speak up when you see a stranger is in trouble?
But those are trivialities. The more frightening examples are the ones Ed points to. Do I speak out when a friend seems to have a problem? What about a co-worker? A complete stranger? Especially if I'm acting only on my amateur analysis of the situation.
Sometimes, I've learned, people don't want - or aren't ready - to be helped. With my friends I've learned to be present and supportive without trying to change them. It's not easy. In the past I have had to essentially cut some of my friends out of my life - temporarily - because they were not ready to change and I could no longer be part of their self-destruction. At some point it's what they need from me in order to get better; at some point it's what I have to do to keep myself from going down with them.
But again, strangers are harder. Ironically, this is a place where "nice people" have more trouble precisely because they are nice. They - we, I hope - care about the other person's feelings, even if the other is acting a manner not deserving such compassion. Our desire to help runs into our desire to avoid embarrassing or upsetting them. I think that's why characters like House have so much appeal; here's someone that won't let hurting patients' feelings get in the way of helping them. We envy that...freedom. That ability to speak, to act, without reservation when we know it is right, regardless of the harm it may cause, secure in the belief the greater good will be served.
Because without it, all to often, we just watch. In silence.
There is a prayer in Judaism which asks God to open our mouths that we may pray properly. Several, actually. I have come to love this prayer. It addresses directly the issue Ed and I face. It asks God - whatever that means to you - to help us find our voice.
To give us the strength to speak.
Being a generally nosy and outspoken person, it's rare that I see her without wondering If I Should Say Something. Of course I never do. The excuses for avoiding it are so numerous. It's none of my business. She wouldn't care what a stranger says anyway.... Her friends and family are probably already intervening. I'm being paternalistic and sexist. And so on.Like Ed, I am a generally nosy and outspoken person, so this is an issue I struggle with as well. Even in smaller, less life-threatening ways, like when I see people committing a faux pas because, apparently, they're new to the area and don't know the culture. Does my attempt to help them fit in override the rudeness of pointing out their mistake? What about confronting people who are themselves being rude? Like asking the guy sitting on the metro to give up his seat to an obviously pregnant woman; am I the hero for helping out - and helping this guy be polite, which he probably wanted to do - or a jerk for embarrassing him?
But those are trivialities. The more frightening examples are the ones Ed points to. Do I speak out when a friend seems to have a problem? What about a co-worker? A complete stranger? Especially if I'm acting only on my amateur analysis of the situation.
Sometimes, I've learned, people don't want - or aren't ready - to be helped. With my friends I've learned to be present and supportive without trying to change them. It's not easy. In the past I have had to essentially cut some of my friends out of my life - temporarily - because they were not ready to change and I could no longer be part of their self-destruction. At some point it's what they need from me in order to get better; at some point it's what I have to do to keep myself from going down with them.
But again, strangers are harder. Ironically, this is a place where "nice people" have more trouble precisely because they are nice. They - we, I hope - care about the other person's feelings, even if the other is acting a manner not deserving such compassion. Our desire to help runs into our desire to avoid embarrassing or upsetting them. I think that's why characters like House have so much appeal; here's someone that won't let hurting patients' feelings get in the way of helping them. We envy that...freedom. That ability to speak, to act, without reservation when we know it is right, regardless of the harm it may cause, secure in the belief the greater good will be served.
Because without it, all to often, we just watch. In silence.
There is a prayer in Judaism which asks God to open our mouths that we may pray properly. Several, actually. I have come to love this prayer. It addresses directly the issue Ed and I face. It asks God - whatever that means to you - to help us find our voice.
To give us the strength to speak.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
With all my heart
A couple weeks ago I got very excited by the idea that the name for our historical priests ("Levi") was very similar to "Lah-vi", which means "my heart". Further research dispelled this notion; there are two letters that make the "v" sound, and the similarity of the two is merely coincidental, not indicative of a linguistic link. Still, the idea intrigued me enough that I wanted to spend some time playing with it.
Following the link in one direction, the priests become the heart of the community. The vital organ that keeps blood and life flowing through our communal body. While the modern rabbi is very different in many ways from historical priests, this part remains the same. More than leading prayers, more than teaching the youth, the rabbi's job is to keep the vital energy flowing through the congregation, spreading prayer, education, and administration where they are needed like nutrients through the bloodstream.
Moving in the other direction, I love the image that each of us has our own personal priest residing in our chest. We do not need external clergy to regulate our connection with the divine; we can create prayers, interpret the law, and talk or listen to god all on our own. This is the voice inside us that reminds us what is right and what is wrong. Beyond the written Torah and the oral Torah we have this inner Torah; we study the others just to remind ourselves of what our hearts already know.
It's probably because of my love of puns, but I am less willing to believe in pure coincidence than most scholars when it comes to words sounding alike. Granted, every language has words they assimilated from other cultures, which greatly heightens the evidence for "coincidence", but one of these terms is a name. That means at some point someone said, "I like the way this word sounds! I want to be called that for the rest of my life." Someone else, knowing the meaning of the name, chose it for their child. Interestingly, the name "Levi" is translated as "joining"; some sources attribute this to Leah's desire for Jacob to join with her. Even if it is a coincidence, there is a very pleasing resonance between "joining" and "my heart".
Following the link in one direction, the priests become the heart of the community. The vital organ that keeps blood and life flowing through our communal body. While the modern rabbi is very different in many ways from historical priests, this part remains the same. More than leading prayers, more than teaching the youth, the rabbi's job is to keep the vital energy flowing through the congregation, spreading prayer, education, and administration where they are needed like nutrients through the bloodstream.
Moving in the other direction, I love the image that each of us has our own personal priest residing in our chest. We do not need external clergy to regulate our connection with the divine; we can create prayers, interpret the law, and talk or listen to god all on our own. This is the voice inside us that reminds us what is right and what is wrong. Beyond the written Torah and the oral Torah we have this inner Torah; we study the others just to remind ourselves of what our hearts already know.
It's probably because of my love of puns, but I am less willing to believe in pure coincidence than most scholars when it comes to words sounding alike. Granted, every language has words they assimilated from other cultures, which greatly heightens the evidence for "coincidence", but one of these terms is a name. That means at some point someone said, "I like the way this word sounds! I want to be called that for the rest of my life." Someone else, knowing the meaning of the name, chose it for their child. Interestingly, the name "Levi" is translated as "joining"; some sources attribute this to Leah's desire for Jacob to join with her. Even if it is a coincidence, there is a very pleasing resonance between "joining" and "my heart".
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Is circumcision mutilation?
So this is interesting.
My wife thinks this is a thinly veiled attack on Jews - or at least on non-Christians. I don't see antisemitism at the core of this, but I am sure many bigots will eventually sign on. Unless they decide it would be better to see us suffer diminished sex lives; could go either way, really. I think the debate started as a side-effect of increased public awareness, and opposition to, female genital mutilation. That's horrible, but, unfortunately, usually happens in far away places where our protests do no good. So, deciding that all cutting of children's genitals is equal, people started looking at male circumcision.
The two practices are NOT comparable. The difference is like trimming your nails, or having them ripped out. Like removing a mole from your arm, or amputating your hand. Granted, there's risks with any medical procedure, but I have never met, or even heard stories from, anyone who had a modern circumcision go awry.
Historical circumcision was a horrible thing. But all "medicine" was pretty barbaric in the days before antiseptic practices and sterilized instruments. Many rabbis would use their mouths to draw blood away after cutting, which is both disgusting and an excellent way to spread infection (especially if you're living in a time before flossing). I am strongly on-board with the idea that anyone practicing "traditional" circumcision in this manner should serve some jail time.
But for modern circumcision, performed by trained professionals with sterile implements? I'm less concerned.
I never really bought the "it reduces sexual enjoyment" argument; generations of Jewish men have complained about their sex lives, but typically that was because they lost sensitivity, but because they were married to Jewish women. On the other hand, I don't buy the "it reduces vulnerability to STDs" argument either. The "30% reduction!" is pretty exciting, but less so when you consider that reduced a 10% infection rate to 7%; neither of those are population-shifting numbers. Looking more closely, most of those studies measured the impact of circumcisions performed on grown men. I'm willing to bet the reduced infection rate roughly corresponds with the reduction in their total sex life during the recovery period. Not to mention that any adult male religious enough to get circumcised is probably also religious enough to avoid a lot of sexual contact.
So where does that leave us?
Technically, circumcision is genital mutilation. But only in the same sense that ear piercings are auricle mutilation. How does that weigh against being part of a tradition stretching back thousands of generations? I don't think it's fair to say "Let the child decide when he's old enough!" Elective cosmetic surgery on a sensitive body part right as you're entering college? Not likely. And not even a very reasonable request. The penis changes a lot during puberty; I don't know if nerve sensitivity increases during that period, but I was much more aware of it afterwards.
In the end, I'm still left with doubts. Would I want my own son circumcised? I'm not sure. Would I condemn someone else for circumcising their son? Not likely. Is this law a good idea? Absolutely not. But for reasons larger than antisemitism. It attempts to curtail the debate through legislation, rather than persuasion.
As a response on GetReligion.org puts it:
A San Francisco group looking to outlaw the practice of circumcision in the Bay Area is one step closer to getting its way...And it seems Santa Monica is considering a similar measure. The Santa Monica article contains a number of gems from the head (no pun intended) of the group backing the measure, such as comparing the "mental scaring of circumcision" to what rape victims endure, stating that adult males that get circumcised feel "a sense of loss", and this:
If the measure passes, circumcision would be prohibited among males under the age of 18. The practice would become a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to one year in jail. There would be no religious exemptions.
"If you raise your child to be smart and practice safe sex," circumcision is unnecessary..."If you're raising a dumb kid who won't use a condom, then go ahead and cut off two-thirds of his nerve endings and one-half of his penile skin."It's interesting this is starting in San Francisco; a place so liberal they now want to protect us from our constitutional protections. How can a city with "Pro-Choice" practically printed on the official letterhead get away with restricting parents' right to chose?
My wife thinks this is a thinly veiled attack on Jews - or at least on non-Christians. I don't see antisemitism at the core of this, but I am sure many bigots will eventually sign on. Unless they decide it would be better to see us suffer diminished sex lives; could go either way, really. I think the debate started as a side-effect of increased public awareness, and opposition to, female genital mutilation. That's horrible, but, unfortunately, usually happens in far away places where our protests do no good. So, deciding that all cutting of children's genitals is equal, people started looking at male circumcision.
The two practices are NOT comparable. The difference is like trimming your nails, or having them ripped out. Like removing a mole from your arm, or amputating your hand. Granted, there's risks with any medical procedure, but I have never met, or even heard stories from, anyone who had a modern circumcision go awry.
Historical circumcision was a horrible thing. But all "medicine" was pretty barbaric in the days before antiseptic practices and sterilized instruments. Many rabbis would use their mouths to draw blood away after cutting, which is both disgusting and an excellent way to spread infection (especially if you're living in a time before flossing). I am strongly on-board with the idea that anyone practicing "traditional" circumcision in this manner should serve some jail time.
But for modern circumcision, performed by trained professionals with sterile implements? I'm less concerned.
I never really bought the "it reduces sexual enjoyment" argument; generations of Jewish men have complained about their sex lives, but typically that was because they lost sensitivity, but because they were married to Jewish women. On the other hand, I don't buy the "it reduces vulnerability to STDs" argument either. The "30% reduction!" is pretty exciting, but less so when you consider that reduced a 10% infection rate to 7%; neither of those are population-shifting numbers. Looking more closely, most of those studies measured the impact of circumcisions performed on grown men. I'm willing to bet the reduced infection rate roughly corresponds with the reduction in their total sex life during the recovery period. Not to mention that any adult male religious enough to get circumcised is probably also religious enough to avoid a lot of sexual contact.
So where does that leave us?
Technically, circumcision is genital mutilation. But only in the same sense that ear piercings are auricle mutilation. How does that weigh against being part of a tradition stretching back thousands of generations? I don't think it's fair to say "Let the child decide when he's old enough!" Elective cosmetic surgery on a sensitive body part right as you're entering college? Not likely. And not even a very reasonable request. The penis changes a lot during puberty; I don't know if nerve sensitivity increases during that period, but I was much more aware of it afterwards.
In the end, I'm still left with doubts. Would I want my own son circumcised? I'm not sure. Would I condemn someone else for circumcising their son? Not likely. Is this law a good idea? Absolutely not. But for reasons larger than antisemitism. It attempts to curtail the debate through legislation, rather than persuasion.
As a response on GetReligion.org puts it:
However, the crucial legal question is whether the medical opinions and evidence can trump the religious liberty of Jewish parents to make this decision to follow the tenets of their faith. Does the state, in effect, have the right to change the doctrinal content of the Jewish faith by moving this rite from the first week of life to the, well, first week of adult life?Where do we draw the line? At what point do we permit a discomforting practice to occur on religious grounds, and when does public health and safety trump even constitutional rights?
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Myths We Want To Believe
Cracked.com has a post "4 Reoccurring Myths We Apparently Really Want To Believe" that examines some of the more persistent internet rumors and the reasons they have endured. The author is mostly speculating (but probably fairly accurate) about what type of socially unacceptable needs get met by, for example, watching videos of rich people behaving badly.
Amusing, possibly accurate. My favorite part, though, is the ending:
"Crime may pay in the short run, but it'll lead to a bad end."
"Study hard in school and you'll get a good job after college."
"Michael Bay is capable of making a great movie."
Big-B Belief tends to be made of many smaller beliefs. in many ways, that makes it worse. It's easy to deal with one potentially non-rational choice, but having to assess and assimilate hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller individual beliefs is daunting. It's easy to believe in big Beliefs like "The government shall not obstruct free speech," or "Thou shall not kill." It gets more difficult when looking at specific cases.
When it gets to the level of these details, it is important to determine not only what you believe but why you believe it. Did you examine the evidence and decide this is the most rational stance, or is it because of a bad experience you had in college? I won't argue that one is better grounds than the other, but it is important to understand for yourself. You may find some of your tightly held beliefs don't actually match your values, if you look closely enough.
Amusing, possibly accurate. My favorite part, though, is the ending:
If you ever run into a news story that gets you physically excited, make sure to take a step back and ask why you want it to be true so bad, and see if it's clouding your judgment.People are frequently reluctant to ask the question, "Why do I believe this?" I'm not talking about major, big-B "Belief", such as belief in God or reincarnation, but the smaller, day-to-day beliefs that we cling to even in the face of other evidence.
"Crime may pay in the short run, but it'll lead to a bad end."
"Study hard in school and you'll get a good job after college."
"Michael Bay is capable of making a great movie."
Big-B Belief tends to be made of many smaller beliefs. in many ways, that makes it worse. It's easy to deal with one potentially non-rational choice, but having to assess and assimilate hundreds, if not thousands, of smaller individual beliefs is daunting. It's easy to believe in big Beliefs like "The government shall not obstruct free speech," or "Thou shall not kill." It gets more difficult when looking at specific cases.
When it gets to the level of these details, it is important to determine not only what you believe but why you believe it. Did you examine the evidence and decide this is the most rational stance, or is it because of a bad experience you had in college? I won't argue that one is better grounds than the other, but it is important to understand for yourself. You may find some of your tightly held beliefs don't actually match your values, if you look closely enough.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Religious map of America
Saw this about 2 weeks ago, loved it, and wanted to write a whole post about it:
Now, been sitting on it too long, don't remember what I originally wanted to say.
It's probably important to note that this seems to measure plurality, not majority, so even in the heart of Georgia it's possible that most people are not Southern Baptist, they're just too divided among other groups to swing the needle.
It also doesn't indicate how many people are religious in an area; there's no measure of intensity. That means you could have areas where every religious person in that county belongs to X, and yet they are still only 1% of the population. In other words, we're not a predominantly Catolic nation, as this map appears; they just have the most consistent geographic distribution. Compare to this map, showing density of religious adherants, across all religions:
The color scheme probably helps, but I was also reminded of the electoral maps from recent presidential elections. Compare to this one showing shift in voting patterns from 2004 to 2008:
Raises some questions: are Catholics more liberal than we thought? Are they attracted to liberal areas? Does a concentration of Baptists increase conservative tendencies? Combining this with the earlier observation, is the reason some Catholics feel persecuted that they are the largest religious group in ares of the country where not many people are religious?
I also find it interesting that all the non-Christian religions get grouped under "Other". That suggests none of them had more than the LDS's 81 counties (not surprising), and I'm sure some of those "Others" are also Christian varietals, but still.
Talk about being made the outsider; they literally labeled all Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and every other Asian religion as The Other, a term usually applied to groups to explain why they are hated and/or feared. Heck, looking at this map you'd think there are no non-Christians in the country! That disturbs me more than a little.
Now, been sitting on it too long, don't remember what I originally wanted to say.
It's probably important to note that this seems to measure plurality, not majority, so even in the heart of Georgia it's possible that most people are not Southern Baptist, they're just too divided among other groups to swing the needle.
It also doesn't indicate how many people are religious in an area; there's no measure of intensity. That means you could have areas where every religious person in that county belongs to X, and yet they are still only 1% of the population. In other words, we're not a predominantly Catolic nation, as this map appears; they just have the most consistent geographic distribution. Compare to this map, showing density of religious adherants, across all religions:
The color scheme probably helps, but I was also reminded of the electoral maps from recent presidential elections. Compare to this one showing shift in voting patterns from 2004 to 2008:
Raises some questions: are Catholics more liberal than we thought? Are they attracted to liberal areas? Does a concentration of Baptists increase conservative tendencies? Combining this with the earlier observation, is the reason some Catholics feel persecuted that they are the largest religious group in ares of the country where not many people are religious?
I also find it interesting that all the non-Christian religions get grouped under "Other". That suggests none of them had more than the LDS's 81 counties (not surprising), and I'm sure some of those "Others" are also Christian varietals, but still.
Talk about being made the outsider; they literally labeled all Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and every other Asian religion as The Other, a term usually applied to groups to explain why they are hated and/or feared. Heck, looking at this map you'd think there are no non-Christians in the country! That disturbs me more than a little.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Appendix
[I wrote this back in August 2009, and it got lost in my Drafts folder after that. I still think it's interesting, and decided to post without heavy updating or editing.]
Science news from last week is that the appendix does, in fact, have a purpose. Unsurprisingly, religious bloggers have jumped on this as "proof" of science's fallibility and therefore, by extension, religion's truth. Many suggest, as did Rabbi Yonason Goldson, that "... knowledge and understanding have caught up with yet another aspect of Creation ...", asserting the position that eventually science will learn enough to see religion was right all along (the writer somehow connects this to mixing wool and cotton; not sure I follow that particular leap).
I disagree with Rabbi Goldson, largely because he tries to strengthen the artificial divide between science and religion. The part of his article I do agree with is this:
This arrogance, as he terms it, exists on both "sides" of the debate. Just yesterday, while discussing the topic of belief, a friend determined the question unanswerable, the existence of God therefore irrelevant, and belief therefore foolish. But this is the same mistake biologists made for years; everyone "knew" the appendix had no purpose because we had been unable to find that proof. How, then, does lack of evidence disprove religion?
We cannot dismiss any idea or concept, whether the value of the appendix or the existence of God, because of lack of evidence. All an unanswered question proves is that the question has not been answered.
Of course, that works both ways. Assuming there is a God, and the Torah/Bible/Koran contains his literal words is also incorrect, because it too is unproven. There exists a tension between the two positions, and it is within that tension that belief can exist.
Science news from last week is that the appendix does, in fact, have a purpose. Unsurprisingly, religious bloggers have jumped on this as "proof" of science's fallibility and therefore, by extension, religion's truth. Many suggest, as did Rabbi Yonason Goldson, that "... knowledge and understanding have caught up with yet another aspect of Creation ...", asserting the position that eventually science will learn enough to see religion was right all along (the writer somehow connects this to mixing wool and cotton; not sure I follow that particular leap).
I disagree with Rabbi Goldson, largely because he tries to strengthen the artificial divide between science and religion. The part of his article I do agree with is this:
"But jumping to the conclusion that anything we cannot explain must have no purpose or rationale demonstrates one of the most common forms of human arrogance. How often have science and medicine had to rethink their positions after new research has turned long-held truths upside down and inside out?
Even the greatest among us are prone to this kind of error. King David questioned the purpose of spiders and of insanity. (Personally, this author has a problem with mosquitoes.) The Almighty did not explain Himself to David."
This arrogance, as he terms it, exists on both "sides" of the debate. Just yesterday, while discussing the topic of belief, a friend determined the question unanswerable, the existence of God therefore irrelevant, and belief therefore foolish. But this is the same mistake biologists made for years; everyone "knew" the appendix had no purpose because we had been unable to find that proof. How, then, does lack of evidence disprove religion?
We cannot dismiss any idea or concept, whether the value of the appendix or the existence of God, because of lack of evidence. All an unanswered question proves is that the question has not been answered.
Of course, that works both ways. Assuming there is a God, and the Torah/Bible/Koran contains his literal words is also incorrect, because it too is unproven. There exists a tension between the two positions, and it is within that tension that belief can exist.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
In case you needed an economic insentive to help others
Reading about the recent earthquake in New Zealand, I was struck by how much better the community was recovering than Haiti did. Haiti's quake was larger (7.0 to 6.3, I believe) but Christchurch was still recovering from another major quake back in September.
Estimated clean-up in New Zealand, cumulative, is $15 billion (converted to US dollars). No one's sure what clean-up in Haiti will cost. It sounds like numbers of comparable scale are being thrown around, but given how much more infrastructure New Zealand has to repair, versus Haiti where most of that money is being spent on food, medicine, and shelter, those numbers should not be in the same ballpark.
Then you compare the deaths. Current count in New Zealand is approaching 200. The death toll in Haiti is more than 1,000 times that.
Visitors to Haiti say it still looks as if the quake happened yesterday. Christchurch was featured on the news, focusing on the happy, upbeat spirit people are maintaining.
I can't help but wonder, what would $15 billion in Haiti have done before the quake? Could it have improved infrastructure enough to reduce the body count? What if there were a few more hospitals, better roads, or emergency response teams? Heck, we're not even looking at the benefit of something as "frivolous" as education.
Or maybe you're not motivated by the damage to the country. What about the economic cost of those deaths? Those are people that, with better support from the US, could have been buying Nikes and iPods and Big Macs; how much have we lost because we allowed such a large consumer demographic to get killed?
Cynical, maybe. But I'm sure there are people doing those types of calculations somewhere in our government. At least, I hope there are. There should be. We look at the cost of things now, like schools and hospitals and scientific research, and decide not to pay for them without considering the future losses incurred by not having them. Maybe that would make a more convincing sound byte: "It's not $100,000 spent on schools; it's an investment in GM's future stock!"
As another reference point, Katrina cost the US an estimated $110 billion, and had death toll of nearly 2,000. That's a lot more than it would have cost to repair a couple levees.
Estimated clean-up in New Zealand, cumulative, is $15 billion (converted to US dollars). No one's sure what clean-up in Haiti will cost. It sounds like numbers of comparable scale are being thrown around, but given how much more infrastructure New Zealand has to repair, versus Haiti where most of that money is being spent on food, medicine, and shelter, those numbers should not be in the same ballpark.
Then you compare the deaths. Current count in New Zealand is approaching 200. The death toll in Haiti is more than 1,000 times that.
Visitors to Haiti say it still looks as if the quake happened yesterday. Christchurch was featured on the news, focusing on the happy, upbeat spirit people are maintaining.
I can't help but wonder, what would $15 billion in Haiti have done before the quake? Could it have improved infrastructure enough to reduce the body count? What if there were a few more hospitals, better roads, or emergency response teams? Heck, we're not even looking at the benefit of something as "frivolous" as education.
Or maybe you're not motivated by the damage to the country. What about the economic cost of those deaths? Those are people that, with better support from the US, could have been buying Nikes and iPods and Big Macs; how much have we lost because we allowed such a large consumer demographic to get killed?
Cynical, maybe. But I'm sure there are people doing those types of calculations somewhere in our government. At least, I hope there are. There should be. We look at the cost of things now, like schools and hospitals and scientific research, and decide not to pay for them without considering the future losses incurred by not having them. Maybe that would make a more convincing sound byte: "It's not $100,000 spent on schools; it's an investment in GM's future stock!"
As another reference point, Katrina cost the US an estimated $110 billion, and had death toll of nearly 2,000. That's a lot more than it would have cost to repair a couple levees.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Gone.
(This is a response to the Girls Read Comics Too list of Most Memorable Moments of Marvel Women)
My introduction to the X-Men was a trade of the Dark Phoenix Saga. Not a bad place to get started, all things considered. It permanently colored my perception of what the X-Men specifically, super heroes more broadly, and comic books in general were all about: what type of stories could be told, the scope, power, and visceral impact they could have; story told both in the illustrations and the text; how to take a story from grand scale to small to big again; and how to find personal moments in scenes of mass chaos.
In the middle of all this was tucked a new character; a young, Jewish girl from the Chicago suburbs, one Kitty Pryde. As a young, Jewish boy from the Chicago suburbs, she had a great impact on me. I was probably a bit younger than her character was supposed to be at the time, but it was still close enough that I saw a lot of that and many future stories through her eyes. She was permanently set as one of my favorite characters, and I would often judge the writing of a new series or storyline by how they handled her character. If they got her right, the creative team probably knew what they were doing; if not, it probably wasn't worth my $1.25 to read the next issue.
She and Colossus were my Lois and Clark; the couple that was meant to be together, that just fit, that represented romance and hope. Granted, mostly because she wanted him, and what my girl wanted my girl got! Still, they are quite the matched pair. She the short Jewish girl who becomes insubstantial and walks through walls, and he the tall Russian boy who becomes solid and knocks walls down. (The Russian/Jewish dichotomy was also a big point both because I am descended from Russian Jews and because in the 80's when I discovered the book Russian antisemitism was a major topic in the Jewish community.)
Then, time passed; characters grew apart. Kitty and Pitor parted ways. She went to England to join Excalibur, which became my new favorite book. He stayed with the X-Men and...died. Unexpected and sad, but I could cope. Especially since by that point bad writers and storylines had ruined the character, keeping the steel shell while hollowing out the man within.
Kitty moved on, and so did I.
Then Joss Whedon took his turn with the X-Men.
If you haven't already read his run on Astonishing X-Men, it's highly worth it. The worst criticism I ever heard of the series was, "The second story arc wasn't as good as the first." Which is roughly equivalent to, "The silver medalist ran slightly slower than the gold medalist."
But back to Kitty.
The big surprise in the first story arc, after months of teasing about the re-resurrection of Jean Grey, was the reveal that Colossus was back. It had seemed he was to be that rarest of rare things - a comic book character that actually stayed dead! - so this was a truly shocking reveal. Kitty phased through a mile of alien metal to find him in a small cell. The reunion scene was...touching. I'm a big, tough man who spends his free time punching inanimate objects and hitting my friends with sticks, so obviously I didn't cry when I read it. But I could see whereas someone slightly less tough than me might have.
What followed was a beautiful depiction of a renewed and growing relationship. They fought. They reconciled. They had sex. They fought more, and had sex while still fighting. In other words, they acted like two people who love each other but are working on some complex relationship issues.
Flash forward to the last storyline, "Unstoppable".
I love authors that can set up plot lines early and subtly, throwing a ball in the air and letting it hang, only to have it drop down years later into the bucket it seemed they put on the floor at random. And sure enough, here was Kitty, phasing through a mile of alien metal to become trapped in a small cell. Only this cell was a 10-mile long bullet headed straight towards Earth!
It was ok; the team would save her. Plus on Earth all the mightiest heroes had gathered to form a plan.
And then...no. Her friends couldn't reach her in time. No one in Marvel's stable of power players could stop the bullet or get her out. Emma Frost, reaching out to Kitty telepathically, offers to make her last moments "comfortable".
"Nah," Kitty tells her, "I'm gonna see this through."
And then, where heroes, demigods, and Wolverine had failed, Kitty whispers a prayer for strength and phases the bullet through the entire earth.
Imagine that scenario for a second. The defining test of a hero is often held to be the moment when they face death - not in the abstract, but in the heart-stopping, last-breath, gun-to-the-head kind of way - and offer themselves as sacrifice to save the day. I don't know how the "my life vs. the entire planet" dynamic changes things, but to face your final moment and see your duty through without flinching is heroic no matter the case.
But Kitty didn't face death. Not directly, not immediately. She rode in an inert chunk of metal - no radiation, chemicals, or electrical malfunctions to end her suffering - with no food or water and limited air, that was moving at high speed through the vacuum of space.
Kitty's smart; definately a brains-over-brawn character, if not at Iron Man/Mr. Fantastic levels, and she'd studied. There was nothing to slow the bullet down, not until it hit something big. And given the size of space, it was likely she would starve or suffocate well before that happened.
Death. Alone. In the cold. Slow and unpleasant. Likely her body would never be found.
But that wasn't her most heroic moment.
That came a few pages earlier when her team couldn't find a way to reach and stop the bullet, and she chose to phase into it to find a way.
She chose to ride that bullet, determined to find a way to beat it, and she didn't stop until she did.
If you'll excuse me now, I have to go re-read the Dark Phoenix Saga, and meet again this young woman who would one day ride a bullet to the stars.
My introduction to the X-Men was a trade of the Dark Phoenix Saga. Not a bad place to get started, all things considered. It permanently colored my perception of what the X-Men specifically, super heroes more broadly, and comic books in general were all about: what type of stories could be told, the scope, power, and visceral impact they could have; story told both in the illustrations and the text; how to take a story from grand scale to small to big again; and how to find personal moments in scenes of mass chaos.
In the middle of all this was tucked a new character; a young, Jewish girl from the Chicago suburbs, one Kitty Pryde. As a young, Jewish boy from the Chicago suburbs, she had a great impact on me. I was probably a bit younger than her character was supposed to be at the time, but it was still close enough that I saw a lot of that and many future stories through her eyes. She was permanently set as one of my favorite characters, and I would often judge the writing of a new series or storyline by how they handled her character. If they got her right, the creative team probably knew what they were doing; if not, it probably wasn't worth my $1.25 to read the next issue.
She and Colossus were my Lois and Clark; the couple that was meant to be together, that just fit, that represented romance and hope. Granted, mostly because she wanted him, and what my girl wanted my girl got! Still, they are quite the matched pair. She the short Jewish girl who becomes insubstantial and walks through walls, and he the tall Russian boy who becomes solid and knocks walls down. (The Russian/Jewish dichotomy was also a big point both because I am descended from Russian Jews and because in the 80's when I discovered the book Russian antisemitism was a major topic in the Jewish community.)
Then, time passed; characters grew apart. Kitty and Pitor parted ways. She went to England to join Excalibur, which became my new favorite book. He stayed with the X-Men and...died. Unexpected and sad, but I could cope. Especially since by that point bad writers and storylines had ruined the character, keeping the steel shell while hollowing out the man within.
Kitty moved on, and so did I.
Then Joss Whedon took his turn with the X-Men.
If you haven't already read his run on Astonishing X-Men, it's highly worth it. The worst criticism I ever heard of the series was, "The second story arc wasn't as good as the first." Which is roughly equivalent to, "The silver medalist ran slightly slower than the gold medalist."
But back to Kitty.
The big surprise in the first story arc, after months of teasing about the re-resurrection of Jean Grey, was the reveal that Colossus was back. It had seemed he was to be that rarest of rare things - a comic book character that actually stayed dead! - so this was a truly shocking reveal. Kitty phased through a mile of alien metal to find him in a small cell. The reunion scene was...touching. I'm a big, tough man who spends his free time punching inanimate objects and hitting my friends with sticks, so obviously I didn't cry when I read it. But I could see whereas someone slightly less tough than me might have.
What followed was a beautiful depiction of a renewed and growing relationship. They fought. They reconciled. They had sex. They fought more, and had sex while still fighting. In other words, they acted like two people who love each other but are working on some complex relationship issues.
Flash forward to the last storyline, "Unstoppable".
I love authors that can set up plot lines early and subtly, throwing a ball in the air and letting it hang, only to have it drop down years later into the bucket it seemed they put on the floor at random. And sure enough, here was Kitty, phasing through a mile of alien metal to become trapped in a small cell. Only this cell was a 10-mile long bullet headed straight towards Earth!
It was ok; the team would save her. Plus on Earth all the mightiest heroes had gathered to form a plan.
And then...no. Her friends couldn't reach her in time. No one in Marvel's stable of power players could stop the bullet or get her out. Emma Frost, reaching out to Kitty telepathically, offers to make her last moments "comfortable".
"Nah," Kitty tells her, "I'm gonna see this through."
And then, where heroes, demigods, and Wolverine had failed, Kitty whispers a prayer for strength and phases the bullet through the entire earth.
Imagine that scenario for a second. The defining test of a hero is often held to be the moment when they face death - not in the abstract, but in the heart-stopping, last-breath, gun-to-the-head kind of way - and offer themselves as sacrifice to save the day. I don't know how the "my life vs. the entire planet" dynamic changes things, but to face your final moment and see your duty through without flinching is heroic no matter the case.
But Kitty didn't face death. Not directly, not immediately. She rode in an inert chunk of metal - no radiation, chemicals, or electrical malfunctions to end her suffering - with no food or water and limited air, that was moving at high speed through the vacuum of space. Kitty's smart; definately a brains-over-brawn character, if not at Iron Man/Mr. Fantastic levels, and she'd studied. There was nothing to slow the bullet down, not until it hit something big. And given the size of space, it was likely she would starve or suffocate well before that happened.
Death. Alone. In the cold. Slow and unpleasant. Likely her body would never be found.
But that wasn't her most heroic moment.
That came a few pages earlier when her team couldn't find a way to reach and stop the bullet, and she chose to phase into it to find a way.
She chose to ride that bullet, determined to find a way to beat it, and she didn't stop until she did.
If you'll excuse me now, I have to go re-read the Dark Phoenix Saga, and meet again this young woman who would one day ride a bullet to the stars.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Sinners, all
The principle that all Commandments are weighted equally has, as do many core religious principles, a light and dark side.On the one hand, it (theoretically) prevents someone from ignoring one of the important commandments just because they personally disagree with it or find it trivial ("Thou shalt not kill? Clearly that's more of a guideline than an actual rule!"). On the other, it leads to a certain degree of insanity, when "Put fringes on the corners of your garments" carries equal weight as "Do not rape". Imagine how ludicrous it would be if comparing the record of two people: "Well, the guy on the right is a murderer, but the guy on the left has unfringed garments and left the table without saying the proper blessing! No question which one we want as our Sunday School teacher!"
In practice, all Commandments are not weighed equally. We know this because the punishments do not all match. The punishment for masturbation is, essentially, having to take a shower. Killing someone's ox requires you to pay its full value. Practicing witchcraft gets you put to death. These all may be equal in terms of which ones we have to take seriously, but economic theory alone would quickly develop some rankings. I definitely won't practice witchcraft, and I can't afford to kill my neighbor's ox until after payday, but I was planning to take a shower tonight anyway, so...
Just saying.
And this is a good thing, because most of us walk around every day carrying at least some load of minor sins on our backs. In fact, there's a rather popular story featuring Jesus on this particular theme. Religion sets a basically inhuman, unachievable level as the ideal, which is ok because it's a goal to aspire to, not an achievement to be reached.
But if religion knows that we can't be perfect, and that we will, most of us, commit at least a few small sins per day (and if you think you're better than that, you just committed the sin of Pride; so there!), then maybe the goal of religion is not, in fact, for us to avoid all sin but rather to show us ways to reduce our wicked ways, and make amends when we do stray. In fact, at least three of the major Judeo-Christian religions have this worked into the core of their fabric, and offer fairly regular opportunities for repentance and forgiveness.
It occurred to me today while I was reading a post about religious tolerance for homosexuality (gasp!) that most people assume religion has this all-or-nothing approach to sin. Why else would people get so worried for their gay friends? Are we assuming that if the gayness did go away they would suddenly be free of all other vices as well? Or that homosexuality is the only thing they're doing that God would disapprove of?
Of course not; both those ideas are ridiculous. But this idea still persists that religion exists in some Judge Dredd-style universe, where littering, jaywalking, playing music too loudly, and speeding all carry the same potentially lethal punishment.
(This also reminds me of Father Guido Sarducci's bit "Life is a job". According to him, after death you get paid your wages based on how long you live; after that you have to pay God back for your sins. Murder, he figures, is a major crime worth at least $1,000; masturbation is only a quarter since it's a cheep thrill. Still, he keeps having dreams where he's a recently-deceased old man trying to get into heaven, and is just 25 cents short. As if a loving God would deny someone paradise for such a trivial reason.)
We are sinners all. We are meant to sin, to fail, and to be forgiven, purified, and renewed. It's built into the system, probably into our very DNA. You wouldn't have to tell people not to do these things if there wasn't some naturally occurring urge to do them.
So let people sin. Tell your friends you're concerned for them if you think they go too far, and remember that, as with any freedom, your right to sin ends at the beginning of my personal space.
Does that make it right? No. But it puts our focus where it needs to be; not on avoiding all sin to remain innocent and pure, but to learn, to understand, why these acts are considered sins. To internalize that message so that, gradually, we want to and are able to live a better life. And to recognize when we have done wrong and make amends.
In practice, all Commandments are not weighed equally. We know this because the punishments do not all match. The punishment for masturbation is, essentially, having to take a shower. Killing someone's ox requires you to pay its full value. Practicing witchcraft gets you put to death. These all may be equal in terms of which ones we have to take seriously, but economic theory alone would quickly develop some rankings. I definitely won't practice witchcraft, and I can't afford to kill my neighbor's ox until after payday, but I was planning to take a shower tonight anyway, so...
Just saying.
And this is a good thing, because most of us walk around every day carrying at least some load of minor sins on our backs. In fact, there's a rather popular story featuring Jesus on this particular theme. Religion sets a basically inhuman, unachievable level as the ideal, which is ok because it's a goal to aspire to, not an achievement to be reached.
But if religion knows that we can't be perfect, and that we will, most of us, commit at least a few small sins per day (and if you think you're better than that, you just committed the sin of Pride; so there!), then maybe the goal of religion is not, in fact, for us to avoid all sin but rather to show us ways to reduce our wicked ways, and make amends when we do stray. In fact, at least three of the major Judeo-Christian religions have this worked into the core of their fabric, and offer fairly regular opportunities for repentance and forgiveness.
It occurred to me today while I was reading a post about religious tolerance for homosexuality (gasp!) that most people assume religion has this all-or-nothing approach to sin. Why else would people get so worried for their gay friends? Are we assuming that if the gayness did go away they would suddenly be free of all other vices as well? Or that homosexuality is the only thing they're doing that God would disapprove of?
Of course not; both those ideas are ridiculous. But this idea still persists that religion exists in some Judge Dredd-style universe, where littering, jaywalking, playing music too loudly, and speeding all carry the same potentially lethal punishment.
(This also reminds me of Father Guido Sarducci's bit "Life is a job". According to him, after death you get paid your wages based on how long you live; after that you have to pay God back for your sins. Murder, he figures, is a major crime worth at least $1,000; masturbation is only a quarter since it's a cheep thrill. Still, he keeps having dreams where he's a recently-deceased old man trying to get into heaven, and is just 25 cents short. As if a loving God would deny someone paradise for such a trivial reason.)
We are sinners all. We are meant to sin, to fail, and to be forgiven, purified, and renewed. It's built into the system, probably into our very DNA. You wouldn't have to tell people not to do these things if there wasn't some naturally occurring urge to do them.
So let people sin. Tell your friends you're concerned for them if you think they go too far, and remember that, as with any freedom, your right to sin ends at the beginning of my personal space.
Does that make it right? No. But it puts our focus where it needs to be; not on avoiding all sin to remain innocent and pure, but to learn, to understand, why these acts are considered sins. To internalize that message so that, gradually, we want to and are able to live a better life. And to recognize when we have done wrong and make amends.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
This word upsets me
It's not often I get upset about a word. I mean, just about the fact of a word. Use of a word? Sure. But getting mad at a word just for existing? Not often.
Then I found this word:
ambisinister (\ am-bi-SIN-uh-ster \ , adjective)
1. Clumsy or unskillful with both hands.
Yes, the opposite of "ambidextrous", meaning "skilled with both hands". But literally, "both right-handed".
By contrast, "ambisinister" is "both left-handed".
As someone who is skilled with his left hand, I take offense. Especially since, ironically, I am an ambidextrous fencer that is better with the left hand and strives to bring the right hand up to that standard.
Am I seriously mad about this? Not really. It's always bothered me that "left handed" became a synonym for evil. The French gauche comes from "left" and means "awkward or lacking social grace". And given how many people have been tortured throughout the ages into being right handed, and the developmental issues that followed, this is obviously more than a semantic issue.
It's also an interesting reminder of how fundamentally some of our prejudices are worked into our language. Many of these words have lost their original sting now, many generations later, when the original slur is forgotten and the word has taken on new and independent life, but it is still an interesting inheritance. Grade school teachers no longer force students to use their right hands in penmanship classes, but students that do well with either hand are still said to write with their left as if it were their right.
So what do we do now when we find these words? Remove them? Change them? Shrug and move on? It's a linguistic version of the issue many countries face: our land was taken from these indigenous people by force, decades or centuries ago, but now there is a new nation built upon that spot with history and culture of its own. Do we uproot and destroy it to right the wrong done by our ancestors to yours? Or just accept that our country was built on blood, and strive to do better in the future?
Then I found this word:
ambisinister (\ am-bi-SIN-uh-ster \ , adjective)
1. Clumsy or unskillful with both hands.
Yes, the opposite of "ambidextrous", meaning "skilled with both hands". But literally, "both right-handed".
By contrast, "ambisinister" is "both left-handed".
As someone who is skilled with his left hand, I take offense. Especially since, ironically, I am an ambidextrous fencer that is better with the left hand and strives to bring the right hand up to that standard.
Am I seriously mad about this? Not really. It's always bothered me that "left handed" became a synonym for evil. The French gauche comes from "left" and means "awkward or lacking social grace". And given how many people have been tortured throughout the ages into being right handed, and the developmental issues that followed, this is obviously more than a semantic issue.
It's also an interesting reminder of how fundamentally some of our prejudices are worked into our language. Many of these words have lost their original sting now, many generations later, when the original slur is forgotten and the word has taken on new and independent life, but it is still an interesting inheritance. Grade school teachers no longer force students to use their right hands in penmanship classes, but students that do well with either hand are still said to write with their left as if it were their right.
So what do we do now when we find these words? Remove them? Change them? Shrug and move on? It's a linguistic version of the issue many countries face: our land was taken from these indigenous people by force, decades or centuries ago, but now there is a new nation built upon that spot with history and culture of its own. Do we uproot and destroy it to right the wrong done by our ancestors to yours? Or just accept that our country was built on blood, and strive to do better in the future?
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Giving Tree: Morality Play or Good Literature?
I posted a comment on Geek in Heels's blog post about The Giving Tree a while back, and it wound up being such a long comment that I decided to repost it here (actually, I meant to post it when I wrote it, back in July, but the "save" and "publish" buttons are so close together...). I like what she wrote about the book, so giving her some link-love doesn't hurt either:
Wow.
One of the marks of good literature is how many different strong emotions and how much discussion about it's underlying "meaning" it can generate. Based on this thread, and others like it, I would almost require my kids to read this, because I want them to be exposed to good literature. And I would encourage them to think about it, understand it, and decide what the message is for themselves.
I don't like this string in our consciousness that the "message" of all media must be revealed and understood before we allow our children to encounter it. Few things stand up well, especially in a post-modern, deconstructionist society. Disney films? The Bible? Grimm Fairy Tales? No. None of these things are "appropriate" for children when you look at the message they really contain. And more importantly, when you look at the social control they were originally developed to implement. Especially from the "abusive relationship" perspective. Job? Abraham? Snow White? Toy Story? Not role models for kids.
But they're good stories, good literature, and part of being a "well-read" child. Would you want your kid to be the only one amongst their childhood friends that never read this book? Do you want to set up that embarrassment for them?
Moviebob had a similar post today about the "message" of the Twilight movies. He makes the point, and I agree, that his dislike of the series's message is completely separate from his critique of the series as a work of art. I kept thinking, as I read this, of Narnia and Lord of the Rings, both of which have also been decried for their thinly veiled religious message and societal views, but are still beloved because they are good books. I would protest "The Giving Tree" if it was poorly written, but it's not. It moved me to tears as a kid, and even then I recognized how rare and important that is in children literature.
Two other thematic thoughts come to mind. First, I wonder how much the perceived message changed as our cultural views on environmentalism shifted. When this book was written, trees were there to give wood to build houses and fruit to eat. This boy didn't seem a monster, because that was the correct relationship between people and trees. I wonder now if there's an underlying environmentalism that makes it seem more monstrous: he destroys a living thing for his own selfish needs? What a villain!
Second, the important discussion about the book seems to be, from both a relationship/generosity and environmental perspective, at what point did the giving become "too much"? Fruit? Fine. Climbing? Fine. Some branches? Fine. But giving too much was problematic if for no other reason than it hurt the tree's ability to give in the future. The idea that you can sheer a sheep many times, but only fleece it once. Take some apples and some branches, then leave and come back next year to take more. Give yourself, and the tree, time to recover and grow in the meantime. Furthermore, what does it mean that this tree only gives to its friends and not strangers that are in need?
It wasn't until I came back as an adult and reread it that I started to think about the "themes" and "abusive relationships". The message I got as a child was that giving did not truly diminish the giver. It made the relationship stronger, the tree did not "die", and even at the end when the tree though it had given everything, it still was able to give and help a friend. That's not "abusive unconditional love"; that's generosity. That's giving what you have and do not need to a friend or loved one that does need it.
Response I'm imagining to that: "But the tree needs its leaves! It needs its branches! Those are vital parts of its anatomy!"
Response to my imagined responders: Are you a registered organ donor? If not, why not? More specific analogy: would you donate a kidney or part of your liver to someone that needed it? To a stranger? To a friend? To a relative?
But like I said at the beginning, the moral underpinnings are not why I like this book; I liked it because it's a good book, well written, that I could read and enjoy as a child and still remember as an adult. There are plenty of things I read as a child that I couldn't remember now if my life depended on it, but this book stuck. Because it is a good book. The morality is part of what made it good, but because it added depth, not because of the "lesson".
Wow.
One of the marks of good literature is how many different strong emotions and how much discussion about it's underlying "meaning" it can generate. Based on this thread, and others like it, I would almost require my kids to read this, because I want them to be exposed to good literature. And I would encourage them to think about it, understand it, and decide what the message is for themselves.
I don't like this string in our consciousness that the "message" of all media must be revealed and understood before we allow our children to encounter it. Few things stand up well, especially in a post-modern, deconstructionist society. Disney films? The Bible? Grimm Fairy Tales? No. None of these things are "appropriate" for children when you look at the message they really contain. And more importantly, when you look at the social control they were originally developed to implement. Especially from the "abusive relationship" perspective. Job? Abraham? Snow White? Toy Story? Not role models for kids.
But they're good stories, good literature, and part of being a "well-read" child. Would you want your kid to be the only one amongst their childhood friends that never read this book? Do you want to set up that embarrassment for them?
Moviebob had a similar post today about the "message" of the Twilight movies. He makes the point, and I agree, that his dislike of the series's message is completely separate from his critique of the series as a work of art. I kept thinking, as I read this, of Narnia and Lord of the Rings, both of which have also been decried for their thinly veiled religious message and societal views, but are still beloved because they are good books. I would protest "The Giving Tree" if it was poorly written, but it's not. It moved me to tears as a kid, and even then I recognized how rare and important that is in children literature.
Two other thematic thoughts come to mind. First, I wonder how much the perceived message changed as our cultural views on environmentalism shifted. When this book was written, trees were there to give wood to build houses and fruit to eat. This boy didn't seem a monster, because that was the correct relationship between people and trees. I wonder now if there's an underlying environmentalism that makes it seem more monstrous: he destroys a living thing for his own selfish needs? What a villain!
Second, the important discussion about the book seems to be, from both a relationship/generosity and environmental perspective, at what point did the giving become "too much"? Fruit? Fine. Climbing? Fine. Some branches? Fine. But giving too much was problematic if for no other reason than it hurt the tree's ability to give in the future. The idea that you can sheer a sheep many times, but only fleece it once. Take some apples and some branches, then leave and come back next year to take more. Give yourself, and the tree, time to recover and grow in the meantime. Furthermore, what does it mean that this tree only gives to its friends and not strangers that are in need?
It wasn't until I came back as an adult and reread it that I started to think about the "themes" and "abusive relationships". The message I got as a child was that giving did not truly diminish the giver. It made the relationship stronger, the tree did not "die", and even at the end when the tree though it had given everything, it still was able to give and help a friend. That's not "abusive unconditional love"; that's generosity. That's giving what you have and do not need to a friend or loved one that does need it.
Response I'm imagining to that: "But the tree needs its leaves! It needs its branches! Those are vital parts of its anatomy!"
Response to my imagined responders: Are you a registered organ donor? If not, why not? More specific analogy: would you donate a kidney or part of your liver to someone that needed it? To a stranger? To a friend? To a relative?
But like I said at the beginning, the moral underpinnings are not why I like this book; I liked it because it's a good book, well written, that I could read and enjoy as a child and still remember as an adult. There are plenty of things I read as a child that I couldn't remember now if my life depended on it, but this book stuck. Because it is a good book. The morality is part of what made it good, but because it added depth, not because of the "lesson".
Monday, December 27, 2010
If you can call it that...
I heard this phrase tonight on a podcast. It was a Dan Savage podcast, so you know the guests are going to be...interesting. Today's guest runs a program that helps men get in touch with their sexual energy by giving and receiving erotic massage, to/from other men.
The guy clearly represents a fringe position; he wants hetero men to share erotic massages with other men to improve their health, happiness, and sexual performance with their wives/girlfriends. True or not, this is a position outside the mainstream, yet when describing the program he says the massages "start with 'safe body parts', if you can call them that..."
That bothered me. Not the description of the program - if I was disturbed by people expressing non-standard sexual views I wouldn't listen to the Lovecast to begin with - but his inability to accept that someone might disagree with his position. Either that or he handwaved past a major component of his argument.
Sadly, both are behaviors frequently seen in people that hold fringe beliefs. They often have the unfortunate side-effect of making the outlandish belief seem more acceptable, because they hide the major flaw or faulty premise with a quick act of legerdemain.
Put differently, this is the tactic used by many tele-pundits in the Wikileaks coverage: "Assuming for the moment that Assange is found guilty; in that case, shouldn't we seek the death penalty?" Debating hypotheticals is one thing, but this behavior is problematic; in this country we're supposed to start by assuming innocence, until proven guilty, yet this premature discussion is jumping straight to sentencing! Now the airwaves are full of the hypothetical debate, instead of the actual one, and Assange's defenders are wasting time fighting the hypothetical instead of focusing on the actual issue. It's crappy argumentation, and they get away with it because no one calls them on it.
Of course, religious people are all too familiar with the behavior. Or, at least, they start to be if they take time to look around. I listen to, and occasionally enjoy, Ari Goldwag's Parsha of the week podcast; he has a bad habit of saying, essentially: "Given that Abraham had great mystical powers, it clearly follows that..."
Wait a second; back up the bus here. He has what now? How did we get there? You've made a huge cognitive leap that the rest of the home audience may not be able to replicate. It somewhat begs the question; we can't debate the mystic purpose of Abraham's sojourns until we establish he was, in fact, a mystic!
Unless you're using this to screen for like-minded people. Maybe it's a screen for education; he's assuming, or requiring, a certain amount of study or familiarity so he can just say, "As Rashi proved...", without explicating Rashi's proof. Maybe he is only interested in similarly mystical, scholarly adherents, in which case he's preaching to the choir. But an argument that only holds up within the group putting it forth is a bad argument.
I don't really want to pick on Ari here; his podcast is well researched and insightful, even when I don't agree with those insights. Once or twice per episode I have to turn off the iPod until I calm down enough to listen more, but I like that he challenges me and I have gotten several good ideas from him. I'm just pointing to him as an example of the type.
I feel I have lost the track of this train of thought, so I should bring it to a close. I was just stunned by my visceral reaction to someone that was more amusing than offensive, and examining my response I realized this was why. The casual way he dismissed his detractors; "...if you can call them that..."...
Have enough perspective to understand that those who disagree with you might, at least, have reasonable grounds to do so. Have enough perspective to recognize that, no matter how much sense it makes to you, your belief may be pretty "out there" for most people.
The guy clearly represents a fringe position; he wants hetero men to share erotic massages with other men to improve their health, happiness, and sexual performance with their wives/girlfriends. True or not, this is a position outside the mainstream, yet when describing the program he says the massages "start with 'safe body parts', if you can call them that..."
That bothered me. Not the description of the program - if I was disturbed by people expressing non-standard sexual views I wouldn't listen to the Lovecast to begin with - but his inability to accept that someone might disagree with his position. Either that or he handwaved past a major component of his argument.
Sadly, both are behaviors frequently seen in people that hold fringe beliefs. They often have the unfortunate side-effect of making the outlandish belief seem more acceptable, because they hide the major flaw or faulty premise with a quick act of legerdemain.
Put differently, this is the tactic used by many tele-pundits in the Wikileaks coverage: "Assuming for the moment that Assange is found guilty; in that case, shouldn't we seek the death penalty?" Debating hypotheticals is one thing, but this behavior is problematic; in this country we're supposed to start by assuming innocence, until proven guilty, yet this premature discussion is jumping straight to sentencing! Now the airwaves are full of the hypothetical debate, instead of the actual one, and Assange's defenders are wasting time fighting the hypothetical instead of focusing on the actual issue. It's crappy argumentation, and they get away with it because no one calls them on it.
Of course, religious people are all too familiar with the behavior. Or, at least, they start to be if they take time to look around. I listen to, and occasionally enjoy, Ari Goldwag's Parsha of the week podcast; he has a bad habit of saying, essentially: "Given that Abraham had great mystical powers, it clearly follows that..."
Wait a second; back up the bus here. He has what now? How did we get there? You've made a huge cognitive leap that the rest of the home audience may not be able to replicate. It somewhat begs the question; we can't debate the mystic purpose of Abraham's sojourns until we establish he was, in fact, a mystic!
Unless you're using this to screen for like-minded people. Maybe it's a screen for education; he's assuming, or requiring, a certain amount of study or familiarity so he can just say, "As Rashi proved...", without explicating Rashi's proof. Maybe he is only interested in similarly mystical, scholarly adherents, in which case he's preaching to the choir. But an argument that only holds up within the group putting it forth is a bad argument.
I don't really want to pick on Ari here; his podcast is well researched and insightful, even when I don't agree with those insights. Once or twice per episode I have to turn off the iPod until I calm down enough to listen more, but I like that he challenges me and I have gotten several good ideas from him. I'm just pointing to him as an example of the type.
I feel I have lost the track of this train of thought, so I should bring it to a close. I was just stunned by my visceral reaction to someone that was more amusing than offensive, and examining my response I realized this was why. The casual way he dismissed his detractors; "...if you can call them that..."...
Have enough perspective to understand that those who disagree with you might, at least, have reasonable grounds to do so. Have enough perspective to recognize that, no matter how much sense it makes to you, your belief may be pretty "out there" for most people.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Perspective
I'm reading Karen Armstrong's A History of God and it's got me thinking about perspective. More specifically, about how the meaning of a story changes depending on whether you're at the beginning, watching its writing, or at the end, listening to it being told and retold.
My answer to the question of Free Will vs Predetermination used to be, "When are you asking me?" I irritated a couple of teachers by trying to explain my theory that when I woke up this morning I had complete freedom of will to wear whichever shirt I wanted to, but now that choice is set and immutable. Perspective. This morning I had free will, now it is a fixed decision. It sidesteps the question of whether I always was going to choose this shirt, but from a practical standpoint, from the perspective of the one making the choice, the difference between actual freedom and the illusion of freedom is minuscule.
This led me to miracles. The word "miracle" gets pretty abused, from all sides. We identify as "miraculous" things that are really fairly commonplace and easy to explain, and discount as "trivial" things that, even as we learn more about how they work, are truly amazing. That's what I love about biology; life isn't miraculous because it's inexplicable, it's miraculous because it works at all. And the more we learn about the hows and whys of it, the more awestruck I am by the complexity and simplicity of it all.
So perspective. A lot of the debate around miracles focuses on whether God (or other supernatural force of your choice) could commit some action which violates or supersedes the laws of nature. For me, though, this is a matter of our perspective, looking at things from the end of the story. If nature is God's creation, then the natural laws are also of God's making. The question of whether God could break these laws, then, is moot because these are God's laws, either self-imposed or the working conditions under which God created the universe. It's less like asking the umpire to cheat on your behalf, in other words, and more like asking the inventor of baseball why it's 3 strikes instead of 7. The game could have been designed that way, but it wasn't; the game we're playing only gives you 3 strikes per plate appearance, gravity is (mostly) a constant, and living things age in one direction only.
From our perspective as characters in the story, looking backwards, these natural laws seem fixed and ordinary. If we could have seen creation over God's metaphorical shoulder, we would see their miraculousness.
There's a parable that certain key objects were formed at the time of creation, and held waiting for the moments they would be needed. Jonah's giant fish and the ram Abraham sacrifices in Issac's place, for example. I like this "Bill & Ted" -esque explanation of miracles. It's the same trick good writers do in an extended series (in any medium): toss a ball in an apparently arbitrary direction early on, ignore it for several chapters, then turn and catch it, seemingly out of nowhere, right when it's needed most.
In real life, though, we can't tell, from our perspective, whether the ball was thrown deliberately by someone trying to help us, or if we were just fortunate that it was there when we needed it. The difference, as with free will, is minuscule - from our perspective. The miracle is not that the thing occurred - we can explain that easily enough - it's that it happened at all, and at just the right time.
The only reasonable response, then, is gratitude. Not necessarily to anyone or anything, but simply gratitude that it happened at all. There is a continually growing body of research showing many emotional benefits to expressing gratitude: our ability to empathize improves, dependence on material items decreases, negative emotions effect us less severely, and, most of all, positive emotions are experienced more strongly. The decision is ours, whether or not to be grateful or just write things off as the vagaries of fortune.
It's all a matter of perspective.
My answer to the question of Free Will vs Predetermination used to be, "When are you asking me?" I irritated a couple of teachers by trying to explain my theory that when I woke up this morning I had complete freedom of will to wear whichever shirt I wanted to, but now that choice is set and immutable. Perspective. This morning I had free will, now it is a fixed decision. It sidesteps the question of whether I always was going to choose this shirt, but from a practical standpoint, from the perspective of the one making the choice, the difference between actual freedom and the illusion of freedom is minuscule.
This led me to miracles. The word "miracle" gets pretty abused, from all sides. We identify as "miraculous" things that are really fairly commonplace and easy to explain, and discount as "trivial" things that, even as we learn more about how they work, are truly amazing. That's what I love about biology; life isn't miraculous because it's inexplicable, it's miraculous because it works at all. And the more we learn about the hows and whys of it, the more awestruck I am by the complexity and simplicity of it all.
So perspective. A lot of the debate around miracles focuses on whether God (or other supernatural force of your choice) could commit some action which violates or supersedes the laws of nature. For me, though, this is a matter of our perspective, looking at things from the end of the story. If nature is God's creation, then the natural laws are also of God's making. The question of whether God could break these laws, then, is moot because these are God's laws, either self-imposed or the working conditions under which God created the universe. It's less like asking the umpire to cheat on your behalf, in other words, and more like asking the inventor of baseball why it's 3 strikes instead of 7. The game could have been designed that way, but it wasn't; the game we're playing only gives you 3 strikes per plate appearance, gravity is (mostly) a constant, and living things age in one direction only.
From our perspective as characters in the story, looking backwards, these natural laws seem fixed and ordinary. If we could have seen creation over God's metaphorical shoulder, we would see their miraculousness.
There's a parable that certain key objects were formed at the time of creation, and held waiting for the moments they would be needed. Jonah's giant fish and the ram Abraham sacrifices in Issac's place, for example. I like this "Bill & Ted" -esque explanation of miracles. It's the same trick good writers do in an extended series (in any medium): toss a ball in an apparently arbitrary direction early on, ignore it for several chapters, then turn and catch it, seemingly out of nowhere, right when it's needed most.
In real life, though, we can't tell, from our perspective, whether the ball was thrown deliberately by someone trying to help us, or if we were just fortunate that it was there when we needed it. The difference, as with free will, is minuscule - from our perspective. The miracle is not that the thing occurred - we can explain that easily enough - it's that it happened at all, and at just the right time.
The only reasonable response, then, is gratitude. Not necessarily to anyone or anything, but simply gratitude that it happened at all. There is a continually growing body of research showing many emotional benefits to expressing gratitude: our ability to empathize improves, dependence on material items decreases, negative emotions effect us less severely, and, most of all, positive emotions are experienced more strongly. The decision is ours, whether or not to be grateful or just write things off as the vagaries of fortune.
It's all a matter of perspective.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Innovative Modern Sukkot
My dad once commented that I talk about many of my past jobs on this blog (Boy Scouts, Hillel, summer camp), but never my current one working with him. I told him as soon as I found a place where building product marketing consulting intersected with modern Jewish studies I'd work it in. So here you go dad; happy new year!
NY Times Magazine recently posted the 12 finalists in their modern sukkah design contest. While there were many beautiful entries, I especially like #8, "Sukkah of the Signs" by Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello of Oakland, California (check out the article for a larger shot). From the description of the project:
This reflects in several of the festival traditions, most notably living and dining in such a public space where any homeless people could see us and join us. Some temples also use it as an opportunity for a food drive, if they didn't just do one at Yom Kippur; one temple I belonged to collected fresh apples which were donated to a local food bank. I volunteered to transport them one year, and my car smelled like my favorite parts of fall for months afterward.
To me, a good modern Jewish observance combines a deep spiritual experience with an equally fervent effort to change our world for the better. I like this design for the highlighter it puts on homelessness. It puts the issue front and center; makes it unavoidable. There is a wonderful irony in sleeping in a home made of relics from the homeless; I would expect it to be a transformative experience for anyone that got the chance. If we slept here, we would spend the night considering the blessings that fill our lives, and return the next day to our homes filled with gratitude for all we have received. After that it would not be nearly so easy to turn a blind eye to the homeless people we pass on the street. Especially the ones holding the signs we ourselves might be sleeping under a year from now.
"It is traditional to eat and sleep in the sukkah for one week each fall, as a way of practicing a kind of ceremonial homelessness and empathizing with those who don’t have a roof over their heads. As a political statement, and as a way of transferring the prize money to those in need, Sukkah of the Signs is clad with cardboard signs purchased from destitute individuals across the country."This wasn't my favorite from an aesthetic point of view, but I love the story and message of it. As with all Jewish holidays, there exist a huge variety of explanations of the "meaning" of the festival, starting at the surface level as a harvest holiday and moving on to such ideas as reclaiming our history as a nomadic people, reflecting on the impermanence of all things, being reminded of the fragility of our physical world, being grateful for the houses we do have, and reconnecting with nature. (Sidenote: interesting how many of those ideas started with "re-" verbs. Appropriate as we're just past the beginning of the yearly holiday cycle!) Somewhere in many interpretations of the holiday, however, is the implication that, but for the grace of God, we would be homeless too. Whether metaphorically as a people, lost wandering in the desert, or literally as a family with no roof to sleep beneath.
This reflects in several of the festival traditions, most notably living and dining in such a public space where any homeless people could see us and join us. Some temples also use it as an opportunity for a food drive, if they didn't just do one at Yom Kippur; one temple I belonged to collected fresh apples which were donated to a local food bank. I volunteered to transport them one year, and my car smelled like my favorite parts of fall for months afterward.
To me, a good modern Jewish observance combines a deep spiritual experience with an equally fervent effort to change our world for the better. I like this design for the highlighter it puts on homelessness. It puts the issue front and center; makes it unavoidable. There is a wonderful irony in sleeping in a home made of relics from the homeless; I would expect it to be a transformative experience for anyone that got the chance. If we slept here, we would spend the night considering the blessings that fill our lives, and return the next day to our homes filled with gratitude for all we have received. After that it would not be nearly so easy to turn a blind eye to the homeless people we pass on the street. Especially the ones holding the signs we ourselves might be sleeping under a year from now.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Game Theory Visualized
I wonder if Zach realizes how often he gets cited, positively, on a blog about religion, and if he'd feel he was doing something wrong if he did know.
Best explanation of Game Theory I've ever seen:
I'm not the first, and neither is Zach, to suggest this, but it's unfortunate how often religion gets forced into the position of being a juvenile form of social control. We need that type of guidance and limitation when we're young ("Alcohol is bad!", "If you go outside without a jacket you'll get sick!", "Vote Republican or the terrorists will win!"), but hopefully most of us outgrow it.
Ironically, I blame nostalgia. There are people that are just plain not intelligent enough to grasp more complex social contracts and interpretations of religion, but fortunately (and sadly) that's not most people. Even those with below-average intelligence can learn to grasp ideas like, "This is not always true, but it's a convenient way to teach." I think most people just want to keep their religion the way it was when they were kids.
I think the biggest problems people have with religion start because we continue to experience religion and the divine (however you define it) as we did when we were children. This is damaging to individuals in the short term and societies in the long term. An entire culture based around powerful-but-distant-daddy-issues is not a healthy one.
Best explanation of Game Theory I've ever seen:
I'm not the first, and neither is Zach, to suggest this, but it's unfortunate how often religion gets forced into the position of being a juvenile form of social control. We need that type of guidance and limitation when we're young ("Alcohol is bad!", "If you go outside without a jacket you'll get sick!", "Vote Republican or the terrorists will win!"), but hopefully most of us outgrow it.
Ironically, I blame nostalgia. There are people that are just plain not intelligent enough to grasp more complex social contracts and interpretations of religion, but fortunately (and sadly) that's not most people. Even those with below-average intelligence can learn to grasp ideas like, "This is not always true, but it's a convenient way to teach." I think most people just want to keep their religion the way it was when they were kids.
I think the biggest problems people have with religion start because we continue to experience religion and the divine (however you define it) as we did when we were children. This is damaging to individuals in the short term and societies in the long term. An entire culture based around powerful-but-distant-daddy-issues is not a healthy one.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Blog Against Theocracy
Missed the deadlines for this year's Blog Against Theocracy; it's a hard event for me because I have trouble finding something new to say on the idea (namely, it's a bad idea for religion to run government when even people in the same religion can't agree on what they believe).
Still, if I had written a blog for it, I probably would have said something like this.
Go on, check it out; I'll wait.
Back? Good. Yeah, I liked it too.
Just started a new book on the origins, rewrites, and changes in the Torah throughout its life; so far it's taken me an hour to get to the first page, so this might last me a while. Point is, we're just guessing when it comes to most of this stuff. We can apply our own best judgment, common sense, and current social norms, but when it comes to the original texts - what the founders of our religions actually said and believed (allegedly) - we're stuck.
And that's fine for religion, where it's a matter of personal belief and what you do with your family, that's fine. But for government, when it comes to making important decisions about other people's lives, religion needs to be so far out of the picture that it's in a different museum.
Still, if I had written a blog for it, I probably would have said something like this.
Go on, check it out; I'll wait.
Back? Good. Yeah, I liked it too.
Just started a new book on the origins, rewrites, and changes in the Torah throughout its life; so far it's taken me an hour to get to the first page, so this might last me a while. Point is, we're just guessing when it comes to most of this stuff. We can apply our own best judgment, common sense, and current social norms, but when it comes to the original texts - what the founders of our religions actually said and believed (allegedly) - we're stuck.
And that's fine for religion, where it's a matter of personal belief and what you do with your family, that's fine. But for government, when it comes to making important decisions about other people's lives, religion needs to be so far out of the picture that it's in a different museum.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Hiding Behind Religion
We've all seen examples of individuals hiding behind religion, trying to excuse reprehensible behavior by claiming that a religion teaching peace, love, fellowship, and forgiveness wanted them to murder, rape, mutilate, or watch Fox News. (Cheap shot! Pow!) But sometimes larger, societal-level problems also get hidden behind the skirts (choir robes?) of religion.
Take, for example, this article by Mollie at getreligion.org: Priests aren't the problem
So why does it seem so much worse? Mollie makes the point that it might just feel worse, since there's such a high expectation of trust. Or maybe it's because the Church did not act quickly enough to stop some of these priests, allowing them greater opportunity.
To me, though, this shows a different problem. We equate Priests with higher levels of abuse because it's easier to think of child abuse as a "Religious Problem".
This happens frequently in our culture. We equate a given "problem" with religious people (such as terrorism, polygamy involving children, or anti-intellectualism) and forget that there are many non-religious people displaying the same behavior. Granted, many terrorists have some religious motive. In other places, such as Palestine and Ireland, religion is so blurred with national identity and politics that it's difficult - and a little unfair - to lay it solely at religion's feet. And then there are Timmothy McVeigh and the Unabomber, neither of whom displayed any particular religious fervor.
I am not trying to write religion a pass here; there are definately bad people who have been inspired by religion, and others who, being bad, have found shelter and identification within it. But we too often forget that when discussing "religious wackos" it's the "wacko" part that's the problem, not the religion!
More importantly, by writing off such major problems as "because of religion", we risk ignoring much larger, systemic problems underlying them. If we got rid of all religion, would child abuse and terrorism also disappear? No; of course not. And hiding the real problem behind religion leaves us dangerously blind to it.
Take, for example, this article by Mollie at getreligion.org: Priests aren't the problem
"We’ve seen a lot of stories that err not so much in what they say as what they don’t say. Sometimes we don’t hear all the details about a specific case. Sometimes we don’t learn about the efforts the Vatican has successfully made to change how it responds to sexual abuse. And I’ve seen very little media coverage that places the problems in the Catholic church in context of other religious groups’ problems or society’s larger problem with child sexual abuse...She cites several articles that make the point even more strongly: Catholic priests do not commit child abuse at a higher rate.
...The story includes some helpful data points. Insurance companies that offer a sexual misconduct rider on liability insurance say their own studies indicate that Catholic churches are not at higher risk than other denominations."
So why does it seem so much worse? Mollie makes the point that it might just feel worse, since there's such a high expectation of trust. Or maybe it's because the Church did not act quickly enough to stop some of these priests, allowing them greater opportunity.
To me, though, this shows a different problem. We equate Priests with higher levels of abuse because it's easier to think of child abuse as a "Religious Problem".
This happens frequently in our culture. We equate a given "problem" with religious people (such as terrorism, polygamy involving children, or anti-intellectualism) and forget that there are many non-religious people displaying the same behavior. Granted, many terrorists have some religious motive. In other places, such as Palestine and Ireland, religion is so blurred with national identity and politics that it's difficult - and a little unfair - to lay it solely at religion's feet. And then there are Timmothy McVeigh and the Unabomber, neither of whom displayed any particular religious fervor.
I am not trying to write religion a pass here; there are definately bad people who have been inspired by religion, and others who, being bad, have found shelter and identification within it. But we too often forget that when discussing "religious wackos" it's the "wacko" part that's the problem, not the religion!
More importantly, by writing off such major problems as "because of religion", we risk ignoring much larger, systemic problems underlying them. If we got rid of all religion, would child abuse and terrorism also disappear? No; of course not. And hiding the real problem behind religion leaves us dangerously blind to it.
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