Folklore

I guess I've never really thought about folklore. This article really forces us to see the distinction between high, pop, and folklore. This is a distinction I've never really thought about before. I guess it seems like make the distinction is a bit unnecessary. All three effect us, why is it important to understand if they are effecting us in the same way? I think the author made a good point when discussing Mozart's "Magic Flute." How we define things is all relative.

And now I have more questions...

It seems like the more we talk and discuss and read the less answers I have and the more questions. I guess that's more a function of the educational process than of Jerusalem in particular. But still...

Here are a few more questions that I would like to pose to anyone wishing to answer.

How can you put up sanctions against violence without impacting an entire population?
Are we creative enough to find solutions?
Can a place be holy if it has caused so much pain and suffering?
How can we have progress if we just hear the extremes?
Do the extremes represent a major portion of society, or are they by nature and definition fringe ideas?
How does the public become ready and what can the government do to get them there?
How do people learn to live together without gigantic amounts of fear?
When will history stop us from progressing?
Why is an event that occurred 1,000 years ago still at the forefront of the Muslim mind?
Why is the Israeli government/Jewish faith so willing to forget that 1,000+ years have lapsed since Jerusalem was their homeland?
Out of all the cities in Israel, why did the Israeli government choose Jerusalem as their capital?
How do we make sure Jerusalem does NOT become Berlin?
Why does building a wall sound like a good idea to anyone?
Why is it so important for either side to have complete control over the state?
Which pushes the process more- belief or history?
Why did we have to add a dimension of women's rights? Isn't this situation already complicated enough?
Can you love something and still tolerate people who love it in a different way?
Why can't we just leave the Israeli's and Palestinians alone to solve their own problem? Why does the international community have to butt in?
What makes people religious extremists?
Can studying this issue really open your mind? Or does it just depress you. Or does it just make you really cynical about the whole process. Or does it push you further to your side.

Wow...that's a longer list than I had intended to write. Don't feel obligated to answer, I just needed to vent a bit. If you'd like me to elaborate, I'd be more than willing.

Week Five Reading

I really appreciated this weeks readings. They put a human face on the conflict. I don't often consider that people living in a war zone still have to get their dogs shots. It's something I don't really think about. The interaction waiting for the gas masks was especially human. The Palestinians weren't necessarily hostile towards the Israeli's, just frustrated with the process. It also showed that there is differences of opinion within the Palestinian community, which is also something I haven't considered before.

I think war becomes easier when you remove the human face. Adding the human face, and allowing interaction on the most basic of levels can help to stop the problem. This is something that neither side has been quick to do.

Amiry's use of terms was also interesting. When she references Israeli industrial zones, she also adds the term illegal Jewish settlements. The difference in these two terms is very interesting to mean. They both are loaded terms that carry extra baggage.

I really appreciate the sentiment of Galit Hasan-Rokem's piece. Striving for a single, peaceful city is a noble dream, and one which many people may not have the most pure of intentions.

Holy Wars

The idea of a holy war is just really perplexing to me. I feel that, regardless of the differences in religion, violence is never the answer. It saddens me that either side felt like it was necessary to resort to hurting one another. I think Fredrick II and al-Kamil had it right (pg. 302). There's no need to shed any blood. Sharing is more holy than violence.

pg. 282: "These solider monks embodied the two great passions of the new Europe, war and worship, and they quickly attracted new recruits."
It seems like worship was just an excuse for war. Blood lust appeared to be more powerful than any doctrinal teachings of Christianity. War and worship never go together. They are mutually exclusive. I guess that's my exclusive truth claim.

pg. 285: : "The Crusaders were not breaking down the barrier of hatred that now existed between Western Christianity and Islam but erecting massive stone walls against their neighbors."
We're still doing this today. Defending your nation from terrorism is one thing, but not at the point where it divides a city in two and does more to generate terrorism than diffuse it. This would appear to be a place where the modern Israeli government has fallen down on the job. They have fallen into the old Crusader problem of building walls instead of tearing them down and figuring out the issues that exist between them.

Al-Quds

pg. 245: "Muslims had a more inclusive notion of the sacred, however: the coexistence of the three religions of Abraham, each occupying its own district and worshipping at its own special shrines, reflected their vision of the continuity and harmony of all rightly guided religion, which could only derive from the one God."

It think we often forget that we are all decendants of Abraham. We may be very different, but that is what we have in common. When it comes to having a conversation, this should be the common ground necessary to make it productive. This seems to be what many people forget. We all come from the same religious beginnings.

pg. 253: "Construction had long been an ideological weapon in the city; since the time of Hadrian it had been a means of obliterating the tenancy of previous owners."

Sacred architecture should stand for more than domination.

Bayt Al-Maqdis

pg. 220: "Islam's brith had been violent, but the Qur'anic ideal was harmony and unity."

The paradox between religion's violent foundings and harmonious chorus are very interesting to me. None of the three religions we have studied have been able to hold to the ideals they were founded upon. Each of them has been influenced by the desire for power and the urge to establish themselves through violent means. This appears to be another fatal flaw in the modern faiths. Granted, to error is human, but an error so big seems just plain hypocritical.

pg. 223: I wonder how the Muslim students in our class feel about the evolution of the hajj from pagan traditions.

pg. 224: The Night Journey just sounds unbelievable to me. I guess I think the Islamic faith had it right when they suggested that it is unlike that a prophet as powerful as Jesus could die on the cross. But that realistic attitude doesn't seem to translate into their own myths.

pg. 229-231: The differences in conquering techniques is very illuminating. It's refreshing to see that it is possible for groups of different people to live together peacefully. They might not have been completely equally, but Armstrong makes it sound like they respect one another, which is more than can be said about earlier regimes.

Christian Holy City

I don't get it. Why has no one learned the lessons of history? That's what's most aggravating about the situation in Jerusalem. We've seen it before, and we'll probably do it again. Instead of abiding by their true faith, and being charitable, the city seems to go to the heads of those who claim to be the most pious. At least that's what I got from this chapter.

pg. 196: "They had become so accustomed to seeing the decline of Judaism as the essential concomitant to the rise of their own church that the Jewish workmen below seemed to be undermining the fabric of the Christian faith."

Why does one have to fall for the other to rise? To me, at least, and especially with religion and faith, there are no exclusive truth claims. Exclusive truth claims cloud our mind and stop us from living according to what we claim to espouse. This is where organized religion fails us the majority of the time. Faith is not about being right, it's about living correctly. If you are willing to make the effort to live correctly, then it shouldn't necessarily matter how others live their lives. The problem I have with the early Christians and the Jews of that time is they forgot this.

The New Jerusalem

pg. 174: "Yet he would not promote Christianity at the expense of other faiths."

Good idea, but what happened? This appears to be the problem with established religions. Armstrong details in the chapter how, in a short period of time, the way Christianity was practiced changed. These are lessons that must be learned in order to make any progress in modern terms. We all have to know how things have moved from generous and spiritual to possessive and hurtful.

pg. 177: My minister has always stressed the importance of the Council of Nicaea. He seriously had the entire congregation memorize the date and everything. It was an interesting exercise Biblical history for sure. But I haven't really investigated why the main issue was at the Council itself. The differences in how Jesus was viewed in the early church is very interesting to me. I definitely think there is still differences of opinion in modern Christianity. I was always taught that Jesus is a manifestation of God that He sent to earth to redeem us of our sins. Jesus is the son of God, but not God Himself. I guess I didn't realize that there was such a powerful disagreement over this in the early years of the church.

pg. 185: "Persecution does not always make its victims compassionate."

Ben and Josh please read this all the way through before coming to a conclusion. (Just a bit of a warning I guess ;))
This line definitely seems aimed at the entire religious establishment. It can also add to our conversation about the Holocaust. Grant the Jewish community may learn about the atrocities of the Holocaust and the many persecutions their community has endured, they may even attempt to live their lives in a struggle to avoid recreating a similar situation. But sometimes actions speak louder than words. Ms. Armstrong obviously has a bit of a grudge against organized religion, but here I think she may have a point. Sometimes the organization of our religion makes the practice of it more difficult. This comment makes that much clearer.

Aelia Capitolina

pg. 159: "Innovation and novelty were suspect, and it was crucial for religious people to know that their faith was deeply rooted int he sanctities of the past."

I thought this passage was interesting because it's still true now. Look at Scientology. Granted there are some odd tax issues associated with the young and purported religion, but people today have very strong reactions to it. It's refreshing to see that these are not new reactions. This is another part of the book that puts human interaction with religion into perspective.

pg. 161: "Hadrian's plan filled the Jewish people with horror."

Not necessarily this passage, but the entirety of the chapter didn't portray the Jewish faith in the most optimistic light. I feel like being Jewish in the Biblical times would be incredibly depressing. Religion today seems more positive.

pg. 168: "Indeed, God's presence with Israel had made the Jewish people a temple for the rest of the world."

This attitude totally contradicts the crappiness of the Jewish situation at the time. They had lost their temple, their city and were beaten into submission by a conquering power who did quite understand them, and they still had the gaul to believe that God spoke through them. This is the point were I would be losing my religion. It's one thing to believe God has a plan for us, but it's another to see how the plan has gone, and come to a new conclusion that elevates your position for no apparent reason. It is very possible that Armstrong has exaggerated or not told the story completely, but that's just how it appears to me now.

pg. 171: "In his view, Christians should liberate themselves from the physical world and seek the wholly spiritual God. They should not cling to earthly places but 'seek the heavenly city in place of the earthly.'"

Maybe we create the holiness of a site through our own perception?

Armstrong and the Jewish faith (1-7)

This book is really dense. I'm having a hard time getting through all of it simply because every paragraph contains a big statement that has to be further analyzed. With that in mind, I decided I would try to organize my thoughts on the book by major religion. Here goes Judaism...

There are two aspects of Armstrong's writing that really jumped out at me. First, I really appreciated the details associated with the creation of a Jewish state in Biblical times. The lessons that were learned there seem to have been forgotten in the modern age. This was especially clear to me on page 26 when she says, "the process of establishing themselves as a nation in their own land was painful to others and morally perplexing." Statements like this force us to look at the modern situation in an attempt to understand why there is strife. This also really put the length of the conflict into context for me. It's not necessarily about Israeli's fighting Palestinians as it is often portrayed, but rather, a group of people who feels that it is their right to establish their own sovereign nation on this land. When we look at it in this context, I think it makes the battle less personal, less about us versus them, and more about a human quality of life.

The second aspect of the first seven chapters that popped out at me, was the success of rulers who were accommodating of other faiths. The best example is of Herod, a Jewish King who was able to transform his city into a prosperous one that was accepting of many different faiths and peoples. This appears to be a lesson that the leaders of Jerusalem are not necessarily able to accept at the current time. People respected him. Not just Jews and not just Gentiles, but everybody, according to Armstrong, seemed to think that he was very capable of leading the city. Maybe the right leader hasn't been found yet. Maybe peace is something that you can work really hard at, but in the end what you really need is someone who forces people to relax. Maybe that's a gross oversimplification, but I really don't think so. Herod is an example of a person who was able to make his religion and his politics work together for the greater good of his city.

Religion and Me

Today's class definitely showed me that I need to better define myself religiously. You all seem to assume that because I have made clear that I come from a background where religion is not the most important thing, I take other things in place of religion. This is definitely not the case. The reason why I have prefaced many of my comments by saying that my upbringing was not very religious was to ensure that a lack of knowledge on my part was not assumed to be insulting. I definitely do not know as much about religion as many people in our class, so I have been attempting to be respectful.

Believe it or not I am a rather religious person, it's just something that I find to be deeply personal. Not only is it personal, but it is also confusing. Having an omni-religious background has not been easy. So please do not assume that I take academia as my religion. It is not. Academia is often easier for me to understand, so in class situations I often revert to it.

I hope this clears some things up...

belief vs. history

Our class discussion about Armstrong's first four chapters and the beginnings of the Jewish religion sparked several more questions for me.
1. Why does religious belief seemingly trump historical evidence?
It appears to me that the faithful are less likely to consider history when coming to conclusions about biblical times. While I can appreciate having a strong faith, to me, it becomes a problem if that faith effects one's ability to interpret data. I guess what I'm saying is that I believe in history. I also believe that the Bible, Torah, Koran, et al., are simple books there to give us examples as to how to live a good life, and not set in stone historical descriptions of what actually was. A literal reading of the material stunts ones ability to add new knowledge.

2. Using social justice as an example, when does a religion forget why it was created and start pursuing other paths?
Even though we are reading a historical text now, I feel that it is important to look at what is happening now in Jerusalem and compare. Armstrong was adament that the begins of the Jewish religion were founded in the idea of social justice, and understanding that it was important to be respectful to others. I especially like the example of Jerusalem during King David's time. He conquered the city, yet ensured that the previous residents weren't prosecuted or taken advantage of. He allowed them to maintain the majority of their lives. Why wasn't the state of Israel able to do this?

Week Two Readings

This week's articles seemed to represent to me the interplay between peace and religion. The Dumper article, though it was very short, did a very good job of explaining the city of Jerusalem has become such a contested area. It was especially interesting to me to learn that, geographically, Jerusalem is in a very undesirable location. It just seems ironic that it has become one of the most important cities on the planet and drought is a very real possibility. I think this is the place were religion starts to overwhelm politics. The Israeli government moved their capital to Jerusalem regardless of the fact that it's a war zone which is largely disconnected from the rest of Israel. That seems like a very bad political move. It also seems like a very expensive move. Instead of spending millions of dollars to resettle people or create barriers, that money could have been better spent on developing industry, education, or (God forbid) peace.
The Dumper article also seemed to highlight times when there was peace as times when religion played a much smaller role in politics. There's a reason why the United States has a seperation of religion and state. Government functions much better that way. Without having to think about religion, a government is better able to make rational decisions for the nation. It's just a shame that a secular government lead by those who are the best at their job doesn't seem possible in the near future.
The other two articles, written by Israel and Palestinian historians, did not seem as strong in comparision to the non-biased article. Both seemed to give an idealized account of modern history while glossing over their counterparts contributions to the complexity and rich history of the city. I also am having a hard time excepting the strategy of their approach. It does not make sense to me to have two different people telling two different sides of the same history. This doesn't create dialogue. If that is the main goal of this project, then I don't know if it will work. Having parallel papers allows readers of both to dismiss the one they don't believe in. While it may work on an academic level, I'm not sure if the average Jerusalemite would really be persuaded to read both sides of the story and take them seriously.
Class on Tuesday also got me thinking. We spent a long time talking about what to call people who are important to each religion. This was an actual dialogue, which was refreshing, but it was very tedious. It may just be a result of my liberal semi-Christian upbringing, but it seemed like a debate over semantics rather than an actual conversation about issues affecting the entire city of Jerusalem. This would also indicate a situation in which religion has overtaken politics. Instead of being able to talk about the issues we were bogged down in the religion.

That was just a thought, please don't take offense, because that is definitely not how it was intended. Please let me know what you think. I'm not easily offended.