This guy George Calloway is great. I love his intelligence and brutal common sense. The stupidity of the smug out of touch mostly western Christian white middle class is disheartening, as they spew out the propaganda garbage that the main stream media feeds them as it were truth.
The truth is that we are a small, small world now and we can not see ANYONE as “the other”. There is no such thing as “the other” anymore. A little traveled white person from say NY who has grown up on a diet of bland mind washing media can easily fool themselves that people in say, Iran, are “the other”.
But the truth is that those others easily have a vast network of friends and family in NY who regularly move back and forth between the two countries. Here in Brooklyn that is so easy to see.
In this world where you can get anywhere on the planet within 24 hours we are all in the same soup. The person next door is just as alien or close as the person across the globe because the person next door could very well just have gotten off a plane from across the globe.
To think that a war across the globe is not our war is just plain stupid. It is our war and we can just as easily be casualties of it. What can stop an Iranian in Iran from calling up an father-in-law in NY to speak about the injustices of their plight as US soldiers invade Iran? What is there to stop the father-in-law from running me down in a Brooklyn street?
We cannot ignore the universal truth that every religion in the world since the beginning of time has stated: we are all connected. Never forget that. Next time you see “the other” remind yourself of that.
John
Southern Baptist upbringing, currently an apostate (somebody who has lost their faith).
My father was a Southern Baptist Minister, and I was raised deep in that tradition. I was taught to believe that the Bible should be interpreted literally and that Jesus is the only path towards salvation. Fundamentalism in Christianity, and I guess in any religion, does not allow you to compartmentalize your life. So, the religious beliefs we were given intended to permeate every part of our life.
It informed how we related to others, what type of television we watched, and whether we drank alcohol or not. Proselytizing, sharing our faith with others, was also a huge part of the religious experience. And the religious experience was everything. I remember in high-school, in addition to playing football and being in student government and all that, I was known as the devout Christian. I would take my Bible to study hall to read.
I can remember a particular time in study hall when someone came to me and they were having some problems in life. It was an opportunity for me to share the idea of salvation, as I understood it, and we prayed on the spot. He became a born again Christian, right there in the study hall. It was exhilarating!
I was like this everywhere. Because I was a quarterback in football I was welcomed into the party circle in high school. I would go to these parties and make a point to get a clear glass and fill it with milk. While everyone else was getting wasted and engaging in all sorts of licentious, sinful behavior I walked around with my glass of milk and my Bible.
As I look back at it now, it is like remembering another person. It is interesting, though, that the seeds of my faith’s own destruction were formed in my very desire to be a better Christian. In college, and I went to a religious college, I got into Christian Apologetics, which is the study of Christian philosophy, because I wanted to be a better defender of Christianity. I wanted to learn how to counter those people who pointed out Christianity’s flaws.
This lead me to study philosophy, and was an important part in my becoming doubtful of my religion. At the time that was a big thing. There was a year or two when I literally didn’t go a day without breaking down and crying. When you are in the fundamentalist evangelical tradition you take faith seriously, and when you begin to question it, then it is not simply a small tinkering with the beliefs, you are engaging in a complete overhaul of your entire being.
Because the religion deeply affects your whole identity, your whole concept of reality, to change it is a very painful transition. But I had to change. One of the things that really bothered me was the concept that people were going to spend eternity in torment, anguish and hell if they did not accept that Jesus was the son of God, that he came and died for our sins, and that he rose from the grave.
I remember one night, I was sharing my new doubts with a Christian friend, and, after listening to me quietly, she looked at me with concern and sadness, and said, “John, I think you might be the Anti-Christ.” But I kept thinking of the majority of the world who would never be exposed to Christianity and thus, according to what I was taught, were destined for hell. It seemed profoundly unfair. I decided that if it is true that they are going to hell, then I did not want to worship a God that lets that happen.
My mother was very sad about my decision. I had became an Apostate, she would say. That’s somebody who has lost the faith. She has only recently realized to what extent I’ve drifted way from the beliefs she so tried to instill in me. I get an e-mail from her everyday now asking me to go to church, and saying how much she loves me and is praying for me.
I have mixed feelings about this because I know she wants me to believe the right things, but at the same time I feel like a tool. Christians have this way of being so nice and solicitous to you, but it is always doubtful whether they really like you or whether they want you to change your beliefs. I even feel this with my mother.
Up until recently I had tried to be honest with my parents regarding my changes, but that just got me nowhere. It was just a source of frustration for all of us, because I would attempt to articulate my new views, but for my mother they were simply incomprehensible. Her understanding is that once you become a born again Christian, then you have reached the goal, and there is nowhere to go from there.
So, it is a conundrum for her that I could once be a devout Christian and now no longer have those beliefs. That’s why I’ve started lying to her, telling her things like, “Oh yes, mother, I’ll be in church for Easter. As a matter of fact I’m looking forward to church. And I’ll be thinking of you mother.” But I’m not going to church. Since it makes her feel better about her only son’s eternal destination, I don’t feel so bad about lying.
But I’m not an atheist now, because I still feel there is a God. I’m perhaps an agnostic, or a deist, even though deism went out a few centuries ago. As much as I’ve purged myself, there’s still the notion that something much bigger exists. It is probably impossible for me to ever comprehend it.
I have a faith in something I can not understand, so I don’t put much importance into it. My faith now is mainly an ethical one, as opposed to being metaphysical or spiritual. The pivotal value now is really about being a good person, treating other people with respect. To me that’s what Christianity is really about. Christ emphasized your interaction with others as the starting point for your relationship with God.
I still think Christ was a good example, just like Gandhi or Mother Theresa. Christ was a liberal, a revolutionary. The only condemnatory language he ever had was directed towards the religious leaders. And at the same time he hung out with those who were considered the most corrupt in his society: tax collectors, people in cohoots with the Roman empire, prostitutes.
After all, his first miracle was to change water into wine. It was at a wedding, and back then they didn’t just have a wedding celebration for a few hours; it lasted days. They drank and danced and had huge parties. So, at one of these parties that Jesus was attending, after a few days they ran out of liquor. And who do they turn to? Jesus. He stepped up to keep the party going! That may be a liberal interpretation, but it shows how He embraced humanity.
We don’t have a God’s eye point of view and it would be dishonest to try and live our lives as if we did. We have a lot of questions and very few answers. And we should embrace that. We should be more tolerant, with humility, admitting that we don’t have all the answers. I remember my father telling me that any problem in life can be answered by the Bible.
That was certainly how he dealt with any problem he had with my mother. Before they got divorced, she wanted to go and get counseling, but he would refuse and say the Bible was the only counseling they needed. Yet, since he was a Southern Baptist Minister, he was the final arbiter of what the Bible meant. This created an authoritarian, oppressive family life – not good. Not good at all. I’ve been estranged from my father for some time.
Interestingly enough, though, recently I’ve begun to reexamine my relationship with my father,. Up to this point I’ve always had forbidding, ominous dreams about him. They were very unpleasant. But over the past few weeks I’ve been having sympathetic dreams towards him.
Frankly, I’m not sure that I’m too crazy about my new dreams, because it was much easier for me when I didn’t see any humanity in my father at all, when I just saw him as this monster. Now, these dreams have been portraying him in a much more human light, with faults and shortcomings. Oddly, these subtleties are more difficult to live with.
As a Hindu growing up, I was told many stories. Hinduism is full of mythology, and us children were constantly being told religious stories. The stories were about anything from the creation of the universe to why squirrels in India have three stripes on their backs. That is the one thing I miss from childhood, those bedtime stories. I did not have a dogmatic upbringing, though.
Sure, I participated in the festivals and certain cultural rituals, but it was not a daily or weekly thing. I did inherit certain values. These are mostly universal, such as honest, hard work, personal honesty, and respect for others. If I had to distil the Hindu message, for me it would be not to let the fruits of my work distract me from the work itself. I can only choose to do what I think is the right thing, but I have no control over the outcome.
What I like about Hinduism is that it is really open for your own interpretation. The basic idea is that you can find God in many ways, so that allows people to seek Him in the way they feel most comfortable. Of course, like any religion, it has its share of dogmatic areas and fanatical followers.
It is strict in certain areas, such as eating habits, but these are usually socio-cultural issues, and not religious ones. As far as choosing your religious path, I feel it is very flexible. In fact, there is nothing really in Hinduism that says you can’t worship, say, Christ, since it acknowledges that there are various paths to the Ultimate One.
If you feel salvation would be best through Allah, or Buddha, then you can take that way. It is ridiculous to say, “We are the only ones who know what the truth is,” or to condemn somebody following Islam, telling them they are doomed to hell forever. That is dumb, because they could be very virtuous and sincere in their religion.
In my family, we traditionally follow Vishnu, but I worship whoever I choose at the time. Krishna is a colorful character, so I might choose him if I’m in that mood. Or I might want the purity and perfection of Lord Rama. It is similar to the Greek pantheon, where you have all these Gods who are constantly up to their antics, each one with their own personality. You take what you need at the time.
I find Hinduism unique compared to the other religions. Firstly, it does not have a traceable root. Christianity can be traced to Jesus, Islam to Mohamed, and Judaism to Moses, but there is no one figure you can take Hinduism back to. No one person founded it. Likewise, Hinduism has many texts to draw from, unlike Islam, which focuses on the Koran, or Christianity’s Bible.
Another thing is that you can’t convert to Hinduism, you have to be born into it. It has no system of conversion like other beliefs. You have the Hari Krishna movement which takes in foreigners, but it is not the same as, say, a born again Christian conversion.
Hinduism’s pantheon of thousands of deities also sets it apart. But you have the basic trinity as well: the Creator, the Preserver, and the Destroyer, or Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, respectively. What is really interesting, though, is that Hindus believe that true enlightenment is the ability to connect with God directly, without any of the deities as intermediaries.
So, eventually, the goal is to not need the religion or its idols at all. But I don’t think Hinduism is in any danger of going away. Eighty percent of India is Hindu, so there’s still a lot of people who need to reach enlightenment before they discard their religion.
Kazuma
Japan. Technically a Buddhist, but is more accurately a practitioner of ancestral worship.
If I were asked if I’m religious, I would probably say no. But, maybe my religion is ancestral worship. I’m from Okinawa. It is a cultural minority in Japan, so my background is different from a typical Japanese person. In my house we have an altar. Its form is Buddhism, but the content is ancestral worship.
Formally speaking, my religion is Buddhism, but I don’t practice it at all. Practically speaking, my religion is ancestral worship. The definition of practice is very difficult. For example, on New Years day, many people go to shrines to pray for health and prosperity. This is a form of practice, but it is hardly religious. It is a worldly, or practical approach.
We have a lot of annual, and even daily, ritual which stems from religion, but most Japanese people consider these rituals to be old customs only, and not religious. Perhaps scholars would try to say it is religious, but common people don’t see it that way.
Yet, religion does exist in Japan. Today, especially among the younger generation, many people are getting into cults. It has become notorious. For example, the Oumu cult, which I think came from India. They got a lot of press recently for leaking sarin gas into the subway and killing many people. They are not the only ones. There are several other bizarre and dangerous cults in Japan.
Of course, another religion in Japan is Christianity. Many Americans are in Okinawa because we have a huge US military base there. It has more than fifty thousand people, not only solders, but teachers, doctors, and family, and they helped spread Christianity. They’ve built a lot of churches.
But, I would say you have three main Japanese religions. One is Buddhism. They have many beautiful temples. A large number of people’s customs stem from Buddhism and it’s offshoots. Zen Buddhism is an example. Many Americans seem to think of Zen as a peaceful, calm religion, but that is an incorrect perception. Zen stems from a philosophy of warriors.
Zen is used to strengthen their spirit in order to fight better. They calm their spirit with Zen techniques so that they can fight better. In the sixties, hippies and other Americans just interpreted the peaceful issues. There are not a lot of Zen Buddhists in Japan now.
Then you have Soka Gakai Buddhism. They are fundamentalists. Our constitution stresses the separation of church and state, but Soka Gakai always tries to combine the two, using their large wealth and political connections. You can always see them in the press trying to do this. Recently they had a split in their organization due to corruption.
Outside of Japan there are some celebrity Soka Gakai members, like the actor Robert Deniro. The organization uses that celebrity status as propaganda to boost their membership. They court younger Japanese people with posters of these famous people. You can join and get a Robert Deniro poster!
The second large religion is Shinto. This is a very nationalistic religion, supporting the emperor system. Many conservative, right wing Shinto want to return to the emperor system. But, again, it is not religion. It is political, especially if seen from left wing perspectives. This is why, when talking about religion in Japan, I feel anxiety. The Shinto are right wing religious extremists.
They are very political, and can be aggressive, especially towards foreigners or Japanese people who mix with foreigners. Above all towards Americans. So I have to be careful. For example, the Yakusa, who are Japanese Mafia, are Shinto. They are always praying for the return of the emperor, using the Japanese sword, Katana, in their ceremonies.
You just mention the Yakusa, and people get scared. That is why people don’t talk about religion in Japan. They are afraid. People have a stereotypical image of the Yakusa, even me, but it is enough to keep me scared. I’m a grad school student, so in Japan it is rare to see such people on campus, but when I go out to a bar or something, I need to be careful about what I say.
Even here at Columbia University, there are certain conservative right-wing Japanese professors, and I sometimes talk politics and culture with them. But never religion. It is too sensitive a subject.
The third religion would be animism, and this is very much intertwined with custom, and ancestral worship. Ancestral worship is very important to us. For example, in my family we have a name plate with all the names of all my ancestors.
My father keeps it in the altar at home because he is currently the successor. After he dies, his name will be put on the plate and then I will keep it, since I am the oldest son and next in line. Then, I will pass it on to my first son.
Ancestral things are important to us. When a family member becomes ninety-eight years old we have a big ceremony and party. Last year my grandmother became ninety-eight, so I went back to Okinawa, even though I had course work here.
But I don’t really have a religion. I know nothing about Buddhism, my supposed religion. Sure, if I’m going to die, then maybe my parents or somebody near me would call the monk from the Japanese temple, but that is simply form. The content of it is empty.
For me God, he or she, whatever it is, is out of this world. He is the real power. He or she cannot be human, and we don’t even think in terms of gender. I have not even asked myself “Who is God,” because we just believe that there is a God. He created this world, this universe.
I belong to a religion that believes this. I belong to Islam. I am by birth a Muslim, living in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. For me it is different to be by birth a Muslim than to be by choice a Muslim, because if you are a Muslim by birth then you have no choice, you can’t change your birth.
At the same time this is an opportunity. You have the chance to learn the real essence of the religion you were born into. You can learn what the beliefs are that you inherited from your family. You have both an opportunity and at the same time you have no choice.
A person who is by choice a Muslim, he can choose, but for us we inherited the tradition, the values, the religion- everything, so for us learning more about the religion we were given is our evolution. That is how we grow personally.
For me, religion has some basic principles. You believe in God, firstly. Then you should be a good Muslim, you should follow the basic rules of what is correct and what is not. But I am not like some of my fellow Muslims.
I have never tried, and I don’t want to try, extreme things, because that makes your life difficult. This is where tradition and culture comes into religion. For example, I live in Pakistan and it is very different from here. What tribe I belong to, our cultural rules, our decision making procedures, it is all different.
All these cultural structures exist because of religion. People use religion to justify our culture, and this can get very extreme. For example, I know that in the Islamic teachings it says that women do deserve basic rights, but in many Muslim cultures women are not allowed these rights. People justify the lack of human rights by interpreting Islam to serve their own purposes.
And it is very difficult, even dangerous, to talk about these interpretations in a questioning way. For this reason, it can be very difficult to be in that culture and justify yourself as being a true and good Muslim. You feel that real Islam would not allow these human rights abuses towards women, but you cannot say that. For me, this is hard.
There are many things that I can not do openly, even when I speak to you now, not because the teachings of Islam forbid it, but because my culture forbids it. There are some things that nobody would allow me to do, nor would they ever forgive me if I did them, so I have to be very careful about that, even careful about mentioning them. This is the same for so many Muslims. For all of us, what cultural rules we must follow is not so much a question of Islam, but a question of what group we belong to, and how Islam is interpreted there.
In my human rights work, I must follow the basic principle for any intervention effort that tries to change things: I can not intervene from outside. I will not be effective in bringing any change or outside views if I am not working from within. Working form within, I must try to scratch out what support I can get from those who are already part of the culture, be it a village or country.
In Islam there are certain things that allow room for discussion, for change. There are ways I can talk about women rights in a religious context. Their marriage rights, their rights to dissolution of marriage, their rights to child custody, their property rights and inheritance rights: all these things are being misused in the name of religion by customary practices. What my work consists of is getting the more liberal religious viewpoints and interpretation of Islam, through interpretations of the Koran and by looking at other more liberal Muslim countries.
By these efforts we create a space to discuss the issues we think need to be changed. This is the only way to work. You can not confront the existing culture. You need to work with it, moving very gradually. It is risky also, because you need to maintain support from your family and the community at large.
For me, religion is very important, for your beliefs, for your conduct, for your life in general. The ideal situation is where people can live independently, according to their own views and religious beliefs, without any kind of threats in the name of religion from other human beings. In Pakistan, where 85% of the population is Muslim, there are so many different sects and beliefs that one gets confused by what is the true Islam.
Even amongst Muslims, who all agree on the basic principles, there is fighting due to differences of beliefs and interpretations. They are so extreme. They can kill just on minor differences. It’s happening right now actually. Just some days back, twelve or thirteen people, including kids, were killed in a mosque by another Muslim group. Just because of minor differences.
But we can have differences and still get along. For example, one of my colleagues in my advocate work is also Muslim. She and I have a difference in belief over whether to wear a scarf on our head or not. I wear a scarf. I justify it because even though it is a religion thing, I feel it is also a tribal thing specific to my tribe. For my tribe it is a question of pride. The women in my tribe wear scarves as a way of showing respect.
It is not really religious, because in Islam it is not clear weather women should wear it. Some extreme countries, like Sudan or Saudi Arabia, think you should cover your face also, but in Pakistan and Turkey it is not so important. So, it’s not really religion specific, it’s more cultural. Despite my differences from my colleague, we still get along. So many can’t. Woman have been killed for not wearing a scarf. They are so extreme, it is unbearable. That is why I never want to talk about religion.
Another good example of extremism is the situation concerning the Muslim religious sect called Ahmady. They don’t believe in our last prophet, they have their own prophet. But they believe in God, and they used to say they were Muslims. Yet, the Pakistani authorities declared them non-Muslim in the 1970’s because of their views.
They justified this decision solely because they felt the Ahmady was denying the true prophet. The punishment is death. So today, all Ahmady can be killed on the street by any common man. I’m very concerned about this. I’m a believer, I’m a Muslim, but I also believe that even Ahmady’s have a right to live on this earth, being human beings. This affects me even here in New York. A few days ago, at Columbia University, I was preparing a presentation about my country, and the outline was on the web. Before the talk, an Ahmady who lived in New York called me. He said, “Your topic is “Civil society in Pakistan.
Well, I am a member of that civil society, yet I have been here in New York as a refugee for twenty years. If I go back I will be killed immediately.” He asked me if I could talk about the Ahmady, and I was speechless. I do want to talk about it, but I can’t because I live in an extreme religious area! As somebody who works for an Non-Governmental Agency, I am a public figure and I have to be very careful about what I say because it travels back to people at home. If I speak publicly about the Ahmady I will immediately get in trouble. If certain people were to decide that me and my organization were pro-Ahmady or that we were ourselves Ahmady, then we would certainly be in danger of death.
These issues, though, I cannot avoid, being a Muslim by birth. But I am not an extremist. I practice the basic principles, like Ramadan and some prayers. Everyone is concerned about how you do your prayers, what you say, sometimes to the point of being ridiculous. The ones who are not concerned about the people, they only put importance in how you interact with God- the prayers, the holy Koran, the recitations, the Ramadan.
For them, and for most people in general actually, the criteria for being a good Muslim is somebody who is very religious, who prays five times a day, who practices Ramadan perfectly, who reads the Koran, and so on. But for me, these are things that concern only me and my God, and I’ll be answerable to him on the day of judgment. For me, the criteria for being a good Muslim is all about relationships, human relationships.
This is one thing I’m very clear about. I also know for sure that the question of human relation cannot be forgiven, even by god. It is the human to human relationship that is important. I feel the real Islam stresses this, but so many people do not.
I do not think Islamic rules are what need to be changed, because the rules in Islam are so beautiful when you look at them in depth. If you just follow the rules laid out for human interaction in Islam, then it is really very simple. They are basic human things, such as being kind and respectful to others. And that is what I do. I am not alone either.
Other women in my field feel the same. I am very clear about this aspect of Islam, and this is what will help us in bringing change. My basic principle is to trust in God, but to love people, because this is the teaching of Islam. That is how I lead my life, and I feel I am following Islam, the real Islam which to my interpretation is good.
Islam is not alone here. Every religion of the world is beautiful. I’ve learned a bit about Buddhism and Catholicism, and all the basic principles are the same. None say that it is O.K. to beat or harm others, or that you should not give rights to your children or women. It is just a matter of how the religion is interpreted by certain groups. That is what really affects its outcome in the world.
One way for progress, I think, is to put importance in mass education of Islam, and not to keep Islamic interpretation to a small group. Islam is so simple that everyone can understand it. The holy book, Koran, is not just for reciting, it has translations that need to be understood by everyone. Understanding is limited right now due to lack of education.
I feel that the general masses, through education, could interpret the true meaning of Islam for themselves, and no longer be dependent on the interpretations of a select few.
Ra
Technically an agnostic, but still a believer in a creative force.
What is God? I don’t imagine any of us have ever been designed to know what took place before the creation of the universe. My assumption is that it was a yin and yang. God for me is some kind of binary beyond anything that I can imagine.
Where is it? It is beyond anything that we can possibly understand because it’s beyond the dimensional reality that we live in, so there is no “place” that I can speculate upon. We are actually within God, in that sense. We’re within whatever created us.
Who is God? As far as I can imagine, it has to be a binary. It can’t be anything else. It certainly isn’t anything near the images of God we have today, because all of those are just build ups of more ancient spirit worship. And those people back then did not have any better grasp of the duality than we can. Whatever created the vastness of all this is far beyond anybody’s capacity to recognize or grasp.
I don’t believe in the concept of God as it has been portrayed over the past two or three millenium. As far as I’m concerned, all those concepts of God are still related to basic ideas of giving a human face to intangible spirits. The God that we can speculate upon, the one that is able to create the universe, is not something humans would be capable of seeing. It is beyond our reach to even fathom, since we are contained within it.
So, whether I think there is a God or not, in the classic language, I’m a true agnostic, meaning I don’t deny the existence of God, but do deny the possibility of ever knowing what that is. However, I’m an agnostic only in the sense of the language; I’m a deep believer in a creative force. But when you come to all those religions and their ideas, I don’t believe in that crap.
Elizabeth
U.S. Lutheran childhood. Currently practices a personalized form of Wicaa, or white witchcraft.
God to me is a spirit form that takes on many aspects, and I see it in everything and everyone around me. I give thanks whenever it appears. I feel fortunate to be able to see it and recognize it, because not everyone does. I see it all the time. It’s like a spirit feeling. A love feeling. The beauty in people and my surroundings, that’s where the Spirit is. It’s something that goes beyond words and just connects you to people even without really knowing who they are.
I was brought up Lutheran. It’s not like religion was forced on me or anything, but we were supposed to go to church, pray before dinner, and at night before we went to bed. But my life changed when I was in a car accident when I was twelve. It opened up doors to many other things. After that new people started coming into my life. Things became much more magical in a way that you don’t normally find every day. Or maybe you would, I don’t know. But people started coming, like shamans and healers. Then I got into Wicken, which is a form of white witchcraft, and from there I just dabbled in a little bit of everything.
Right now, this idea of Spirit is what feels most right for me. It’s my own personal thing. Sometimes I wonder if it would be better if I were part of an organized religion, just because you supposedly go deeper into one thing. But right now I’m not sure, I’m still looking, trying to figure it out, trying to see what it means to me and where it will lead me next. I have a hard time with organized things, anyway; I naturally resist them.
I don’t judge people in their own religions. Everyone goes to wherever they need to go, whatever makes them happy, makes the most sense to them, and fills their heart. I think it’s all generally the same feeling. It’s love and faith, feeling protected, guided, blessed, and thankful. Thankful for everything. Thankful for every encounter. The trick is about being able to recognize it, because it’s always there.
I used to do ritual a lot with others. I like group ritual, but I took a break. I still like doing it, but mostly on my own, rather than with a group of people. Like I said, in groups is where I encounter resistance. I can do it in a group if I feel like everyone is contributing and not one person is controlling or manipulating the whole situation. I like a collaboration.
On a daily basis I still do ritual, but on my own. When I wake up and go to sleep I give thanks. And throughout the day too. I’m always giving thanks. I guess that’s still a residue of growing up Christian. When I take time to say thanks it helps me stay connected. But I don’t say, “Thank you God.” I usually say, “Thank you Spirit.”
I feel God is about seeing the beauty around you. It’s especially about seeing the beauty in people, smiling with them, and resonating with them. It goes beyond words, like when you travel to another country where you can’t speak the language, but still connect with the people through laughter. It’s pretty simple, really.
I tried to plan this project but it rolled out very much as if a larger hand was guiding it. It started with my friends, and I had planned to span out from there, getting a varied group of people, both young and old. I had in mind about ten people.
But half way through the project, I was approached by Ronald Swain and asked if I wanted to help him put together a panel of International House graduate students to discuss religion. As well as hosting the panel, I interviewed and photographed the panelists. That is why this project ended up comprising of mostly graduate students from various countries.
In my conversations, what was surprising to me, being cynical, was how similar these people’s words were to what I had read in all the books on religious views. I saw the religious doctrines lived out by real people and this gave the religions life.
Each person had their religious differences. Eva was clear that Jesus was the only way to salvation, whereas Mukund, a Hindu, felt you could follow any path, even Christianity, and still be a good Hindu.
But they seemed to share many similarities, perhaps because they were liberals in their religions. They were also very well read and intelligent people who had traveled in the world.
Almost all of them made distinctions between spirituality and culture, saying that the two were not always connected. So much of religion is cultural or social, often without any actual spirituality.
Another striking aspect was the amount of fear they had. So many of them had either a fear of expressing their views or a fear of showing criticism for their religion. For some, this was not wanting to be ridiculed or disapproved of by pears, as in the case of Eva, whose views of damnation might alienate her non-Christian friends.
For others it was a more pressing danger, as in the case of Shazia, who could risk her life if she acted too immodestly or spoke in support of the Ahmadi.
I recorded the interviews on tape, then transcribed them. I then edited out my questions and fixed the sentences so that the text flowed as a personal statement. I did not alter what the person said, unless it needed grammatical correction or had redundancies. As it stands, I think the text could go through several more drastic prunings and edits, to get it down to the raw basics. In my enthusiasm, I think I spent too much time interviewing, not leaving enough time to edit.
As for the photos, I tried as best as possible to get the person’s character. I showed John as a plain all-American guy, baseball cap and all, looking more like he’s going to the gym than to church. Since he is no longer religious, this fits. But look at his face again and there is a seriousness about it. He has not dropped his faith lightly.
Jason is shown practicing his Movements, Jennifer is chanting, and Mukund is just plain looking into the camera, smiling, with the same simplicity that he views his Hindu religion.
In all the people I saw bravery. I saw that religion is not a light subject. It is full of trials, both personal and external. To be true to your own personal spirituality takes courage and sometimes brutal honesty.
I hope you enjoy this project as much as I enjoyed making it.
The above image shows where Christianity has reached.
I very rarely focus on the negative. I have a rule with myself that I will blog things I like so that energy increases in that direction. Even if I make fun of something in my blog I think all press is good press and I am actually wishing them success.
However, I have just come across something so insulting to me that I need to point it out. I hope my doing so does not increase its success.
At first it looked really good. It is a very well executed web site. It focuses on all the ethnic groups of the world. It is doing a beautiful job of gathering information on them.
HOWEVER, this web site and the efforts behind it are repugnant to me. Short of the Nazi regime, the Joshua Project represents everything vile to me.
The Joshua Project is an effort to convert every single ethnic group in the world to Christianity. I could not think of a more horrific effort. A mono-religious world is my idea of Hell.
Christ was a really wonderful teacher with fantastic ideas. But a lot of his disciples are complete idiots, preferring to adopt somebody else’s ideas instead of trying out their own.
This goes for many followers of most organized philosophies, from Marxism to Buddhism, so I am not just dissing Christians.
And I think the people behind the Joshua Project are idiots.
I hate religions that feel theirs is better than another, which pretty much is every religion. But evangelical religion is particularly annoying to me. Islam isn’t much better in this aspect.
This is a formal academic essay on the role of the Black Goddess in the world. It explores what Black Goddesses exist and how people regard them.
The Black Goddess plays an important role in society. We use her as a scapegoat, a demon, a holder of our secrets, a mother and as a balance to all that belongs to the White God.
The essay ultimately shows the importance of finding balance in life. The Black Goddess embodies the importance of wholeness.
