Modern Bible Studies: A Handy Guide
2 hours ago
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Not much else to say....
In this question and answer session, Christopher Hitchens strongly refutes the horrendous view that religion causes morality and that also seeks to blame the horrors of fascism and communism on atheism.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Animal Farm
I read Animal Farm recently. It was the first time I had read the book in over ten years. I distinctly remember reading it for the first time when I was around eight years old (that, and Lord of the Flies, both schoolbooks of my older brother’s). I read it again in ninth grade, for school. I remember clearly the feeling of pain and shock that I experienced while reading it, and even now the power of Orwell’s satire and style hits home. What Orwell does better than anything is allow the reader a glimpse into the mind of political leaders and above all, a brutally honest and accurate look into the depths of the human psyche. It is a masterpiece of political theory and social science.
It is ironic that right inside the cult I was being given a book that spelled out clearly what was going on around me. It practically gave the game away. Kind of like a bank leaving their vault wide open for the public to help themselves. It was ironic that I was being given my passport to freedom by my jailers. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot… I mean, do they hand out The God Delusion, too?
That’s another thing. I remember putting down the book and feeling shaken to the core. I knew I’d never view my world the same way again, and I’d never have quite the same level of trust for authority. The book engenders skepticism. It reminds you that no one’s perfect, especially those that are given lots of power. Yet all the kids in yeshiva were gleefully announcing that the book was nothing but a critique of Communism. “Snowball is Trotsky, Napoleon is Stalin; get it?!” they’d say. All I can remember thinking is, ‘What?! He’s talking to you! This book applies to anyone and everyone! And all political systems! This is human nature! IT’S NOT ABOUT COMMUNISM!!” But I’m sure that would have offended them.
Anyway, I’m not going to tell you to read the book. Anyone who knows anything about literature knows it’s one of the best books of all time. I merely want to state that it was one of the first challenges to the faith foisted upon me in Orthodox Judaism. I’ll never forget the way Boxer and many animals worked their asses off, for nothing (think kollel). The constant need for the pigs to justify and rationalize their crimes and betrayals of trust, as well as the power of persuasion; the quest to turn black into white merely by talking, also known as “B.S.” and “apologetics.” (Speak to this man, he does it for a living.) The seemingly endless greed, cruelty, and selfishness of those in power. How little they cared. Et cetera.
Thank you George Orwell for providing a strong antidote for ruthless dictators such as Hitler, Stalin, and God.
Postscript:
Back in October of 2008, I posted Ten Reasons Why I Left. No. 3 was "Reading Animal Farm, eighth and ninth grade. Orwell's cynical atheism oozed out in his work, with bird "Moses" "Sugarcandy Mountain" (Paradise) and The Ten Commandments (constantly being changed). Also, his general pessimism about the human condition and the impossible dream of a perfect world made an impresssion." This pig commented "Well you missed the point of the book then. He was mocking communism's disdain for organized religion. And why not? The first thin (sic) any new social movement does is disparage and delegitimize its opposition." Garnel was being typically disingenuous (a mandatory trait for all religious and political apologists) because he knows that the book advocates free speech and transparency and accountability of the ruling classes, above all else. And while Orwell maybe doesn’t criticize religion directly (though I see no evidence that he has any respect for it either, and it’s ridiculous of Garnel to say the book was a critique of the Soviet Union for NOT allowing religion. Is Garnel out of his mind? Or does he just have an axe to grind?) Anyway, I wasn’t the only person who thought Animal Farm was a stark condemnation of organized religion. From Anne Patchett’s foreword:
It was Animal Farm that that told me religion may in fact be a hoax perpetrated by a bird named Moses, who is trying to sell the other animals a bill of goods that they should work as hard as they can in this life because their rewards will come after death in a place called Sugarcandy Mountain.
It was not dissimilar from the story the nuns told us in school , except they didn’t call it Sugarcandy Mountain.The idea that commandments were malleable, mere written things that could be secretly altered to fit the needs of whoever was in charge, was similarly startling. Commandments, as I understood them in 1974, were etched on stone tablets by God, and while they might be foolishly ignored (for certain eternal punishment later on. I was Catholic as well), they could not be changed. It was the beginning of the idea that would be carried on in 1984; everything was subject to change. Laws can change, ideas, words, concepts. Were pigs on teetering ladders altering the nature of truth with an ordinary can of paint the sign of things to come? My understanding that leaders could lie to us by assuming our stupidity and that we could, stupidly, continue to believe them, came that year from Animal Farm, not from Watergate, which droned on interminably on the television night after night, Nixon’s face occupying the screen on every channel. I have to wonder how many of the principal players in that piece of history had read Orwell. If I had to guess I would say all of them, both the ones who thought they could get away with it and the others who were determined to stop them… Orwell’s work demands a hypervigilance of the reader. Like pledges and nursery rhymes it stays with us, a promise of what will happen if we ever surrender control of our fate to the system [and don’t question authority vigorously]. Orwell never gave his readers the answers, just the worst-case scenario for the questions. Hopefully by living in a nation of young Orwell readers, we will manage to avoid his vision by continually bearing witness to it. (xi)
It is ironic that right inside the cult I was being given a book that spelled out clearly what was going on around me. It practically gave the game away. Kind of like a bank leaving their vault wide open for the public to help themselves. It was ironic that I was being given my passport to freedom by my jailers. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot… I mean, do they hand out The God Delusion, too?
That’s another thing. I remember putting down the book and feeling shaken to the core. I knew I’d never view my world the same way again, and I’d never have quite the same level of trust for authority. The book engenders skepticism. It reminds you that no one’s perfect, especially those that are given lots of power. Yet all the kids in yeshiva were gleefully announcing that the book was nothing but a critique of Communism. “Snowball is Trotsky, Napoleon is Stalin; get it?!” they’d say. All I can remember thinking is, ‘What?! He’s talking to you! This book applies to anyone and everyone! And all political systems! This is human nature! IT’S NOT ABOUT COMMUNISM!!” But I’m sure that would have offended them.
Anyway, I’m not going to tell you to read the book. Anyone who knows anything about literature knows it’s one of the best books of all time. I merely want to state that it was one of the first challenges to the faith foisted upon me in Orthodox Judaism. I’ll never forget the way Boxer and many animals worked their asses off, for nothing (think kollel). The constant need for the pigs to justify and rationalize their crimes and betrayals of trust, as well as the power of persuasion; the quest to turn black into white merely by talking, also known as “B.S.” and “apologetics.” (Speak to this man, he does it for a living.) The seemingly endless greed, cruelty, and selfishness of those in power. How little they cared. Et cetera.
Thank you George Orwell for providing a strong antidote for ruthless dictators such as Hitler, Stalin, and God.
Postscript:
Back in October of 2008, I posted Ten Reasons Why I Left. No. 3 was "Reading Animal Farm, eighth and ninth grade. Orwell's cynical atheism oozed out in his work, with bird "Moses" "Sugarcandy Mountain" (Paradise) and The Ten Commandments (constantly being changed). Also, his general pessimism about the human condition and the impossible dream of a perfect world made an impresssion." This pig commented "Well you missed the point of the book then. He was mocking communism's disdain for organized religion. And why not? The first thin (sic) any new social movement does is disparage and delegitimize its opposition." Garnel was being typically disingenuous (a mandatory trait for all religious and political apologists) because he knows that the book advocates free speech and transparency and accountability of the ruling classes, above all else. And while Orwell maybe doesn’t criticize religion directly (though I see no evidence that he has any respect for it either, and it’s ridiculous of Garnel to say the book was a critique of the Soviet Union for NOT allowing religion. Is Garnel out of his mind? Or does he just have an axe to grind?) Anyway, I wasn’t the only person who thought Animal Farm was a stark condemnation of organized religion. From Anne Patchett’s foreword:
It was Animal Farm that that told me religion may in fact be a hoax perpetrated by a bird named Moses, who is trying to sell the other animals a bill of goods that they should work as hard as they can in this life because their rewards will come after death in a place called Sugarcandy Mountain.
It was not dissimilar from the story the nuns told us in school , except they didn’t call it Sugarcandy Mountain.The idea that commandments were malleable, mere written things that could be secretly altered to fit the needs of whoever was in charge, was similarly startling. Commandments, as I understood them in 1974, were etched on stone tablets by God, and while they might be foolishly ignored (for certain eternal punishment later on. I was Catholic as well), they could not be changed. It was the beginning of the idea that would be carried on in 1984; everything was subject to change. Laws can change, ideas, words, concepts. Were pigs on teetering ladders altering the nature of truth with an ordinary can of paint the sign of things to come? My understanding that leaders could lie to us by assuming our stupidity and that we could, stupidly, continue to believe them, came that year from Animal Farm, not from Watergate, which droned on interminably on the television night after night, Nixon’s face occupying the screen on every channel. I have to wonder how many of the principal players in that piece of history had read Orwell. If I had to guess I would say all of them, both the ones who thought they could get away with it and the others who were determined to stop them… Orwell’s work demands a hypervigilance of the reader. Like pledges and nursery rhymes it stays with us, a promise of what will happen if we ever surrender control of our fate to the system [and don’t question authority vigorously]. Orwell never gave his readers the answers, just the worst-case scenario for the questions. Hopefully by living in a nation of young Orwell readers, we will manage to avoid his vision by continually bearing witness to it. (xi)
Thursday, December 24, 2009
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