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word of the Week: 20/6/16 - Shabbat

19/6/2016

Jewish Day of Rest - Friday night until Saturday Night

The word ‘Shabbat’ comes from a word meaning to rest. It is one of the best known and least understood of all Jewish observances. It is a precious gift from G-d, a great joy eagerly awaited throughout the week, a time to set aside your weekday concerns and devote oneself to spiritual things.

It's origins lie in Genesis: When God creates the Earth in Genesis 1 he rests on the seventh day and so made the day Holy. Jews therefore echo what they regard to be a divine pattern of work. So by resting on the seventh day and making it special, Jews remember and acknowledge that G-d is the creator of heaven and earth and all living things.

The observance is also a Miztvot (a law) from the book of Exodus: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord you G-d; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it” (Exodus 20: 8-11).

Many people tend to think of Shabbat as day full of "don't do's" But far from simply being a day of restrictions, a Shabbat observed at home is a day immersed in an atmosphere of rest, relaxation, and rejoicing. At a time when most of humanity only ate two full meals a day, Jewish tradition called for a sumptuous three meals on Shabbat (between sundown on Friday and just after sundown on Saturday) to ensure that one could relax and celebrate with a full stomach. Shabbat is a day for which you purchase wine and food for a fitting set of meals.

In order to enjoy a Shabbat free of household chores, it is traditional to clean the house before Shabbat and prepare all meals in advance, so that the food only need be warmed up to enjoy it (rather than cooked, which would violate traditional Shabbat restrictions). Shabbat afternoon is a time reserved for reading, talking, or studying Jewish texts such as the Torah, all activities that people often claim that they never have enough time to do.

Having said all this there are lots of things one in not allowed to do as set out in the Torah and relates to many areas of life:

It relates to farming and includes: sowing, ploughing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, shearing wool, trapping, slaughtering, curing hide.

It relates to cooking: grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, salting meat.

It relates to household chores: washing wool, beating wool, dyeing wool, spinning, weaving, making two loops, weaving two threads, separating two threads, tying, untying, sewing two stitches, tearing.

It relates to work: writing two letters, erasing two letters, building, tearing a building down, hitting with a hammer, taking an object from the private domain to the public, or transporting an object in public.

It also relates to light and heat: extinguishing a fire and kindling a fire are not allowed.So in the modern era Orthodox Jews do not permit the use of electricity because it serves the same function as fire – to light or heat.

word of the week: 13/06/16 - Ali

12/6/2016

Islamic name meaning "high" or "exaulted".

The death of Muhammad Ali on June 3rd has raised a number of key issues that are of interest to Religious Studies students: most obviously issues of pacifism, racism and conversion. Cassius Clay, as Ali was originally known, was born into a Christian Family and was subject to all the “normal” prejudices that Black men and women were subject to at that time in the USA. In 1961 Ali was introduced to Islam and converted by 1964. At this time changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammed Ali citing that Cassius Clay was his “slave name”. This encapsulates the reasons for Muhammed Ali’s conversion and the political and racial campaigning that was to follow. Ali famously refuse to fight in the Vietnam War stating that “my enemy is the white people, not the Vietcong”.

So why the names Muhammad and Ali? Most people would recognise that Muhammad is the prophet of Islam and the most revered man in Islamic tradition. Many Muslims give their children his name out of respect and a wish for them to emulate him. But why Ali?

Well, Ali was the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad. He was the son of Abu Talib, Muhammed's uncle, who protected and cared for Muhammad after the death of his parents. Ali is said to be the only person to have been born within the Kaba, the "Black box” at the centre of the Muslim world. Muhamed highly influenced and tradition has it that he became the first Muslim, migrating to Medina with Muhammad and being central to the developing religion. He fought alongside Muhammad against The Mecans, and was appointed as leader by Mohammed after his death.

He was arguably the first Caliph, the leader of Islam after the death of The Prophet. However this divides Islamic world; Sunni Muslims believe that the Caliph should be elected by other Muslims (and so Abu Bakr was the first Caliph) and Shia Muslims who believe that Caliph should be of the family of Muhammed and so it should be Ali. Ali lived during one of the most turbulent periods of Islamic history and died after an attack by other Muslims.

It would seem that Muhammed Ali had little to say as to why he so chose this name in particular but in 1964 when interviewed he said “Cassius Clay is a slave name. I didn't choose it and I don't want it. I am Muhammad Ali, a free name - it means beloved of God, and I insist people use it when people speak to me." (1) I like to think that, like him, Ali was a convert and fighter, and that parallel was what drew him to it.

Word of the Week: 6/6/16 - Materialism

3/6/2016

The theory that nothing exists except matter and its movements. There is therefore no soul.

The views of the Materialists such as Richard Dawkins leave no room for an immaterial, separate soul. His commitment to the empirical method is presumed to provide the only true source of knowledge. ‘Soul one’, the Cartesian ghost in the machine, is an impossibility. I shall set out how he justifies this below, but is this a coherent view? This post will argue not.

Firstly, materialism says that all that exists conforms to physical laws, including causation, and so, using those laws, we can predict the future in an increasingly determinist way as we understand better the science. Liberty in our thought-life, and even of a separate self, is an illusion because in reality thought, feelings, ambitions and desires are all electro-chemical phenomena, increasingly observable through neuro-imaging. Thought is a complex neuronal activity of stimulated synapses responding to sense-data. “I” am an abstraction from this process, as we shall see below.

Now, for Dawkins it must be said that this makes our sense of an independent self and our ‘qualia’ (properties and experiences experienced by a person) into materially explicable brain responses, and so they can be examined and ultimately predicted: our brain is simply a data-crunching machine and our freedom is a useful illusion. Ultimately all behaviours will be predictable because they are determined by our brains and hence by our genes (and memes – see below).

However, if this is true, my reason for believing Dawkins can only be that I am genetically programmed to do so, it is predictable, I obey causal laws. So I do not believe him because he is right and has persuaded me, but because it was always going to happen, granted my biochemistry. Some argue that this circular argument invalidates a fundamental assumption of Dawkins’ and shows it to be incoherent: it does not make sense to adopt this position.

Secondly, many look at the computer model of consciousness he embraces and argue that it is flawed in its own terms. His view is known as Functionalist, namely, he believes that mental life is a product of the physical life of the brain and has no meaningful separation. It is ‘uncannily computer-like’ (River Out of Eden) because bytes of programmed self-replicating data have evolved to co-operate for the ‘survival machines’ that we are, even to the extent of creating the mind mirage as a useful fiction for planning our own survival. Our brain is hardware, our mind is software, a product of programmes set deep in our genes and playing out a virtual life of their own. Our brain is data-crunching binary-coded neurons that have learnt to survive together and in doing so now project a mind in order to handle their own functioning better. The mind and its sense of self or “I” has no real existence and no real influence, no more than an image on a screen – neuro-science has long since shown that the effects of a putative soul can be replicated by electrical charges, drugs and other biochemical research.

Many argue that this view does not add up, not just because it is contradicted by other evidence, but in its own terms it is incoherent because it ignores the very content of those thoughts and mind: qualia, perceived experiences, the individual sense of developing personhood and the indeterminacy always of being able to ‘change one’s mind’. In other words, what it is like to be me. The genome cannot give the content of our memory. In ignoring this Dawkins has shown a prior commitment to his theory, often eloquently expressed and using Biblical imagery (e.g. he starts River out of Eden by referring to Abraham), and then he attempts to squeeze the evidence into it. This is the very opposite of the empiricism he claims to follow, and so this is an incoherence in his argument

Thirdly, Dawkins has borrowed the idea of a ‘meme’ and developed it in order to fill in gaps in his argument. The meme is virus-like transmitter of culturally accrued understandings, fashions, preferences and behaviours which have been found to have survival advantages and so have survived and reproduced. Memes are bytes of cultural data which have worked with the genes in our evolution to produce increasing consciousness and even a sense of a separate self that can aid our survival better. One meme-myth is religion, another the soul. The Cartesian soul no longer has any survival value for us, though, and so should be rejected: neuro-science is now explaining our identity and functioning and providing improvements for our inner life much more than a separate soul could ever do. Soul two is this modern Functional soul, sometime also understood in terms of Identity Theory.

The perceived incoherence here lies in the old rhetorical problem: it is one thing to state a view and make a claim, it is something else to provide proper explanation. Proper explanation is not a matter even of listing one’s reasons for holding a viewpoint, it is instead a matter of persuading by well interpreted evidence and successful refutation – not mere mockery – of other views. Scientifically a ‘meme’ cannot and does not exist, and so it contradicts an empirically-based argument for a ‘soul two’ i.e. consciousness explained by neural networks.

In stating Functionalism and Identity Theory so loud and clear Dawkins has brought out into the open much important debate and has challenged those who prefer property dualism (Greenfield) or substance dualism (Hick, Swinburne, Ward) to fashion better arguments. But despite this important function in continuing debate over Body and Soul, many suggest that Dawkins’ own theory cannot stand as it is incoherent.

Word of the Week 16/05/16 - Discipleship

16/5/2016

To follow the teachings and practices of another person; Specifically Jesus Christ in Christianity.

A disciple is literally one who “sits at the feet” of a teacher; he or she is a learner, follower and dedicated to a this leader. Whilst there are lots of examples of disciples throughout history the most famous group must be the disciples of Jesus. We often focus on “the twelve” - the closest of Jesus’ followers who tried to emulate his life and continued his message after his life - but there were of course many more disciples than that, including women such as Mary Magdalene and figures such as Joseph of Arimathea.

But of course Christians today also try to be Jesus’ disciples and try to enact the teachings and example of him in their lives. We can perhaps identify three features of Discipleship that are both in the Gospels and in the lives of Christians today:

Calling:

During his ministry Jesus called the disciples to follow him - he sought them out and called them by name. They just seem to drop everything (including family and livelihood) and follow! So it also for modern Christians than many claim they have been called by Jesus. They feel they have a vocation (a calling) to act out their own ministry. This does not necessarily mean to be priests, but it could be to play a certain kind of role in their community and act out the Christian message.

Follow:

The disciples literally went where Jesus went. Whilst modern Christians cannot follow in his footsteps (except perhaps on pilgrimage) they aim to act in the ways that Jesus taught. For example by following the guidance set out in the Sermon on the Mount, being Agapeic towards others and following the command to love God and Neighbour.

Evangelize:

Finally, Jesus commanded his disciples to go out and “make disciples of all the nations”. At this point the disciples became “Apostles” - one who is sent. So it is that Christians also feel they should be evangelists to the world and spread the word of God. This is why at the end of every communion service the congregation is commissioned and sent out into the world to spread the Gospel.

So it is that Discipleship is made up of three elements; the feeling of having been called by God, the desire to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and to be evangelists and spread the word of God.

Word of the Week 09/05/16 - Animal Rights

13/5/2016

the rights of animals to live with special consideration, For example being free from human exploitation and abuse

peta.org.uk

Those who argue for Animal rights such as the charity PETA, make the case that certain things are wrong as a matter of principle, that there are some things that it is morally wrong to do to animals. Human beings must not do those things, no matter what the cost to humanity of not doing them and human beings must not do those things, even if they do them in a humane way. Many people have no concern with granting such rights to humans, so what is the case for also granting them to animals and what are the counter-arguments?

The Argument For

The argument for animal right might look like this in a syllogism:

Human animals have rights
There is no morally relevant difference between human animals and adult mammals
Therefore adult mammals must have rights too

The weakest premise in this sequence is the second one but might be justified on these grounds:

They have similar levels of biological complexity
They are conscious and aware that they exist
They know what is happening to them
They prefer some things and dislike others
They make conscious choices
They live in such a way as to give themselves the best quality of life
They plan their lives to some extent
The quality and length of their life matters to them

Because of all these things animals are said to have 'inherent value'. Beings with inherent value are equally valuable and entitled to the same rights. Their inherent value doesn't depend on how useful they are to the world, and it doesn't diminish if they are a burden to others. Thus adult mammals have rights in just the same way, for the same reasons, and to the same extent that human beings have rights.

The Argument Against

A number of arguments are put forward against the idea that animals have rights.

Animals don't Reason
Animals were put on earth to serve human beings by the creator (see Genesis 1)
Animals don't have souls and so are metaphysically distinct from Humans
Animals don't behave morally and therefore do not merit moral treatment
Animals lack the capacity for free moral judgment - the do not have agency or autonomy in the samne way that humans do.
Animals are not members of the 'moral community' - this was put well by Mary Warnock: "May they [animals] be hunted? To this the answer is no, not by humans; but presumably their rights are not infringed if they are hunted by animals other than human beings. And here the real difficulties start. If all animals had a right to freedom to live their lives without molestation, then someone would have to protect them from one another. But this is absurd... (M Warnock, An Intelligent Person's Guide to Ethics, 1998)

All of these arguments make the case that Humans and Animals are fundamentally different to one another and therefore the same inherent value we give to human life cannot simply be transferred to animals.

Ultimately it comes down to whether, philosophically speaking, you can make a better case for commonality (humans and animals being on a continuum of development that means one is no "better" than another) or dominance (that humans are morally allowed to dominate animal species.

What do you think?

Word of the Week: 2/5/16 - Therevada

30/4/2016

“the way of the elders” a form of Buddhism.

Image: YouTube.com

Buddhism, like other world religions is divided up into a number of different sub groups, often known as denominations. The oldest of these in Buddhism, and widely practised in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, is Theravada Buddhism.

It is the school of Buddhism that believed it is the closest to the original teachings of the Buddha, hence the name “way of the elders”. The beliefs include that there is no omnipotent creator God, of the sort found in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They believe that the truth of reality has been revealed in the person of Siddhartha Gautama “the awakened one” who understood the realities of suffering and how to minimise the pain of life. Finally, Theravada Buddhists believe the teachings of the Buddha can help us to achieve Nirvana.

Image: Wikipedia.com

Theravada Buddhism focuses on the effects of meditation to clear the mind and concentration to help the believer achieve liberation. This led to the establishment of monastic life with a distinct emphasis on Monks and Nuns - this community is known as the Sangha and many Therevadan communities have developed strict rules such as non-violence, celibacy, not handling money or eating after midday.

The texts of Theravada Buddhism were written in about 300 BC and are now known as the Tipitaka - the three Pitakas. They are written in Pali, and contain codes for monastic life, the teachings of the Buddha and other philosophical ideas. They are often learnt by heart by Monks and nuns and certainly would have originally been fully memorised by groups of Monks rather than written down.

There are of course other denominations of Buddhism such as Mahayana BUddhism, Zen, Tibetan and Pure Land, but you will have to wait for those...

Word of the Week: W/C 25/04/16 - Qibla

24/4/2016

Literally meaning “direction”. the direction that Muslims face when they pray; towards Mecca and the Kabba

Image: Wikipedia.com

Five times a day across the world, Muslims unite together in performing Salat, formal prayer, as they were commanded to by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and in the Quran. Not only in the formula of prayers very organised (the words and actions) but also the direction in which they face.

There is archeological evidence that in the earliest Islamic communities that prayer was conducted facing towards Jerusalem, the Holy city of Judaism and Christianity. But seventeen months after the arrival of the prophet in Medina the orientation changed and the holy city of Mecca, and especially the Kabba, became the focus of Islamic prayer.

Image: WIkipedia

How do we know this? Mosques have as one of their features a niche or “Mihrab” that shows the direction of Mecca and thus the direction of prayer. One of the earliest mosques of Islam situated in Medina had two Mihrabs, and thus it seems very plausible that the congregation used to pray facing a different direction.

Whist this is all quite interesting, why is it important? Well on the one hand it shows that Islam from a very early stage saw itself as a distinct religion, the completion of other the other monotheistic faiths that had come before, but also different to them. This happened surprisingly early (Christianity took at least 30 years to emerge as self-confidently distinctive) in Islam’s History. On the other hand it highlights the importance of unity and brotherhood (Ummah) in Islam; The Kabba at the centre of Mecca is a powerful symbol of how united Islam strives to be.

Image: Pixabay.com

Word of the Week: W/c 18/04/16 - Iona

17/4/2016

a small island in the Inner Hebrides off the Ross of Mull on the western coast of Scotland. It was a centre of Gaelic monasticism and place of Christian Pilgrimage for centuries

The experience of going on a pilgrimage, of making a journey (traditionally on horse-back or on foot) to a holy place, is an experience common to many religions, and those who embark on such a journey are called pilgrims. In the past, pilgrims have journeyed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela in Spain, Wallsingham in England and Kock in Ireland

Today, many thousands still make these journeys as pilgrims. Why? Now, as then, pilgrims make a pilgrimage to ask for some favour or blessing, or to seek an answer to a problem or difficulty, or to seek peace, healing and strength, to make new beginnings, or to express sorrow or thanksgiving.

Over the centuries the island of Iona has been seen as a place of pilgrimage - a place where saints have lived and where prayers have been answered. Until very recently, the physical journey to Iona was a hard one - rough paths, barren moorland, small boats and uncertain tides. Although buses and ferries make it easier for today's pilgrims, the awareness of travelling is still there. No one visits Iona without a sense of being on a journey.

Watch this Video on Iona from You Tube:

Word of the week: W/c 10/4/16 - Forthtell

12/4/2016

To speak out against the world’s injustices; to proclaim God’s truth.

Many people today tend to think of Prophets as being those who see into the future and predict what will occur. Certainly this has often been a feature of prophets - but a prophet is far more that just this. Often they spoke (and speak) out against the societies in which they exist. A great example of this is in the Old Testament is Amos. He criticised the leaders and people of his day for turning away from God, suggesting that they only make sacrifices to make up for bad deeds, they they did not behave justly towards the poor and that economic justice was needed. He also suggested that if Israel did not mend its ways that God would punish them.

So it is that Jews and Christians believe that a prophet is a spokesman for God chosen to preach his message to the people. They were examples of holiness, role models, scholars and often set the standard of behavior that those they spoke to were failing to meet. In the Old Testament there are 55 prophets and these are not all men; Ruth, Esther, Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah and Abigail are all female of prophets.

Interestingly not all prophets in the Old Testament are Jewish - most notably the prophet Balaam in Numbers 22 - and some of the prophets are not sent to the Jews such as Jonah whose message is delivered to the Gentiles of Nineva.

Often prophets have a very rough time of it and are often not accepted by the people they are sent to (as Jesus says in Matthew 13.57 - "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home."). Elijah was described by King Ahab as “the troubler of Israel” is never really listened to throughout his career. Jonah was swallowed and then spat out of a fish and forced to go to Nineveh where he did not want to go. Ezekiel was made to lie on his Left side for 390 days and then his right for 40 days - this was to make up for the rebellion of Jewish people! And Hosea was directed by God to marry a promiscuous woman, divorce her and when she has sold herself into slavery re-marry her - their children are given symbolic names such as “unloved” and “not my people”.

Christ the King. Image: www.sagradoscoracoesdejesusemaria. blogspot.com

The key to understanding what is going on here is that Prophets often live out God’s message in their real lives - they don’t just speak the word, they act the word, they suffer for the word.

For Christians the culmination of all the Old Testament Prophecies was the birth of Jesus of Nazareth - the Messiah predicted by Isaiah in 9.6 as the “Wonderful,Counsellor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”. That he would be born of a virgin by Jeremiah (31.22) and that he would be both God and Man (23.5-6). And finally that he would die for the sins of the world and by doing so put an end to sin and reconcile us with God (Daniel ch. 9). This is what Philip says in the Gospel of John, who told Nathanael, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45).

Obviously this claim needs the faith of belief in Christianity to be seen as true and many would deny them - Jews that they have yet to come about and Atheists that they are just wishful thinking. Either way the prophets represent a rich vein of Philosophical and Theological material that have inspired the generations and impacted upon our literature, music and culture.

How has our modern day culture been influenced by the Prophets of the Old Testament?

Word of the Week: W/C 21/03/16 - Paschal

20/3/2016

Pertaining to the Jewish Festival of Passover and the Christian festival of Easter

By the Providence Lithograph Company

This week is Holy Week in the Christian tradition - the week leading up to the festival of Easter when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. The term Paschal refers to anything to do with Easter - for example the Paschal Candle, that is lit on Easter morning and burns for 40 days until ascension day.

But the other association of the word is to do with Passover (Pesach) in the Jewish tradition. This of course makes sense as Jesus’ death occurred during the season of Passover; Jesus and his disciples were celebrating the passover meal when Jesus instituted the Eucharist in what is now known as The Last Supper. Many of the themes of the Passover resonate in the Easter festival: Being saved by God, being marked out as a special people and the theme of water in the crossing of the Reed sea and in the waters of Baptism.

But one overlap that I want to explore briefly is that of the Paschal Lamb. This is the sacrifice that is demanded of Jews in Exodus 12 to thank God for their deliverance from Egypt and being freed from slavery. The Law demanded the sacrifice (Korban) of a Lamb to remember the way the Jews in Egypt marked their doorposts with Lamb’s blood so that the Angel of Death would “Passover” the houses of Jews whilst the Egyptian first born all died in the final plague.

This image of a Paschal Lamb was seized upon by the early Church to help them understand and put Jesus’ death into context. In his Gospel, John the Evangelist had John the Baptist describe Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”. Jesus is seen as the sacrifice who takes away the sins of the world according to St Paul in his letter to the Corinthians. Christians use this image in every Mass when they say or sing the Agnus Dei with the words “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us”.

Jews today no longer offer a Lamb at Passover, and have not done since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Nevertheless, in both Faiths the image of the the lamb (or scapegoat) remains a potent symbol of redemption and salvation.

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