Le Fabuleux Destin

The very sound of the word jihad to the western ear connotes an idea of fervent, sadistic hatred towards the non-Muslim world by the Muslim world. An idea that evokes images of violent, suicidal terrorists perpetrating some of the most heinous acts against humanity. Acts whose devastating repercussions have been perennially imprinted onto our memories. We recall the feelings of utter disbelief when we turned on the news or opened the paper that morning of September 11, 2001. The fear, the sadness, the emptiness, and the vengefulness that we felt while watching such an overwhelmingly disconcerting, unfamiliar act of terror being committed against a monumental symbol of our nation and so many innocent lives. The effects of which reached countless numbers of people; those who made it out alive, those who witnessed from afar, residents of Manhattan, family and friends of the victims, citizens of America, and the world at large. The residual anger still imminent after all these years, and only perpetuated by the more recent actions of extremist groups like ISIS, is entirely justifiable but unfortunately, much of the time, largely misdirected. I have witnessed, on numerous occasions, Americans making disparaging and bigoted remarks against Muslims under the common misconception that terrorism, jihad and Islam are causally related. This is just not the case. People who believe that Islam has an intrinsically violent nature, that jihad cultivates terrorism, and that Muslims are inherently evil are formulating these grandiose beliefs from plain ignorance and misdirection. Islam is not a hateful religion, it is peaceful. Jihad is not a call to violence, but a sanction to defend the good. Muslims are not murderous savages; they are very much like us. People generally have a sufficient understanding of their own culture and religion but often have misguided or false preconceptions about other cultures and religions. It does not help the case when prejudice is involved, as this exacerbates the misapprehension and compounds the problem. It is imperative that people seek to conscientiously acquire truth. The sources responsible for informing and educating the public on all things novel, foreign or unfamiliar must do so meticulously. As important a job as news outlets and journalists have, some exhibit a proclivity to want to be the first to break the story instead of having the most accurate story. Others may be politically motivated and inclined to present the story in a certain light that aligns with their agenda. In addition, the general public has the tendency to unquestioningly believe what our news publications tell us. The point here is that things do not always turn out to be how we presume them to be, and despite ostensible good intentions, we are not always given the full picture by the people we entrust with informing us. Therefore, we should not be reluctant to revise our understanding of things when better knowledge presents itself to us. It seems that after 9/11 happened, many of us prematurely painted a picture of what words like Islam, Muslim and jihad mean to us while having unsubstantial information to accurately do so. In an effort to elucidate the truth and gain a better understanding of the notion of jihad, let us take a closer look at its origins.

The term jihad is literally defined as “a struggle”. This struggle sometimes refers to the external struggles faced by Muslims, such as tyranny or unjust warfare, but more often it refers to the internal struggle faced by the individual Muslim, such as conflicting beliefs and temptations. “While Muslims use the term lesser jihad to refer to what Christians call a ‘just war,’ the term greater jihad refers to the psychological war we wage within ourselves to establish the kingdom of God in our behavior and to build a lifestyle that reflects God’s commandments, both in our individual life and in our collective communal lives. Jihad is about building what Western philosophers would call the good society.” (Rauf 135). Outsiders often misunderstand the notion of lesser jihad to be an exhortation by God for Muslims to wage war against non-Muslims, but this is not the case. Take the following Quranic verse as an example of the type of defensive retaliation permitted by God to Muslims. “Permission is given to those against whom war is wrongfully waged, and have been oppressed—and God is indeed able to aid them—those who have been unjustly expelled from their homes for no other cause than they say “our Lord is God.” And had God not repelled some people by others, it is certain that cloisters and churches and synagogues and mosques, in which God’s name is much extolled, would have been destroyed.” (Quran 22:39-40). Clearly there is no authorization in this passage for unprovoked violence or antagonistic action. It simply sanctions defensive and protective measures to those being treated unfairly. Does that sound evil? Furthermore, this passage alludes to Islam’s acceptance of the other contemporaneous religions of its time, Judaism and Christianity, wherein their synagogues and churches were saved from destruction thanks to God’s intervention. In fact, Jews and Christians were able to peacefully coexist with Muslims in the early days after Muhammad. Despite conflicts arising intermittently in the early times of Islam, Jews and Christians were considered dhimmi, or “People of the Book”, and were protected under Islamic law. The truth is that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all share the same God, albeit with a varying degree of distinctions. Here is another verse from the Quran confirming the non-offensive nature condoned by God: “Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you. But do not transgress limits: For, verily, Allah loves not aggressors.” (Quran 2:190). While history has been riddled with ages of war and territorial expansion wherein the expression of lesser jihad had more context, more universally sacred to the individual Muslim is the expression of greater jihad. “There is no church organization in Sunni Islam, no priests controlling the sacerdotal meditation by which salvation may be attained. Rather, Islam is achieved by attempting to live the pure Muslim life in the exterior material world. This requires a constant ‘struggle in the way of Allah’, involving all the believer’s assets. His body is to be well maintained, his physical energies are to be directed toward the external obligations of the faith, from daily prayers to the jah, to the support of his family and the poor. His goods are to be used for the same purposes, while his spirit is to fight against temptation and strive for the ideals of Islam that have already been enumerated, from compassion to moderation. This incessant personal struggle for goodness is the true meaning of the word jihad.” (Grieve 265). Unlike the conventional religions that Americans are more familiar with, there are no archetypal spiritual teachers or weekly mosque services within Islam. Instead, the onus is on the individual Muslim to maintain devotional practices, interpret the Quran, and apply it to their life. For the Muslim, Islam is a perpetual internal struggle, a jihad, to singlehandedly overcome the temptations and difficulties of daily life without the luxury of a spiritual guide or congregation of cohorts to aid them along, while simultaneously pursuing a peaceful and just life, glorifying God.

Historical context is often ignorantly or intentionally omitted from arguments against jihad. It is important when dealing with the hostile claims brought against Islam by flagrantly misinformed western criticism, that we compare some of the examples of warfare and violence found in the Quran, often cited by critics, against the counterexamples found in the Bible, to gain a better frame of reference. “Judeo-Christian mythology is rooted in the rewards promised by God to the Hebrews for their entirely unprovoked attacks against the Canaanites and the Philistines. Nothing in the Qur’an can match Yahweh’s bloodthirsty authorization to the Jews in the Book of Deuteronomy for the violent occupation of Palestine.” (Grieve 264). To understand the degree of hypocrisy found in much of the Christian criticism of Islam, here are several excerpts from the Old Testament demonstrating the violence permitted and sometimes perpetrated by God. “Unhappy with the wickedness of man, God killed every living thing on the planet except Noah’s family. Men, women, infants and animals drowned in unimaginable terror and agony.” (Genesis 6 & 7). “God killed the first-born in every Egyptian home that wasn’t marked with lamb’s blood.” (Exodus 12:29). “Under God’s leaderships, the Israelites utterly destroyed the men, women and children of Sihon.” (Deuteronomy 2:33-34). “According to God’s law, if an Israelite soldier was at war with an enemy, and he saw a beautiful woman that he found attractive, he could capture her to be his wife. She must then shave her head, trim her nails and discard the clothing she was wearing when captured. She could mourn her father and mother for a month. If the soldier wasn’t pleased with her for any reason, he could let her go wherever she wishes.” (Deuteronomy 28:53). “God sent a plague on Israel to punish David for sin. 70,000 people died.” (2 Samuel 24:15). While these verses conclusively reveal how diabolical and violent the God of the Old Testament can be, their purpose here serves to indicate that adherents of religions in contemporary times do not generally interpret scripture in the context of the age it was written in. All too often throughout history, however, religious and irreligious communities alike have made vast over-generalizations of religions and cultures which seem foreign to them. “The deep-rooted stereotype of Islam as a warrior religion has its origins in the papal propaganda of the Crusades, when Muslims were depicted as the soldiers of the Antichrist in blasphemous occupation of the Holy Lands (and, far more importantly, of the silk route to China).” (Aslan 106). These classical means of rhetoric and propaganda are a testament to the times in which they were promulgated. It is crucial to understand that the holy books of today’s religions were written in times of war and territorial expansion and consequently incorporate a preponderance of language and narrative related to such times.

Since we have established that the normative meaning and expression behind the notion of jihad is not evil or pernicious, but rather just and innocuous, we must now examine the origin of the misconceptions of jihad. Misinterpretation is a fault of those of us who have made assumptions or drawn conclusions, based in ignorance, prematurely. Reinterpretation, however, is an egregious fault of extremism. Extremist groups do not just misapprehend what the Quran says, they knowingly reinterpret the meaning of the Quran to reinforce their agenda and fuel their hatred. Take, for instance, the idea of suicide bombing among terrorism and the notion that it leads to paradise for the perpetrator. Let us see how the Quran and Muslim world view this. “While we have seen that jihad, a just, defensive war, is sanctioned under Islamic law, suicide no matter to what end is expressly forbidden. The strongest prohibitions are in the Hadith, where the Prophet made explicit statements such as ‘Whosoever shall kill himself shall suffer in the fire of hell’ and ‘shall be excluded from heaven forever.’ It is also related that the Prophet refused the funeral rites to a person who committed suicide. A particularly poignant story is given by the Prophet describing an occupant of hell. This was a man who fought on the Prophet’s side, was wounded in battle, and, unable to stand the pain of his injury, fell on his sword. The Prophet remarks in a version of this Hadith that ‘a man may appear to people as performing the acts of an inhabitant of Paradise while he is [in the Hereafter] an occupant of Hell, and a man may appear to people as performing the acts of an inhabitant of Hell while he is an occupant of Paradise.” (Rauf 139). We can see from this that there really is no way to genuinely misinterpret God or the Prophet Muhammad’s stance on suicide. It would take the efforts of a severely psychologically dismantled person or group of people to reinterpret this in a way that reconciles, even promotes, concomitantly killing oneself and others for the reward of an eternity in paradise. To further unravel the logic of extremist groups, the lives being taken in acts of terrorism are innocent lives. They are not warriors waging wrongful war or tyrannical oppressors. The Quran states that, “God desires to be merciful to you, to make light of your burdens, for man is created weak. Do not kill yourselves; certainly God is ever merciful to you. And whoever commits this aggressively and unjustly, We shall cast him into the Fire; and this is easy for God.” (Quran 4:27-30). We can surmise that one of the prominent reasons why Muslim extremists have such a significant control over the global impression of Islam is due to the implementation of violence to promulgate fear. Since the actions of Islamic extremists reach such a wide and otherwise oblivious audience, many people get their first impression of Islam from these extremist groups and therefore formulate misconceptions and over-generalizations.

Over the course of this paper we have taken into consideration the many facets of Islamic life. We have looked at the origins of words like jihad and concluded that our presumptions, in many cases, turned out to be false. Jihad is not a call to violence, murder or war. It is not an authorization from God to attack innocent people. Jihad is a struggle. This struggle, in historical context, often meant an external struggle against violent oppressors or wrongfully waged wars. In this case, it would be a lesser jihad, or a “just war”. In the more common expression of jihad, it is an internal struggle, a psychological struggle with the self, with the ego, and with temptation. This extends to encompass a Muslim’s entire life as he or she presses on to overcome hardships and pursue a life worthy of Allah’s glory. This is the greater jihad. We unearthed many western misconceptions of Islam and took a rational look at how these misconceptions are arrived at and why we must put them to sleep once and for all. We compared scriptural references between the Quran and the Bible to develop a sober understanding of how unfairly we subject the Quran to scrutiny and criticism when ignoring the same brutalities found in the Bible. Lastly, we clarified the difference between Islam and Islamic extremism by bringing to light the reprehensible misinterpretations of the Quran committed by extremist groups in order to propagate fear and further their retrogressive and pernicious views. In order to extinguish extremism and inhibit further misguided and inimical conceptions of Islam, we must aspire to cultivate an atmosphere that is conducive to honest and informative discourse in an effort to properly educate people and spread understanding.

Have you ever contemplated the origins of good and evil? What constitutes right and wrong? Who or what determines which actions are honorable and which are contemptible? Some have concluded that a higher power such as God dictates the righteousness of actions. These would invoke their native scripture such as the Torah, Bible, Qur’an, or more specifically the direct commandments of God as the origin of morality. This is called Divine Command Theory. Others settle on the notion that morality is relative to culture. These would posit that a particular culture’s conceptions of right and wrong need not be harmonious with other cultures’ prescriptions of right and wrong. This is most often referred to as Moral or Cultural Relativism. Despite both of these being admirable attempts at answering the question at hand, neither of them seem to be sufficiently based in reason. Furthermore, each of these theories breaks down when we take a closer look. If Divine Command Theory is true, then we must accept all commandments and actions of God found in the Bible to inform our morality. Consider the examples of divinely mandated genocide, infanticide, rape and slavery found in the Old Testament. Obviously, we do not adopt these into our paradigm of good and righteous morality despite them being condoned by God. This is indicative of another source to our morality. If Moral Relativism is true then it is entirely justifiable for some cultures to perpetrate acts of violence or oppression in the name of tradition which would otherwise be found criminal and illegal in other cultures. It is clear to me that there is more to morality than divine derivation or relative righteousness. Before we draw conclusions of our own, however, we must take a look at the milestone accomplishments already made in the field. Let us direct our thoughts to the efforts of two philosophers from the Enlightenment era, the german philosopher Emmanuel Kant and the british philosopher Jeremy Bentham.

One of the most prominent theories of morality to come out of the Enlightenment belongs to the utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Utilitarianism proposed the idea that morality is based on the degree of pleasure or pain experienced as a consequence of any action. “All analyses of human behavior and all recommendations for change in behavior would have to begin with the fact that humans are motivated by the desire for pleasure and by the aversion to pain” (Palmer 281). Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy was a form of hedonism wherein pleasure is of the upmost value. For Bentham, this does not just apply to the individual but to every individual within the consequential sphere of influence of any action. “His social hedonism is reflected in his most famous maxim, ‘It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.’” (Palmer 282). To flesh out his theory and make it more practical, Bentham constructed a set of categories to measure the quantity of pleasure associated with any act. For each action an individual can quantify the level of intensity, duration, certainty, immediacy, fecundity, purity and extent (how many people the pleasure affects) attributed to said actions. Once these measurements are known the individual can compare and contrast, and then choose whichever act yields most beneficial to the greatest number of individuals. At first glance this theory may appear to be primitive due to it centering on the utility of pleasure and pain, two seemingly primal values, but when we strip away the complexity of modern life we can begin to understand the notion that life is just a series of pleasurable and painful instances. To provide more clarity on Bentham’s theory, it helps to contrast it against the other leading moral theory of its time, absolute morality. Consider the following example: Suppose you and your sibling are at home and there is a knock at the door. You answer the door to a furious man, knife in hand, with a serious vendetta asking if your sibling is home. The utilitarian answer would have to be “no”. If you lie and tell the killer that your sibling is not home, he will go away and you spare your sibling’s life, producing the greatest result. The answer for absolute morality, however, would have to be “yes” because lying is morally wrong. Despite the overwhelmingly bad consequences of the absolute answer, you still obey your morals by telling the truth to the killer. It should be obvious to us which theory works best in this scenario, but in other scenarios absolute morality works better, so the answer to which theory prevails is still inconspicuous. Let us now explore Emmanuel Kant’s theory to expound on absolute morality.

The other preeminent theory of its time was that of Germany’s Emmanuel Kant. In a period when the two leading philosophies of Empiricism and Rationalism were clashing, Kant posited a synthesis of the two wherein the physical world and mental world coexist but our minds interpret the physical world subjectively. Subsequently, Kant reasoned that although there is no necessity in the physical world for abstract concepts like God, immortality, and freedom, people have the right to believe in said concepts for practical reasons such as a sense of purpose and duty. Kant acknowledged that life without belief in such abstract ideas like God could lead people to lose all motivation to live and thus these beliefs serve a pragmatic purpose. Building on this sense of duty and purpose in our lives, Kant deduced his theory of morality which he called the Categorical Imperative. Kant proposed that we should “act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law” (Palmer 219). Here we can see Christianity’s influence on Kant with this aphorism resembling the biblical, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you” (Matthew 7:12). The intrinsic universality in Kant’s categorical imperative speaks to the nature of rational beings. Suppose, for example, that you lie about your experience or education on your resume to increase the chances of landing a job. We could imagine that your maxim would sound something like, “Lying is a justifiable means so long as it increases your chances of improving your financial status.” According to Kant you must now will this maxim to become a universal law. Let us extrapolate it now onto the employer interviewing you for the job. The employer, following your standard, is now justified to lie about the salary and job description of the position you applied for. Consequently, you are offered the job but you end up working for a fraction of the salary while having substantially more responsibility. If it were up to the utilitarian, lying for the resultant gain of pleasure would be perfectly acceptable. It is clearly demonstrated in this example that living according to Kant’s maxim of the categorical imperative should lead most rationally minded people to treat others with acceptance, respect, and benevolence, as they would hope to have reciprocated. Kant advocated that we should never treat humanity as a means to an end but only as an end. In other words, it would be an act of immorality to use another person for the purpose of personal gain. While Kant’s version of absolute morality was highly distinguished and made a significant impact on the contemporaneous philosophies of the Enlightenment, it was not perfect. We need only recall the example of the murderer at the door and invoke Kant’s answer to demonstrate where it fails: If absolute morality maintains that telling a lie is a transgression, then lying with the sole intention of saving a life must also be considered immoral, and therefore we must abstain from telling lies altogether regardless of the consequences. Considering all that we have examined, we are confronted with the question of which theory works best, Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism or Emmanuel Kant’s categorical imperative.

On one hand, we are measuring our morality on a system of choosing our actions based on their consequences, with the intention of exponentially increasing our pleasure and inhibiting our chances of pain. Generally, this method works but it breaks down in instances such as the organ donor scenario. In this example consider you walk into a hospital for a checkup and there are five sick patients that will die unless they receive organ transplants. The doctor examines you and concludes that you are perfectly healthy. If this is a utilitarian doctor he is going to cut you open, take your organs, and save the five dying patients in exchange for your life. On the other hand, we base our moral system on acting towards others according to how we would want others to act towards us. This seems to be the morality adopted into modernity and is a nearly perfect system, yet it ultimately has its flaws such as in the scenario of the killer at the door. As was the case when Kant was confronted with the recriminations between Empiricism and Rationalism, I believe that in order to reach the pinnacle of moral systems we must also promulgate a synthesis. A system that incorporates both Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism and Emmanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, with Kant’s as our foundational structure and Bentham’s as systematically applicable depending on the situation. We are forever indebted to the accomplishments of Bentham and Kant in the field of moral and ethical philosophy. The practicality and rationality used to conceive these theories truly propels them ahead of the dogmatic theories of scripture and the anthropological theories of relativism. It is up to us to continue ameliorating our system of morality to equip our posterity and enable them to have the best of all possible worlds.

​Growing up in an Evangelical Christian church was an unequivocally insular experience in retrospect. The worldview that I was indoctrinated with and identified with well into my young adult years was one of sanctimoniousness. Out of the thousands of religions extant in the world, I was convinced that my beliefs were superior to other religions, that other faiths had it wrong, and that it was my duty to propagate the faith. Furthermore, the Evangelical church enjoins its members to go out proselytizing. This intrinsically leads to deprecating other religions in order to further the reach of Christianity, and since Evangelical Christianity is an apocalyptic religion, many if not most members have a strong commitment to disseminating the word and converting the world. While my personal account of Evangelical Christianity may paint a pernicious portrait of this particular denomination, it is only to present the stark dichotomy between this religion and another. For my field research I chose to attend the service of a Reform Jewish temple called Temple Beth David. The reason that I chose Judaism is because among the three major Abrahamic-monotheistic religions, Judaism does not share the missionary-mindedness of the other two, Christianity and Islam. The significance of this single omission in Judaism is imperative for me because it eliminates any conduciveness to the salesman-like nature of the missionary religions that seems so counterintuitive to and undermining of the efficacy of scripture. As you will see, I found Judaism to be a refreshing, inviting and accepting experience of which I plan on returning to.

​When researching what options for synagogues were in the area, it came down to an Orthodox temple or a Reform temple. After discussing it with my fiancé, who would be attending with me, we concluded that we would not want to risk being too much of an intrusion or distraction at an Orthodox service and would not want to unintentionally disrespect their stricter rules and etiquette. I reached out to a local Reform synagogue via email and communicated with one of the office workers about the different services, times and what to expect. She was very helpful and assured us that Reform is much more casual, liberal and welcoming to non-Jewish guests. We attended on a Friday night Shabbat service which was actually a special Synaplex celebration of the 70th anniversary of Israel’s statehood. Upon arriving at the synagogue slightly early we were greeted by the resident cantor who sings the prayer songs. She was very friendly and got to know us a little before introducing us to some other staff and members of the temple. We put on some name tags so everyone would know we were visitors. Earlier that evening they had a pre-service dinner that was still in session so we were able to make it in time to join. This was a perfect chance to meet different members of the synagogue and socialize with them. I immediately noticed how friendly and gregarious everyone was at this dinner. Some people were sitting down and eating while others were walking around and socializing over food. One lady, Gloria, took initiative right away to come introduce herself to us and we had an extensive conversation with her that continued on throughout the evening. I think she could surmise that we were more on the liberal side and expressed that she is Jewish by religion and ethnicity but that she does not agree with the politics of Israel and the ongoing recriminations between Palestine. She touched on the current political situation here with our new president and expressed her discontent with that as well. It was a fun and scintillating conversation. She asked us to come sit down for coffee with two other elderly ladies. I was able to interview all of them briefly and ask about their views on the differences between Orthodox and Reform Judaism. One of the ladies was originally from Bolivia and explained that she grew up Orthodox. She described how strict and punctilious Orthodox Judaism is and that she came to Reform later in her life for the less conventional aspects. Another elderly lady had switched from Orthodox to Reform after her husband passed away. She explained that it was very difficult to deal with her husband’s death alone and that being Orthodox did not facilitate a very sociable atmosphere. She started going to Reform temples and found that the openness, friendliness and equality really helped her to make friends and not have to deal with the grief by herself. We met a younger gentleman named Matthew who, like me, was raised Christian but he was raised as a Baptist. He opened up to us and told us his story of the Baptist church he grew up in and how it was very difficult reconciling his faith with the ostensibly cruel and antiquated views of his church. He converted to Judaism and is much happier being part of an open-minded and liberal church that is not fixated on the end of the world and does not have an agenda to convince people they are going to hell if they do not repent. Experiencing such a social and friendly congregation prior to even experiencing the service made me all the more comfortable and excited for the remainder of the evening.

​Once the service began the first thing I noticed was that men and women were sitting together. This is a modern sight in Jewish synagogues exclusive to Reform temples as most traditional Orthodox and Conservative synagogues will have the male and female members seated separately. Even more astonishing with respect to tradition is that the Rabbi as well as the Cantor were both female. These are the two women that lead the entire service, which is a very progressive step within Judaism and religion in general. I had only ever experienced churches led by male pastors in the Christian church, so I applaud the egalitarianism. The service itself was fairly distinct from any Christian church service I have attended but not to the extent that I anticipated. Like the church services I have experienced, there was a mixture of members sharing stories, giving updates on upcoming events and services, and prayer requests. There was, however, a unique dynamic of transitioning between the Cantor singing songs out of the prayer book to the Rabbi reading verses in the prayer book and back again. Matthew, who I mentioned earlier, was sitting next to me in the service and would politely motion to me each time we were supposed to stand. Since this was a special worship celebration of the 70th anniversary of Israel we didn’t read directly from the Torah but rather read and sang excerpts from the prayer book throughout the entire service. At one point a few members including a family went up to the stage and shared their experience going on the annual trip to Israel last year. Their testimonies were touching and I could feel the sense of importance of the trip to them. It was not just visiting a new place for them, it was visiting the birthplace of their religion and heritage. One particular ceremonial practice I noticed the Rabbi and Cantor performing was facing and praying to what I believe is the Mezuzah. There was a large gateway-door set-piece behind the alter which, If I am not mistaken, is representative of a doorway which the Mezuzah is traditionally hanged over. After the service ended, the congregation met up once again in the dining area for what they call Oneg Shabbat. This was had to have been my favorite portion of the night. The Rabbi rounded up everyone who was willing to leave their timidness at the table for dancing. The resident temple DJ had some Youtube instructional dance videos queued up and a decent sized group of us joined hands and started breaking a sweat to Hava Nagila!

​I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the Jewish experience. The progressiveness of Reform Judaism intrigues me because it shows that people of strong tradition can embrace modern values without resigning their faith. There is a welcomeness about Judaism that isn’t forced and a friendliness that is genuine. Nearly every member of the temple introduced themselves to us, involved us in conversations and activities and asked us to come back again if we felt up to it. There are many fundamental differences between Judaism and Evangelical Christianity as I experienced them. The most profound difference in my opinion is the approach to spreading the faith. Since Christianity is a missionary religion it has a strong focus on expanding its reach, which subsequently leads to having a salesman quality to it. Judaism is not concerned with spreading its numbers and thus emanates a more authentic quality. Rather than having to convince people of the religion you represent, I think having people drawn naturally to it yields a stronger sense of itself. Although I am somewhat agnostic to religion and not particularly active in seeking to be part of a church, I am looking forward to going back to Temple Beth David for the communal friendliness and warmth that we received.

Imagine yourself as a tabula rasa, a blank slate, and you are handed down some small piece of knowledge about a certain ideology, discipline, or philosophy. Now imagine you have been told that this infinitesimal bit of knowledge of which you now acquire is the most profound knowledge throughout existence and due to some credulity on your behalf you allow yourself to believe this claim. Furthermore you have been given the notion that it should be your life’s purpose to disseminate this knowledge to as wide an audience as possible so that others may also learn about it. Let us take this one step further and posit that you are not only motivated to spread the word of this knowledge but considering the communicated significance of this particular knowledge and its ostensible superiority over other knowledges, you are motivated to undervalue those other knowledges regardless of their credibility. You do this because you are convinced that you have the true knowledge and the other people have false knowledge. This scenario eventually unfolds into arguments, feuds and even wars over who is right and who is wrong. The problem in this thought experiment and the only reason it occurs is that we initially accepted a claim as true without considering the credibility of the source, without evaluating the implications of the claim, and without any skepticism over the truth value of the claim. On top of that we sought to impose this knowledge, of which we were only told of its significance, onto others and declare its superiority. Unfortunately this type of scenario has occurred all too often throughout history and still happens in several variations today. This is why it is crucially important that we take an approach of systematically evaluating claims before accepting them and also before refuting them. This is how we examine life. It is a philosophic and scientific endeavor to understand the true nature of things. If we do not analyze life in this way then we risk everything, for as Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato 37). 

If you have not already surmised the implied topic of the example scenario in the introductory paragraph, it was religion. It can apply to any proselytizing or missionary faith. Before continuing let me preface this discussion with a caveat that I do not intend to be offensive to any religious person or their faith, but simply to attempt a disinterested and objective analysis. Now, back to religion. I do not think it is unreasonable to argue that religion is a flagrant victim of the unexamined life.  Let’s consider how an archetypical monotheistic religion may fall victim. Typically there is a supposition that either a god himself or a surrogate for that god made an appearance to a person whom we might call a prophet. In this exchange there is traditionally an oral dictation of principles, guidelines, laws and histories given from the god to the person and written down as scripture. This god-given doctrine gradually or rapidly disseminates through the population from cult status to religious status. Churches are established, the doctrine is preached and church members are called upon to spread the religion. This continues on in perpetuity. Again, as with in the introduction example, we begin with a person who accepts a claim as truthful without question. Granted this person thinks they are seeing and/or hearing from a god, but since hearing or seeing from a god is not a testable or replicable instance, then we cannot take it for its word and must examine further. It’s also important to mention that the majority of stories in scripture are what academic scholars, also through examination, call biblical history (compared to modern history). This means that much of the histories given in the scriptures are not verifiable by external sources outside the scripture and thus are more likely mythical narratives intended to convey meaning. Choosing to believe a religious worldview can be harmless but it can also be inimical to not only your intelligence but also to people of other faiths or no faith. If we accept something to be true without examining and evaluating it and then it contradicts something that we actually know to be true, this forces us to choose a side. Let’s say science is the other side to religion in this case. If I accept the premises of creation in the Bible as true then how can I believe the findings of scientific research to also be true? This is not an argument between beliefs but rather an argument of a faith-based belief versus an evidence-based knowledge. So we end up in this uncomfortable position that challenges our intelligence all because we made the simple mistake of not critically thinking about our belief system and what it entails before adopting it. Many controversial topics that derive from antiquated religious views often find themselves in the political spectrum today. Let’s take a look at the unexamined life of politics.

It is no surprise that religious dogma can be found in politics. Politicians often use fundamental religious values to sway the opinion of voters in their favor. When it comes to topics such as birth control, education, and marriage rights you will always have politicians on one side or the other. The point I am making here is that it is doubtful that the majority of politicians who claim to side with the more regressive stances actually believe those stances but are doing so to further their political careers. Unfortunately in matters of politics the truth isn’t something valued nearly as much as it should be. Politics thrive on rhetoric and sophistry to garner advancement, and unthinking people who do not examine political topics tend to fall for the rhetoric and simply accept claims because a political figure they admire or side with has promoted the claim. As Socrates commented on politicians, “For the partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question, but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions” (Plato 89). Aside from religion and politics let’s briefly see if we can find the unexamined life in the realm of science.

As touched on earlier, science is usually pitted against religion due to the stark dichotomy of their different approaches at explaining life and the cosmos. Science is essentially the discipline of discovering and studying what everything is made of, how everything came to be and what purpose does everything serve. The scientific method is itself a tool of examining life by postulating theoretical explanations, testing those theoretical explanations and either adapting the good theories or disposing of the bad ones and repeating the cycle on and on ad infinitum. It’s difficult to find any faulty reasoning or lack of examination in a system built on error correction and peer review. Some opponents of science may argue that science is filled with errors because humans are errant beings and thus it’s unavoidable. Although this appears a sound argument at first it falls apart because the structure of scientific research is built so as to account for errors. Others may argue that science is pointless because it doesn’t purport to seek supernatural answers and therefore it is void of any ultimate meaning to life. These would argue that it would be best not to examine life and that the unexamined life is worth living. To this I say that the notion of a perfect and ultimate meaning to life is predicated on accepting a belief or worldview without examining it for faults. Examining life is the pursuit of acquiring the truth about reality and nature and purpose. That doesn’t necessarily omit any supernatural explanations but as of yet it has found no reason to support any supernatural explanations. Regardless, without a supernatural explanation life can still have an incredibly meaningful natural explanation. The thrill is figuring it out and we can inch closer and closer by examining the world around us, asking questions, formulating answers to those questions and letting reason guide us forward. 

We have explored what it means to live the examined life, why it is important, and as Plato showed us through Socrates, why it is worth living. I do not see any good reason for not taking a critical look at our lives and the lives around us. I understand that many people may have a worldview or political stance that if shattered upon examination would cause deep sadness or confusion but that is not the aim of examining life and it should not be used in such a harmful way. Let us only use reason and the pursuit of truth to do good and to help people as we begin to examine our lives.

- Brennan Merrill

Bibliography:
Plato. The Trial and Death of Socrates. Dover Publications, Inc, 1992.

Throughout the billions of years of evolutionary history in our universe, with its countless explosions, expansions, shifts, mutations, selections and so on, one seemingly random yet serendipitous event would prove to be the most pivotal moment in history, as far as humans are concerned. That event was the formation of the human conscience. Why do I consider this to be the single most important occurrence in history? Because from it, and only because of it, we developed an intrinsic need to seek explanations to why we are here, where we came from and what is the meaning of life, which is unlike any other known living species. Consequently, diverse primitive theories and explanations of existence permeated the earth and still do to this day. I will define it as such: Religion was our first attempt at philosophy - at searching for the truth and attempting to explain life to the best of our ability. But as ancient people began assimilating into the religious views that best aligned with their perception of life, religion became more than just a worldview. It became a way of life. So much so that even today with our advanced technology and knowledge of science these somewhat parochial and anthropocentric beliefs still persist. Whether a religion praises a single god as in the monotheisms, many gods as in the polytheisms, avatar gods, animal spirits or energy gods, the idea is that every individual can reach some sort of enlightenment and eternal peace. Religion certainly represents different things to different people; whether it’s a set of principles by which to live, an inherited cultural tradition, a communal affiliation, or some conflation of these. However, when I examine it closely in my life and excise as much superfluous ideology as possible to get to the true nature of religion, I come to this simple conclusion which we may call my thesis: that the most profound virtue of religion is that which appeals directly to the individual, in solitude, concerning immortality of the soul. And of this I will attempt to demonstrate what is implied.

We are most in tune with ourselves when we are alone with our thoughts. This is because the absence of external influences on our thoughts permits us to concentrate without distraction. When we are free to focus our minds as we please, we are then better equipped to uncover certain knowledge about ourselves, our beliefs or even reality. It is in these solitary times of deep thought when we consider death. Death is something that is universal and has existed as long as life has, yet we have very little knowledge of death except that it is perennial and inescapable. The ignorance of death sparks fear in us and that fear leads us to seek hope. This yearning for hope drives us to wish for an afterlife where the soul lives on in perpetuity. Thus we seek to explain death away by use of higher powers such as supernatural beings. And since these explanations of existence originate in our individual thoughts, it is here too that we build our relationship with these supernatural ideas. Of course we will not want to keep these ideas to ourselves and will therefore spread word to the people we love who in turn will spread word to the people they care about and so on ad infinitum. These ideas may grow and accumulate adherents until some day it may be the foundation of a religion. But no matter how far it spreads and how mainstream it becomes, we will always come back to our private relationship with the idea, for that is where it was born, and that is where we can be most intimate and true to our belief. This is why I believe that as with any intellectual pursuit, religion at its core can be reduced to that which you express in solitude among yourself and your beliefs. Now, this is not to say that when reduced to the experience of the individual, religious belief can’t include the thought, love and care of others. On the contrary. For example when I was younger and more religious I belonged to a church and had family and friends that shared my belief system. Despite the communal benefits that I embraced my individual relationship to my belief was still of greater importance than that of my collective relationship between my peers. This is just to say that although the individual religious experience takes priority over the collective experience, it is not necessarily exclusive between the individual and the god. Thus the reason I chose to believe in a god and in an afterlife at all was because I wanted to always be with the people that I love. 

In conclusion I believe that in this solitary state of reflection and contemplation the individual pulls close to the religious experience as a means of comforting themselves in the belief that they and their family and friends will be together for eternity in peace. The specifics of this wishful-thinking aspect of religion surely differ throughout all religions and denominations but the general idea of ending up in a place of peace and pleasure seems to be homogeneous. I think this theory on religion holds up to scrutiny and argument. Since we’re dealing here with the singular perspective of religion, it follows that the main counter argument would be that of the communal perspective of religion being more profound. To this I simply reply that we are only guaranteed our own conscience and when we die we at the very least have our own thoughts in those last moments. Thus I believe it is far more important what the individual perceives religion as than what the community collectively perceives as religion.