this discussion started on the first post (in the comments section) so to get updated, go there. :) Basically, I started the discussion with the controversial subject of changing the names of the "Christmas tree" and the "Easter bunny." Leo just asked: "Can there be a world where there are multiple religions and no conflicts?" (Great question, by the way.) Continue the discussion here, as well as add any new pics, articles, etc that are relevant!
-coe
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33 comments:
I think it depends on a person's definition of "conflict". I mean... I think part of human nature is conflict... at least on a small level and I don't believe that differences are the only cause of conflict... so I think that whenever humans are involved conflict will arise. But I do believe that different religions can exist without there being conflict on a massive level (no physical harm comes of these conflicts)
many of you may have taken one of these tests when you read "Blink" for english last year... but if you didn't, it might be a good exercise.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/
basically follow the instructions. the activity is designed to unveil any hidden biases that you may have. you may be surprised at the results... :)
i took the "fat vs. thin" one, and i have "no preference" or "too many errors to have accurate results..." ^_^;;
another discussion question:
the people from "project implicit" claim that "people are often unaware of their implicit biases." why would this be true? how can implicit biases affect a person's behavior? can anyone truly be "unbiased?"
-coe
I agree with how different religions can coexist without conflict on a massive scale. To expand more on what tal said, I think that many times, conflict arises because of our personal interests. It is natural for us to think of ourselves before we start to think of others. It is by turning off this natural instict that we are able to become more tolerant of others and learn to not always put ourselves first.
-aaron
In terms of Leo's question, Ideally multiple religions could coexist without conflict, but I don't really see this happening just because many view religion more than just a set of beliefs and practices, but rather like a creed or "people" to belong to... I think it's possible for coexistence if each religion had a really specific belief in tolerance and like Aaron said, if we put others before ourselves. I have a definite bias because I am completely nonreligious, but do you think having less religion in society would alleviate these problems? Is religion the problem or is it how humans chose to deal with religion the root of conflict?
i'm not sure if we can even have a society with less religion... it seems to be coming up a lot lately. there have been debates about the separation of chruch and state, what that means for prayer in public schools, and with the presidential election coming up, religion is definitely in the spotlight more and more.
i think it's all about how we as a society react toward different religions. i don't think that we've achieved tolerance completely yet, though we are close. i mean, we accept all different religions and let people practice them how they want, but when it comes to religion in public, that's when things get a little rough. does "freedom of religion" include freedom to practice religion in public? do we have to worry about "offending" people? and what exactly are they "offended" by?
-coe
I disagree with Coe. We may be closer to religious tolerance then we once were, but I don't believe we are at an acceptable state now. After 9/11, and I believe still, many in the U.S. now associate the Muslim religion with terrorism, and treat those who practice it accordingly. In Iraq almost all the conflicts have been created because of the rift between two Islamic sects, the Sunnis and the Shiites.
And in response to Melissa and Aaron's comments, many religions do preach tolerance. But this is a lot easier said then done, as their have been religious conflicts for as long as their have been religions.
i never said we were at an acceptable state. :) we can always improve on tolerance - of course nothing will be perfect.
i said we're close - that is... we're certainly not in elizabethan england anymore, if you know what i mean... (shakespeare and twain with von breton, anyone?) it is true that, with the recent terror attacks and the war in iraq, there has been some intolerance in relation to muslims and their faith, but i think there has also been a big change from 9/11 to now in that regard. we're slowly but surely becoming more tolerant. :)
and... i never said anything about Iraq - i was mostly commenting on US society, so sorry for any misunderstanding there... (should have said "american society" instead of "society.") what i meant was that the US is, so far as i know, one of the most (if not the most) tolerant nations in the world. :) though we still have a long way to go, i'm still proud of the US for what its achieved in its short lifetime. :)
-coe
I think religions can exist without physical conflict, but I also believe that it is not possible for all religious doctrines/beliefs to not be in conflict with each other. Many religions, although similar in values and beliefs, explicitly state that all other religions are false or incorrect. I think it is this belief that causes conflicts because many religious people believe that they are right and that everyone else is wrong and stand to be corrected.
I agree that the US is exceptionally tolerant. However, at the same time I find that many Americans often underestimate the importance of religion for religious people. Religion for many people is way more than a set of beliefs, it is a factor that defines every moment of people's lives and that leads people to make life-changing decisions, which can be as extreme as suicide bombings. It is easy to know this concept, but to fully understand its implications is difficult for many who do not share religious sentiments or who do not make religion a central part of their lives.
It is difficult to put forth the idea of "how one should deal with religion" so as not to breed conflict because some religions tell their followers specifically indoctrinate others even through violent means.
My question is, at what point can we no longer be tolerant and at what point do we have to stop others' actions? How far do we let religiously-driven violence go? Do we ever let violence happen? Are we being intolerant by not allowing people to act violently according to their religion?
I agree with Coe how American society is closer towards being tolerant towards other religions than it was 500 years ago. We live in a diverse society that has become more acceptant with different cultures. The types of issues that are present in the U.S., including religion, have made us more aware of people's beliefs. By living in a society that allows diversity to exist, I think that is has unconsciously made us more understanding towards other people's beliefs.
I also think that being tolerant towards other people's beliefs can only go so far. We may live in a tolerant society, but we must also be conscious of one person's views when it conflicts with another person's views as well. I don't think that violence should result from conflict even if it may be a part of one's views. Violence cannot be used to solve anything and should not be permitted when it is used to express what someone believes in or feels.
-aaron
We talked a lot about Melanie's question in class today... (Or at least F block did.)
I think it's a very hard question to answer. I personally believe that when practicing a religion hurts someone else, the practice should be stopped. The problem with that is how does one define what being "hurt" is? Does it mean hurt physically? Because many religions believe in converting others as a way to help them because they may believe that those people may go to hell if they do not "save" them. So, in their opinions they are helping their eternal life. So is the "eternal life" more important than the physical well being? (through historical events it is clear that it is for some)
and who decides which is more important and where to draw the limit?
Melanie and Tal bring up some great (and difficult to answer) questions. Like Tal said, the root of the problem is in the definition of being "hurt." Some religions encourage their followers to physically hurt people of other religions. And selfishness is illeviated because killing oneself in attempt to kill a "sinner," or person of an opposing religion, has the payoff of a wonderful after-life. A lot (not all) of religious violence and intolerance comes from the philosophies of religions that permit killing and warfare. In response to the question of how far we should let religious violence go, I believe that we should not let it..go..at all. Of course that is easier said than done. I think one possible solution could lie in the teaching of religion. With many religions, rules and commandments can be taken subjectively. There are often many different interpretations to religious texts within each religion. If more religious teachers would find ways to interpret religious texts such that killing and warfare are displayed in a negative light, more followers of religion might lose their desire to fight.
In response to Melanie's other question, "Are we being intolerant by not allowing people to act violently according to their religion?" I believe that we are. The line of tolerance should be drawn when the line of physical contact is crossed. Tolerance to ideas and beliefs is a wonderful thing, and i think every person in the world should be accepting of every other person's beliefs. But when these beliefs turn into deaths, the line has been crossed, and intolerance is completely permitted.
What can we do to be both tolerant of other religions and intolerant of those beliefs which cause violence? What can we do to stop these violent aspects of religion without offending others?
This past rotation, we spent our first class period discussing our names. This discussion between pairs and our class led us to focus on the effect our names have on us and others and how they contribute towards our personal identity. One thing that was surprising for me was how many people received "American Names" or "New Names" when they arrived to the U.S. It is interesting to see how many people were affected by the immigration process and how it can change you in an unexpected way. We were able to share our personal identities even further when we presented our Identity chart collages. These representations of our class allowed us to ask questions that helped deepen our thinking with what identity means for everyone individually. The next class, we discussed in pairs the readings and questions that reflected how our identity is related to group identity. The story, "The Bear That Wasn't," resonated with me personally because it helped me see the power people possess towards influencing one's identity.
The following classes, we continued our study of personal/group identity and added the notion of race and religion. I thought that looking at the image with two people making inferences of one another based on past experiences allowed the class to see how we all looked at the image from multiple perspectives. We then watched a short film (The Lunch Date) that further emphasized how people saw things differently in the film. This made me think how many people were confident that they knew everything in the film exactly the way it happened (class controversy over the price of the lady's lunch). Today, we met in pairs for about 20 minutes to discuss the past two night's homework with each other involving the impact religion and race have on our identity. It was fascinating to hear how tolerance comes to play with other's views, expressing how some people are aware that others' identities are involved. We then took a genetic diversity quiz which brought us into a video that described how race was a biological myth that is simply an idea that is ascribed to being biological. One thing that I found interesting from the video was the topic that discussed the connection between race and athletics.
-Aaron
I agree with Michael for the most part as in I believe it is important to learn about different religions to become more tolerant... but I do not necessarily agree that religions should be pushed to interpret the text in such a way that places violence in a bad light. I personally feel that violence is "bad". But I think that trying to enforce a certain interpretation of a text would be changing it and therefore... to a certain extent... being intolerant of its original teachings.
The only criteria I can think of that sums it up would be:
that religious observation should be tolerated as long as its practices fall under the laws and regulations of the area.
The one (fairly big) problem with this would be most genocide cases... (Nazi Germany had power to control the laws and such and therefore the practices were technically legal.)
I agree with what you're saying, Tal. The only solution that I can think of would be the idea of the United Nations. Although it's already in existence, I think the U.N. could do more to make laws that prevent such catastrophes as genocides and religious wars. Like Tal said, Nazi Germany had the power to make their own laws, and therefore technically had the legal means to create genocide. If the U.N. or some other now non-existent world alliance were to create laws that apply to all countries, and that had the power to overthrow corruption in government, the issue might have a chance at being resolved.
This next post is unrelated, but anyone who wants to touch more on the subjects above are welcome to continue them below.
I found reading one in chapter one, The Bear That Wasn't, to be a fascinating fictional example of a real world situation surrounding the topic of stereotypes and labels. I don’t think we spent enough time in class on this reading, so I'm going to write a reflection of some of my ideas here on the blog.
In the story, the factory officials were basing their definitions of "a bear" on stereotypes. They first saw the bear out of the standard context of bear habitat. The stereotypes that they had in their minds were those of a circus bear, and a captured zoo bear behind bars. In the context of the work site, a mammal with four limbs is a human. Society is so structured for the workers that finding a bear on a work site would be impossible. Surely the government has put all the bears either behind bars or in a circus tent. How could it possibly be anything other than a hairy man with a fur coat? The entire bureaucracy was quick to label him because they had never been exposed to bears in the wild.
The story has a clear parallel to the behavior of humans in real life. I have heard numerous times people say things such as, "oh, ______ is not Hispanic, he just tries really hard to act that way." Judgements of this type are far more common than one might think, or even notice. Labeling people as "not Hispanic" displays a narrow, highly intolerant worldview, and completely disregards the way in which people identify themselves. They may not appear to be Hispanic (in my example, the person had the skin tone of a Caucasian), but their culture, heritage, nationality, and the way in which they identify themselves could be completely different from what society depicts a person of a certain ethnicity to look like.
I know a girl, half African American, half Caucasian, who is blonde and blue-eyed. For months I had no idea that she was African American, and when people started finding out, they said "no way, she can't be! Just look at her!" After years of hearing the same thing from people because of her exterior appearance, she now identifies herself more as white than as black, and when I've talked to her about it, she says she feels very distant from her black side. This example shows the extent to which environment can affect identity.
Every day we as humans are confronted with labeling and stereotyping, whether we know it or not. What are some ways in which we can reduce the effects of labeling and stereotyping on identity? Why do humans feel the need to categorize or make snap judgments in the first place?
-Michael
evolutionarily speaking, snap judgements are important because of the "survival of the fittest" - being able to judge quickly whether or not there is danger is essential to survival. there is a huge section of our brain that is devoted to sight, and many of our "calculations" happen in the "blink of an eye." our brain has evolved to rely on our sight, so this is why we are so quick to judge by appearances. :) (or, at least, that's what i think.)
i think stereotyping only happens because of the society that we live in - that is, we've basically grown up with these stereotypes and therefore apply them to everyday life. for instance, if someone grew up in a cave all their life without any contact with society whatsoever, they might not be as quick to judge as we might be. (or, at least, they wouldn't come up with the same kinds of judgements that we would.)
-coe
building off of coe's living in a cage analogy... It's similar to the film we say, Lunch Date. Ms. Finn mentioned that at the other school she used to teach in the majority of the students saw the movie completely differently. I think that's one of the most interesting thing bout stereotyping. It varies from area to area almost completely. Even in to different parts of the US the same character in a film is viewed differently. (granted... the film was made to cause that sort of disagreement.)
Going back one post to what coe was saying about the cave, i am not sure that i agree that the person in the cave would not be quick to pass judgement. Definitely, their judgements would be very different from our own, but snap judgements and forming instant opinions of people and things are human. This leads into the age old debate of nature vs. nurture. Are stereotyping and passing judgements human nature, or do them come from the society in which we are raised? Certainly different opinions come from different societies, but are all humans born with the need to group others into categories?
Michael brought up a very interesting point, and I think it's also important to acknowledge the fact that, as we saw in the short film, race divisions have no genetic basis, and have been completely invented by humans. So, I agree with coe that stereotyping and snap judgements are natural for humans because of the society we live in, as opposed to them being an instinctual response.
In response to what Michael Bannet said about "If the U.N. or some other now non-existent world alliance were to create laws that apply to all countries"...world leaders were actually thinking the same thing after the Nazi Holocaust, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was born!(1948)
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
i found an interesting article on yahoo about religion's role in the 2008 presidential election...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070906/pl_nm/usa_politics_religion_dc;_ylt=AsQnl6wQeAovyq9ehKRAxcus0NUE
(you can also find a link to it on the main page under "articles")
my question is: the article states that ~69% of americans say that it is important for a president to have strong religious beliefs. why would this be true? how could this affect the election? and how does the "separation of church and state" play into this situation?
-coe
In reference to Sam's question of nature vs. nurture in terms of snap judgments, I think the desire and necessity for categorizing are a part of human nature. Humans are logical beings who tend to arrange things in patterns that they can understand. We have a tendency to group things together in attempts to understand them better - whether it be people, animals, plants, or anything else in the world around us. This tendency to categorize has proven useful in many instances, yet when it comes to people, it has a tendency to cause many problems because humans cannot be easily categorized by one characteristic. Even if we use, one characteristic to categorize people, other assumptions and judgments that follow may not remain accurate.
I agree with Sam, though, that the kinds of judgments that people make have very much to do with the society in which they are raised - which represents the nurture aspect of the argument. Each society and group has different "thems" that people are trained to ostracize and make cruel assumptions about.
Melissa, thanks for informing me about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I didn't realize it existed. Now I am wondering if the UN or individual countries are doing enough to inforce these rights, because, technically according to the declaration, there would be no way for genocide to occur. Why is it that the rights outlined in the declaration are still being broken sixty years later?
-Michael
Hey everyone, I just figured out how to get on here and these comments have been really interesting to read. In terms of Michael’s last comment, I think that this idea of what is “doing enough” to enforce the Declaration of Human Rights has been a source of conflict each time a genocide has occurred since. One instance that sparked this debate occurred during the Rwandan genocide, when Lieutenant General Dallaire and the UN peacekeeping forces sent to Rwanda were at first ordered to concentrate on removing foreigners from the area, and were in some instances forced to abandon refugees. The UN Security Council did not reinforce the peacekeeping army in Rwanda, and the United States had minimal involvement. When they did become involved, negotiations over pricing of supplies delayed the aid. Kofi Annan states about the genocide that "the international community is guilty of sins of omission.” The question still remains, though, why those “sins of omission” initially occurred. It is possible that this is because it is human nature to want to avoid conflict, and people will have a tendency to avoid direct conflict even at the expense of others. It is easier to deny that there is a large genocide occurring and discourage involvement then to acknowledge it and try to solve it, and often the leaders of countries do not want to risk conflict in their own countries by becoming involved in an extremely violent situation. Even if we are giving everyone the benefit of the doubt and stating that everyone consistently does the best that they can for the country in which the genocide is happening, there is still the issue that it is difficult to tell what actions will help end violence and which ones will increase it. In cases of genocide including the Rwandan genocide and the genocide in Darfur, the lack of aid has not been helped by a lack of awareness among civilians around the world. In the case of the Rwandan genocide, the UN did not acknowledge that it qualified as “genocide” until May of 1994, far after the massacres began, and maybe increased awareness and action among civilians would have helped this situation. Basically, the question about whether the UN is doing enough to enforce the Declaration has been a very important one that people are still struggling with.
I agree with Katie in that many leaders hesitate to use the word genocide to avoid the obligation of contributing relief or help, and that the media plays a large role in determining the extent of general public awareness and knowledge of genocides.
Another part of explaining why and how genocide can still take place after the Universal Declaration of HR was created, is international special interests that conflict and override the values, laws and rights of the UDHR.
For example, in the case of Darfur, there is a lot of nonprofit effort to divest from Sudan in order to alleviate the toils of the genocide. China has a significant amount of investments in the Sudanese oil system and oil production and so China is exacerbating the civil unrest and violence in Darfur by refusing to pressure Sudan to cease the genocide. Many large corporations or organizations are deeply invested in Sudan (oil mostly) and the revenue from the oil that these international companies produce for Sudan is then being turned around and used to fund the genocide.
So by a trickle down effect, an average American who invests in Fidelity, for example, is helping to pay for the guns and weapons to murder civilians in Darfur. Isn't that crazy? Well anyways this just goes to show how special interests, oil being most prominent, and profits, have come to override the importance of human rights.
http://www.sudandivestment.org/home.asp
I just did a reading for B&B about a very intersting study on humans' obedience to authority. It is relevant to our study of genocide in that it tests adults' willingness to listen to an authority figure, despite the consequences: hurting another person. Here is a link to the article...
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/psychology/milgram_obedience_experiment.html
i heard about this study from last year's b&b class... that's really "shocking." (hahaha? ... no? okay, sorry.)
i guess the question i would ask is... why are we so willing to listen to authority, even when the things they ask us to do are wrong? of course, not everyone is like that, so what makes those who defy the authorities different?
-coe
Hey guys what an interesting conversation--it seems like I kind of missed out last week.
Well I have something new to discuss that is realted to religious tolerance.
Last week I was in the car with one of my friends and her mom. Her mom mentioned that a school meeting has been scheduled on Rosh Hashana, this Thurday. There was a Jewish father who was also going to attend and he lobbied for not having the meeting on this day since it is a religious holiday. This day was not a conflict for any other person, so they scheduled the meeing anyway. This man argued because he claimed that they should respect his religious practices and not hold a meeting on a holiday. My friends' mom was in complete disagreement with him because she said that the holidays that mattered were national holidays- where EVERYONE had the day off. She thought it would be hard to accomodate every religious holiday into scheduling. So to what point should we be tolerant of other peoples' religious practices? If we honor one religious holiday (like we are at school on Thursday), shouldn't we honor ALL other religous holidays too if someone in the community is of a certain religion?
i was going to say that that woman is whacked out, but it's really hard to tell where to draw the line. personally, i think that at the very least the major holidays of the most prevalent (globally) religions should be observed. but what if i make my own religion and declare every monday a relgious day that requires extensive services? what if that man tried to schedule a meeting on christmas day? it's hard to draw a definitive line in that kind of a situation, but i think it's THOSE kind of vauge scenarios where the tolerance and worldview of a community are truely refelcted.
hey guys...
not to disrupt any great discussion we've got going here, but please do take a look at the new week's posting and comment off of that one. if you must continue the discussion here, feel free to do so, otherwise... off to the next week!
(realize, too, that the next post does have relevance to this one, so be sure to make connections like that. :) )
-coe
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