Watchmen

As I get older, I continue my quest to what I truly believe in. I feel myself extremely critical of religion, but believing in something above me. When I watched Bill Maher’s film Religulous, I was a huge fan because I appreciated how he questioned the religious extremists. How does Bill Maher or these religious extremists know that either is correct? Once studying religion in the Secular and the Sacred it is hard to segregate myself from parts of society that mention religion. Every object or person I see or hear that refers to religion, I relate it to this class. In the light of this realization, a couple weeks ago I saw the film Watchmen, which made many connections to components and themes within the Secular and the Sacred. This film not only recreated a comic book, but made many comments on American culture as well.
When viewing Watchmen, there were many comments about American society and how it functions. Watchmen made points about how advanced humans were becoming. In these advancements, people were ruining the human race. These advancements were making humans empty and detached from reality. This detachment reminded me of "The End Of Solitude" where the idea of people longer being alone and constantly engulfed in technology is presented. Similar to this concept, the humans in Watchmen need more than this technology, they need people to look over them when the world is not working out. The only thing to make the human race better was a group of super heroes who were nearly non-human. When this group of super heroes could not do anymore to save humans, they were looked at as deranged and evil.
From seeing Watchmen, I wonder is if this is what the film and comic book were predicting for the human race. Since the beginning of time, many humans have looked up to a higher being to be the savior. When things in life go wrong, they turn to this savior to eventually fix what has gone wrong in their lives. What if this is what ends religion? What if people forget about religion because the world may get to a point of no hope that even God looks evil or non-existent?
A point in Watchmen that stuck with me was when Dr. Manhattan spoke to his girlfriend, Laurie Jupiter in outer space of how the universe moves along with no regard for the human race. He claims that it gets along just fine whether one person dies or makes a difference on Earth. Although Watchmen is just a movie, it was a scary concept to grasp and probably a frightening one for many people. What if this is the truth? Without the organization of religion, would humans be disorganized and in absolute mayhem? Would human life just lose its value?

Feeling Religulous?

For months I had wanted to see the recently talked about film “Religulous” starring Bill Maher. The film goes on a journey throughout the United States and other countries to examine and satirize religion. Bill Maher does not necessarily refute religion, he just questions it. Maher believes that since he does not know if there is a God or an afterlife, he wants to hear from people who believe they do. He wants to see if there is someone out there that knows something he does not. Through these interviews, he attempts to prove his point that since we do not know what happens in the end and there is no possible way anyone else could. On the Jimmy Kimmel Show, Maher discusses that he wants to apply to the people who just claim, “I do not know”. He questions the turmoil religion creates. He claims that since each religion hypothesizes the end of the world or Armageddon, the followers of these beliefs are in reality going to cause this end because they are not in touch with reality. Since he is human along with the followers of these religions, if he lacks these examples, then so do they.

Although he uses the interviews to prove his point, he uses nearly lunatics of certain faiths to interview. One reverend that he interviewed told Maher that he was a pimp of the faith and that God wanted him to decorate himself with gold jewelry. He barely uses people who were devout, but did not push extremist ideas on others. My favorite interview that he did was with an Italian priest in front of the Vatican. It had to be in front because Maher had gotten kicked out. The man was about 80 years old and I could tell that Bill for once throughout the entire movie somewhat respected his beliefs. Instead of answering as many others did by saying his religion was right and Bill was wrong, all the man said was, “We live and die with our own stupid beliefs. Who are we to say they are correct?” This idea resonated with me and followed a somewhat similar belief. I have belief in something that watches over me, but I have no idea what it is. I can really follow Maher’s idea that since we do not know for sure, how can we fight and push for our beliefs to be in the forefront? Also, how can religion be so influential in government especially concerning large issues such as abortion and gay marriage?

An aspect that I disliked about the film was its reference to the Islamic faith being violent. Maher’s view of this religion was extremely Americanized. He used only examples of terrorist groups who followed Islam and completely dismissed the Muslim woman he interviewed. The woman attempted to talk about a similar theme that we have seen in The Secular and the Sacred. The idea that there are many different views and interpretations in each religion and the only part that is exemplified in American culture of Islam is terrorism.

This Love

After Friday, I have been thinking about what each person chose to do his or her altar on. For me, what I am majoring in is not what I believe in the most. Although I wish it were something important to me, I could not picture the media as something that I want to feel extremely a part of. For me, it is my friends and family that mean the most. They shape who I am and who I want to be above all things. With them, I am apart of something bigger than myself. I cannot just stick within my own bubble; I give back and receive comfort in the fact that I can find something tangible in the belief of the people that surround me. I realized that I am not the only person that has this “abstract religion” in the presentation of the altars. While sitting and listening to each person present, they explained a large variety of things that they held on a pedestal such as accounting, snowboarding, and certain aspects of culture. These beliefs may be classified into material things such as material goods that are spoken of in Colleen McDannell's, Material Christianity. Someone could possibly find belief in an icon or a piece of jewelry that may make them feel closer to a loved one. These certain pieces of their lives, they turned to as what they found belief in. People even did actual religion as what they felt the most apart of, which is interesting to me because it is not the first thing I turn to.

What we traditionally see as religion is the set beliefs within Catholicism or Judaism where the followers must go by certain written beliefs and rituals. How can we define religion in today’s society? In such an obscure and new time period, can we redefine religion as set beliefs within what we hold the most true.

Seeing what people did for their altars sparked a conversation between a friend from home and I. He is extremely inspired by music and expresses to me how music is his outlet and almost a religion to him. Him and my other friend are coming out with a new album and their newest song is a song attributed to music’s uplifting motion in their lives. He told me that when his mom and sister first heard it they thought it was about a new girl in his life because it brings forth so much passion for one aspect of his life. In the song titled “This Love”, he talks about his love affair and learning for this thing that brought life to him during the hardships. His hip-hop and art was this thing. It accompanied him through tough times almost similar to what spirituality or an actual person could do.

As my friend and I continued our discussion, we talked about how people can look to what their passionate about as their belief system and their religion. What creates purpose for us in this life is almost what gives us our spirituality. Our belief in one thing, makes this life real and worth living.

On a related topic to last semesters Scientific Revolutions class, I found an article on Darwin the other day on the New York Times website called "Darwin, Ahead of His Time, Is Still Influential". The article summarized that although Darwin may not be necessarily looked at as correct, biologists are reexamining his studies. In their reexamination, they see what an amazing man he really was. What they were most amazed by how deep and broad his ideas were. He went from animal breeding to continuity between humans and animals. My point of bringing up Darwin is not necessarily bringing up the scientific aspect, but the dedication to his passion.

This dedication brought upon new ideas that had never been looked at or understood even today. Darwin's science was his religion. In this world where our passion is our religion, could religion and science not constantly be debated? Would a shift ever be made from traditional religion to this abstract? Could religion ever become modernized and simplified?

Informal Blog Post

I was really intrigued by our conversations that was brought on by today's Capitalism and Democracy class. Although it was based on diversity, this theme brought us into race and ethnicity along many other factors. One point that tied into the Secular and the Sacred class was how religion affected many peoples daily lives and how it tied into our professions. For example, in my field of mass communications, if I worked for an ad agency, my ad may not be published because someone in the agency may disagree due to their religion. The ad also may be interpreted by people of certain religions in the wrong light.