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?

Why Gay Marriage is Bad

Vermont recently overrode Governor Douglas' veto of same sex marriages.

I'd like to point out that an outstanding majority of people opposed to same sex marriage are very religious and many see it as redefining a sacred institution. A sacred, religious institution that is deeply embedded with rights granted through government. Many religious people also ignore and deny the separation of church and state which was reiterated in a series of court hearings such as Reynolds versus the United States and McCollum versus the Board of Education. I've also read arguments that identified Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Church as not bringing about the separation of church and state, which when read is clearly outlining the separation. He write's: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State," (Jefferson). It can be understood in the establishment clause of the United States Constitution found here that it was purposeful to separate the two and with a glance back at history should be maintained. This separation has given our country a lot of power to enable everyone to gain the rights that were left to be fought for by minorities overlooked when establishing themselves in a country of equality. As there are a lot of different arguments, I think that it is safe to say religion should be left to the individual, their God and their Church, not to oppress other peoples right to marry. The stigma in society of homosexuality was brought about by religion. If you look into the history of Ancient Greece you will see that homosexuality was an accepted practice until it was outlawed in Rome when Christianity gained power.

It is also believed that same sex marriage is bad for children and would be harmful taking away their right to a mom and a dad. In a society that is full of children without any parents at all, this seems ridiculous. Artificial insemination is also looked down upon for women in a committed relationship with another woman. How is giving a child life and being raised by two women bad? They never would have been given life if they hadn't been artificially inseminated. It is only an expectation of our society that a child should be granted a mom and a dad, even when divorce rates are high. So many children in this world would love to have two parents or even a single parent. If you google "same sex parenting" you will find little evidence that there is a harmful effect on children from having same sex parents. In return, you will find studies that show that same sex parents are just as good as heterosexual parents.

Last night aired the pageant competition, Miss USA, in which one of the contestants, Miss California, said that she believed that marriage was meant to be between a man and a woman, not same sex. In return she has been faced with a lot of negative attention. Past Miss USA winners have even come forward advocating for same sex marriage. I think that this shows that our society is making a turn around. This issue has had a lot of attention in recent political and social spheres. When religious and sacred meaning is taken out of the picture people realize that homosexuality and same sex marriage is not an evil curse on society.

When it comes to the argument of letting "the people" decide on same sex marriage I would like to put forth this from The Transformation of American Religion by Alan Wolfe. "Democracy, liberals of this persuasion believe, is a wonderful form of government, but when it comes to protecting the rights of religious minorities or nonbelievers, a nondemocratic institution like the courts is required to keep it in check," (257 Wolfe). A mixed constitution of the many, the one and the few creates a balance of power. This is why we have a mixture of types of governments, a democracy (legislative), a monarchy (president), and an aristocracy (judiciary). They keep each other in check and protect the rights of the minorities.

What is religion?

What is religion really? Is it the belief in a god or multiple gods? Is it the belief in certain values and beliefs, or is it a mix of all of these. I looked up the definition on line and only one of the entries did not use religion in the definition and really spelled out what I believe religion is on a very basic sense. I went to Merriam-Webster Dictionaries site and looked up religion. The fourth definition is ": a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith". To me this says that religion is a belief toward a set of beliefs, values and a system to believe and have faith in. Sometimes people just need to know someones there or know they are apart of something bigger. Also, having a community there with beliefs to follow, can help guide us through life. Through this course this question has come up a lot and of course there are many different views of what people think religion really is. There is no one definite answer to the question.

The other day I was watching one of my favorite shows, Family Guy, and it was the episode where Peter Griffin starts his own religion. He decides to build the church of the Fonz and people come. People partake in the service worshiping the beliefs of the Fonz and are all apart of the community. They have beliefs, values, and community to follow after. It is very simple but it is by the definition I go by, a religion on a basic sense.



I could not find the entire clip so The rest of it will just have to be discussed. Peter has conversations with his father who is strongly Catholic and who believes its a scam and a disc-grace to religion. In the end he realizes what Peter has done and that it really is a religion, and secretly worships the Fonz. This goes to show that some may not believe it at first but when you really look deep down and look at the simple facts, religion is about community, values, and beliefs; not about Gods, prayer and organ music.



"religion." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.
Merriam-Webster Online. 2 April 2009

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.

Vermont's Lack of Religion

This past couple of weeks in class, we have been talking about the importance of religion and politics as we are starting to read The Stillborn God by Mark Lilla. A few days before starting to read this book, I found an article in the Burlington Free Press that talked about how Vermont is the least religious state. I read the article and my first thought was that there was a mistake made. As the article continued on, I was amazed and realized how true it was. I knew right then I wanted to blog about it. So I went to find the article and it was no where to be found. However, the article I found was from USA Today, which also talks about the change in religion from state to state. In the other article talked about how in Vermont, most people who are protestant and just not acknowledging themselves as religious. This is also happening with the Catholic religion. My thoughts about this, is not surprising to me. As a protestant, I know that I do not need religion on a daily basis. It is more of traditions and holidays when religion in my family is important. Whereas, according to this article from USA Today says that Mississippi is the most religious state. I think this is accurate because I know that the farther south you go, the more that religion is important. I just found this article to be fascinating knowing that I live in the least religious state but that I have contributed to part of the reason that we are that low. 

In God's Name

In my opinion, I think that something important about religion is that it makes people more secure in life and death. It also gives them something to look up to, something to believe in. The article "In God's Name" states that religion has a very powerful influence in economics and politics. Religion has and can be used to manipulate and control others; it's an effective politcal and commercial tool as evidenced by the historic records of religious wars. But when religious leaders of the world are engaged in preaching hate and intolerance against other religious belief systems, isn't it obvious that people would question the purpose of God? I mean, I thought religion was just a concept that makes people believe in other positive secular things.