Mental Basement

by Arjun Sharma

It’s 2009, we can talk to people anywhere in the world instantaneously, fly through the air at the speed of sound, and walk on the moon. It’s about time we talked about religion for a bit.

I don’t care if you’re Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Zoroastrian, or just “spiritual.” You believe in God or some kind of force that’s unquantifiable, not scientifically supported, and invisible, and I get that. You have a faith, and an understanding of the way the world works. You believe that your own faith is correct, and you have some reasoning for that as well. Again, I get that.

Now do me a favor; for the next 10 minutes, drop those beliefs. I don’t mean revoke your belief in God, or renounce your faith. I mean, just suspend your religious and spiritual beliefs. Simply be the person who worries about buying groceries, feeding the dog, reading that novel that’s been sitting on your desk, getting that TPS report out before the deadline, and remembering to buy a birthday card for your mom. Don’t think about meditation or prayer or confession or Easter or prophets or fatwahs or holy anythings.

Good.

Now let’s start at the beginning. How did we all come to be? Where did this world come from? Modern science claims that the Big Bang theory explains this. Simplified, the Big Bang theory says that all matter was intensely condensed at one point in time, estimated through scientific calculation at about 13.73 +/- .12 billion years ago.

Notice that I say “theory.” Not, “the Big Bang,” but the “Big Bang theory.” Why? I’m willing to acknowledge that we don’t know if its true. I sure as hell don’t know; I could spend the rest of my life devoting myself to studying the universe and could never say that I know for sure that it’s true. Where did that first bit of condensed matter come from? I don’t know. What will happen after the Universe ‘ends’ or after all energy is dispersed into entropy? I don’t know. But so far, the Big Bang theory has stood up to scientific experimentation, which is all I can really ask for.

The same is true for the theory of evolution. Again, note that I call it the “theory” of evolution. I can’t say with 100% certainty that evolution is how the world came to be the way it is today, but it sure seems like a damn good explanation. The theory has been used in other fields; for example, scientists were able to use a genetic algorithm to create a circuit that completed a defined process more efficiently than any humanly designed circuit. In fact, there were elements of the circuit that didn’t make any logical sense, but through their minute affectations of the magnetic field of the circuit, and the temperature of the room the circuit was made in, they were integral parts of the process. A sort of “modern miracle,” if you will.

What’s my point, then? The point is that we don’t ever know anything with 100% certainty. All we can do is hypothesize, test, evaluate, and re-hypothesize. But of all of your theories about how the world works, why would you choose one that claims that an invisible man (or woman or being or whatever) created the world?

Do you ever think that maybe religion was just an ancient way of explaining a world that we can never fully understand? That maybe it’s just an outdated biological response to help us cope with this life? In fact, did you ever stop and look at what motivates us? If you look at it, education, working, competing, socializing, and all other major parts of human life all seem to come down to one think; furthering the human race. We strive to make our species better, to find a life partner (or partners) with whom to reproduce and ensure the protection of our race. Maybe love, hate, ecstasy, depression, happiness, sadness, anger, and fear all come down to biological responses to further that purpose.

Maybe religion is just a holdover from those ancient times. I mean, it is passed down generation to generation, right? Maybe it’s time to stop and say, “Wait a minute… what are we doing here?” For example, take Christian beliefs. Keep in mind that we’ve suspended belief in God for the purpose of this article, and take a look at some of those stories. Genesis? The Garden of Eden? Noah’s Ark? Do you really believe those stories to be true? If you do, don’t you think they seem to fall apart under even the slightest of logical scrutiny? If you don’t believe in them, but you still claim to be Christian, isn’t there something WRONG there? You claim that the Bible is the word of God, but you don’t believe all those stories. So what’s the deal? You can use one passage to say that God is against homosexuality, but you’ll say you don’t believe in the stories that claim you can sell your daughter and take an eye for an eye and all of that. Seems rather convenient, doesn’t it?

It doesn’t make sense! Look at religion again, in the eye of logic and rationality! It’s nothing more than the word of men, who made a convincing story and spiritual structure that gave people a false sense of comfort. Instead, if we stopped taking things on “faith” and started testing out our theories, a whole lot of stuff we do would suddenly make a lot less sense. It’s not bad to question your faith; it’s your human responsibility.

I don’t know if I’ve made any impression on your or not. I don’t dislike or judge religious people because I know that there’s a lot more out there in the world that I don’t understand. I can’t even say that there is no God, because I have no proof. But I need to tell the world why I believe what I believe, and allow my theory to be tested in the public sphere; that’s what any responsible scientist would do.

So go at it. Please. I’m begging you. Pick my theories and ideas apart. Prove to me why I’m wrong. I’m all ears.

by Nat Lavin

Yesterday, I returned from Birthright Israel. I can honestly say that no blog entry could possibly do the amazing experience justice.

About two weeks ago, I was leaving New Orleans to spend a few days in DC before heading off to Israel. I was being driven to the airport by my best friend and his girlfriend. The girlfriend, “TG,” has a Jewish roommate, and two Jewish suitemates. She, however, is Catholic. I made a comment to her, something to the effect of, “Why don’t you just tell them you’re Jewish and come along on the trip! It’ll be awesome” and she responded something to the effect of “No thanks. I can’t stand the Jewish people any longer.”

It was a moment for me where I was so offended, I didn’t really know how to respond. In her defense, I knew where she was coming from. He roommates are not exactly welcoming of her Catholicism (her roommate thought she was doing her a favor by allowing Christmas decorations in the room). Her roommate also got offended at TG’s use of the word “Jew,” not even in some sort of bigoted context. She got offended at TG saying something like, “My roommate is a Jew”. The fact that anyone could think “Jew” is an offensive word is beyond me, and the amount of shame and self-loathing you must have as a Jew to find that word offensive is sickening. I say this for two reasons. TG’s comments, although horribly bigoted and offensive, and certainly a little broad, were somewhat founded. The Jews she knows the best and spends the most time with are horribly misguided and annoying. Secondly, it shows what a horrible sense of Jewish identity many Jews in the US have today.

I finally responded to TG by saying “um….I’m a Jew”. She and her boyfriend both argued back, “Yeah Nat, but you’re not a real Jew.”

I was, again, deeply offended, but I really had no way to respond. What makes me a Jew? My mother is Catholic. I don’t believe in God. I haven’t been to a synagogue since sophomore year of high school. At the time, I silently decided they were right. I wasn’t a real Jew.

About 3 days later I boarded a plane for Israel. I sat between two kids who would end up being on my bus, one from Tulane, and the other from American University [in DC]. We didn’t know each other well, and we were all very tired. There was not a lot of talking on the flight.  We landed in Tel Aviv and went through immigration and customs. We got on our bus, and headed for a hotel just outside of Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean Sea.

The next day we saw some of the sights in Tel Aviv and then drove to Jerusalem. As we got to Jerusalem, we stopped at a pavilion on top of a cliff, overlooking the city. I have two distinct memories of that moment. The first was, “I feel nothing.” The second: “Someone in my family would probably want a picture of this anyway.” It was not a bad looking city at all. In fact, it was beautiful. Everything was made of limestone. Every building looked beautiful.  The city certainly has a unique aesthetic.

That night we were taken to hear the former president of Hillel speak. I remember thinking it was going to be a waste of time, but what he said may very well have been life-changing for me.

” ‘Jewish’ is NOT a religion!” In order to get the point across again, he yelled it again. “‘JEWISH’ IS NOT A RELIGION.” He spent the next hour or so talking to us about how there are plenty of secular Jews in Israel, and they are all just as welcome. He made a metaphor about how Judaism as a whole can be compared to a table with 5 legs. Each one of those legs represents something different. For example, one of those legs was religion, another was Israel, another was a sense of Jewish memory (and/or history). His point was that a table made for five legs will still stand with only 3. There’s no such thing as a “bad Jew”. He talked to us about “converted Jews”. I didn’t know this, but apparently, it is against Jewish law to remind someone who converts to the religion that they are a convert. The phrase “converted Jew” refers to a Jew who converts to another religion. He said something like “Yeah….that guy may think he’s a Catholic…..what a sucker”. He talked about how Judaism really only became strictly a religion in the time since World War II. He let me know that no matter how I felt about God or religion, I was still a Jew. I was still a Jew and I was still welcome in Israel.

The next day we walked through old Jerusalem. I saw the Western wall from a distance and felt nothing. I walked down to where the wall was and was suddenly hit by a wave of….I don’t know what. For that brief moment though, I believed in God. Perhaps that’s not the best way to put it. It’s not that I believed in God, its that I couldn’t not believe in God. I thought back on Jewish history. An unbroken chain of Jewish families and cultures and for that moment, refused to believe that Abraham and Moses made it up. They saw something. They talked to something. Maybe it wasn’t some supreme, infallible creator of all existence, but they saw something.

I walked closer to the Western Wall, wondering if I was “Jewish enough” to touch it, despite the pep-talk the night before. As I was about 20 feet from the wall, a Rabbi saw me, and could tell I was American.  He rushed up to me, and extended his hand for a handshake. I shook it, and that’s when he said words that I know will always resonate in my head for the rest of my life. This rabbi whom I had never met, mere feet away from the holiest sight a Jew can visit, looked me in the eyes and said “Welcome Home.”.

He offered me anything I needed to pray at the wall. At the time I was horribly confused about God, so I opted out of prayer, but the Rabbi was so clearly still thrilled that I was there. He left me to stand at the wall in peace and collect my thoughts. I saw people shove notes in the cracks of the wall, and part of me wanted to. The other part of me decided I should leave space for those who know they believe in God. I listened to the latter voice in my head.

I then thought back, with bitter disdain to what TG and her boyfriend had told me less than a week earlier. “You’re not a real Jew.”. Those words only offended me more now. I was now sure, more than ever, that I was a Jew. I was never more welcomed in the house of a family member than I was in the land of Israel. I walked to the holiest sight a Jew could visit, and a complete stranger welcomed me home. I think I’ll trust the Israeli Rabbi at the Western Wall over the Catholic college kids from Missouri.  I am a Jew, and I am damn proud of it.