REL-Con : Planning

For the end of the semester event, I think we could have a trivia night for one day, and then maybe a superhero night where everyone could dress up as their favorite super hero and then we can quiz them on the movies to see how they view religion in these films. The main themes that I think we should, or could communicate are, superheroes in pop culture, in films, and how superheroes are portrayed in our culture today, and how that affects many people’s views and beliefs in religion.   Poster boards with bold designs if anybody has artistic skills, they can create some great slogans or images that attracts the crowd’s attention.  From my perspective, many people avoid the idea or conversation of religion because it is a touchy subject, so I think we need to advertise that religion is diverse and that it is attainable regardless if it doesn’t identify with the norm of society.  If the weather permits it, I think it would be useful as some said in class to have it outdoors that way more people would be able to enjoy it rather than just passing by it in the café and the hall.  I’m not sure if this will work, but I remember at an old college we did this “Shakespearean” party, and there were artifacts, books, posters of Shakespeare and facts about his life, his writings.  There was cake, ice cream, and tons of food. I think we can do something similar like bringing in the Wall-E and other objects that some might worship and see if people can relate that to pop culture and religion.  For those who have vague understanding of religion, superheroes, spirituality, we can provide a fact sheet where they can look over it and then see how it relates to religion.  Another idea is music.  I think we can create a playlist of appropriate music that could signify how religion and pop culture not only challenges us to think about other things such as our purpose in life but allows us to create a community that bonds strangers together every day.  if the approval goes through, then we can do a survey asking people what they think religion means to them, and then the next day we can have games that help enhance their understanding of religion and its impact on society.  I think people want to see something that exciting, but at the same time a learning experience for them as well.  It is also important to note that some people hold strong religious beliefs, so it would be helpful to show them, not force them to accept the idea that religion and the superheroes go hand in hand.  As of right now, I can’t think of any other ideas, but maybe we can do a theme day and focus on one topic, and then use that topic to explore different connections to religion. The name Mystical Adventures sounds good, because we are all on journey to discover who we are through religion and how that shapes each of us individually.

UPDATE about this week's blog entries

Hi everyone, just re-posting from Moodle here.

Because we didn't finish Superman, I've decided that we actually should hold off on writing about those articles and the film.

INSTEAD, please use the blog this weekend to do further, more explicit brainstorming about our REL-Con plans.

What should we talk about? How should we present it? What do you think people will want to hear, see, or do?

And please make sure you say something about why you think what you're suggesting would be good, would work, would be important.

Looking forward to hearing more about your vision!

A Nightmare from My Past

I just learned that director Guillermo Del Toro is releasing a horror anthology movie based on the books I was read in middle school, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Maybe you, too, remember a Scholastic "book wagon" in your school? Yeah, that was the blast from the past I got from this article. 

These books were, well, weird. They were genuinely gory and terrifying to young children, but we devoured them anyway. I'm looking forward to our discussion of Freud's notion of "uncanny" later this semester so that we can consider what it is that makes horror stories a genuinely attractive way to work out our fears. 

How I'm Engaging With This Blog

Hi all, just a reminder that I'm posting follow-up questions and thoughts in comments here on the blog, but grades and technical feedback in Moodle (where, of course, only you can see it individually). 

I want to suggest that you all keep up reading each other's posts, too, and commenting or questioning them. Some of you clearly are already -- keep it up! 

The blog is more than just a way to "turn in" reading responses, remember. Let's take full advantage of the technology and use links, comments, etc. to extend and amplify our conversations! 

Is the Material World of Religion Irrelevant or Unnecessary? Maybe not.

   Ever since I was a child exposed to many religions and cultures, the one thing that has always been hard for me to comprehend is the material world of religion. Although I do not consider myself to be a member of the Christian church, in particular, I was raised with pretty solid Christian views. Through the teaching of the church that my mother and I went to up until I was a child, I was always taught that to be close to God all you need to do is (in simple terms) call upon him and set up a relationship with him. There was pretty much nothing else involved; no other mediums between you and Him. These views are quite the opposite from the views that I have always noticed that my father's side and my childhood best friend's family possessed through their Catholic upbringing. My father's side, still very much immersed in their Irish Catholic heritage, always had particular practices and things around their house that I found to be unnecessary. One obviously being the practice of communion, another being the practice of using a rosary, and the other being the holy statues that my family (particularly my Irish Catholic 88-year-old grandmother) have scattered around various parts of their households and yards.

   Since I was always taught that these were sort of silly unnecessary things/practices, I never really thought about their significance and the good side of having them as part of a specific religious practice. Even when visiting other countries and being exposed to countless religious artifacts and things that people consider to be very important sacred things in their religion I always had those looming "is this really necessary" thoughts in the back of my mind. I found myself appreciating the artistry of the objects and practices more than the significances of objects and practices themselves.

 Up until basically last week I never truly understood how I could be taught to worship the same God as my grandmother and my best friend but still have completely different ways of worshiping, speaking with, and connecting to that same entity; one of us had to be in the wrong here. I mean to put it into perspective, I grew up in a church environment where there wasn't an altar at the front, people didn't get baptized as babies in a building-- they would be baptized as full-grown adults in a lake or something if they even got baptized at all, nobody had statues of Mother Mary in their living rooms or pictures of Jesus in the hallway, there was a coffee shop and smoothie bar in our lobby, and we had an annual "blessing of the bikes" event which was essentially where a whole bunch of regular churchgoers, biker moms, reformed criminals, and tattoed dads, got together on their motorcycles and drove to the local Harley Davidson shop to get their bikes blessed by our biker pastor. Not to mention the fact that there was barely even any religious iconography in the building aside from the occasional dove or Noah's Ark mural in the children's playroom - even Jesus was pretty much nowhere to be found in there. So now that this is out of the way it's not hard to see how I couldn't fathom how there could possibly be such a stark difference between our two religions that share the same God. If I was communicating just fine with Jesus by doing/partaking in absolutely nothing other than speaking to him, how could it possibly be necessary for people of other faiths to be doing everything that they're doing just to do what I was doing just fine with absolutely no medium or effort?

   This being said, I have come to realize that having a medium between the human and the God probably isn't such a bad thing. Just because I do not need an aspect of materiality to get close to God, that doesn't mean that everyone else feels that way. I have come up with the hypothesis that having a material medium (such as prayer candles, rosaries, practices, etc...) within one's religion can make the practice seem like a tangible experience, which is something that humans obviously crave in their lives both spiritually and non-spiritually. I may be completely wrong with this idea and I do not want to offend anyone of the Catholic religion by expressing these thoughts, but what I have come to believe is that a medium doesn't necessarily put up a wall up between the human and the god as I first thought it did. In fact, I feel as though it can actually break down a mental barrier that many people are born having which is "if I can't see it, touch it, feel it, or experience it, that means it's not real." We have been, and always will be a material society so it makes absolutely no sense to expect the major world religions to not have anything to do with the material world. Material items have the ability to make people feel good, proud, secure, and even allow us to relate to others who are like us
secure which I think plays a part in the material realm of religion. These practices and material items of religion such as the sacrament, the use of idols, candles, altars, rosaries, etc... makes people feel as though they are more connected to what they believe in, which definitely isn't a bad thing, and the next time I begin to judge a practice of a different religious denomination as mine I will remember this.

Materials and Religion

In religion, many things many symbols and certain materialistic things are important it shows the representation of the religion and the importance of the symbol or material dealing with the religion. Holy Water, the cross, and even what the Pastor may wear for Christianity shows the importance and symbolizes what Christians stand for, it certain materials that stand out in each religion to show how much meaning an object can hold. As for Muslim, the huge beautiful mosque means some deeply to them and definitely when they have service for a huge prayer. Even the headwear the men and women may wear has such an impact on their religion. When you go back to look at other religions, maybe even the Superhero religion I would say, you always find that one symbol that had more impact and meaning than other symbols you may find throughout the religion. 

What is Myth?

Each and every one of us have our own way of thinking which differentiates us from one another. I love the concept that Armstrong mentioned about our imagination from what is myth? He stated "another peculiar characteristic of the human mind is its ability to have ideas and experiences that we cannot explain rationally. We have imagination, a faculty that enables us to think of something that is not immediately present, and that, when we first conceive it, has no objective existence." This quote reminds me of the saying of 'the minds a terrible thing to waste'. Imagination ties into several different aspects including myth science and religion. Imagination gives us the knowledge of expanding beyond what we already know to enhance our future. Imagination has gotten us to where we are today. We have high speed internet at the palm of our hands with our watches and cell phones, self-driving cars, drones, and advanced solar energy all with just a little imagination which was thought of as a myth before accomplishing any of these. Armstrong told us five important things about myth, and there’s one concept that stood out to me the most. The most powerful myths are about extremity, and they force us to go beyond our experience. Myths allow us to go beyond our imagination pushing us to explore outside of the boundaries.   

Material Religion

Do You Need Materialistic Things to Believe?

        I believe that in religions there are things that you may or may not need to help you become closer in your faith. In religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, and other religions they have things that are considered to be important physical objects. In Buddhism, they have the Buda that they pray to and if it wasn't there it wouldn't be as special of an occasion. In Christianity, they have many things that they use some of them are the rosary, the Eucharist, holy water and many more. Some may think that materialist things aren't important to be religious, but when you think about it they play a very big role in how you go about the religion and in the way you do religious activities. Unlike in the clip that we watched when the man in the church said that he did not need anything between him and God, such as a church, I believe that people do need a church or something of that sort for them to have a dedicated and respected place for them to worship. It may work in certain situations for someone to not go to church and they get closer to what they believe in, but in my opinion, I think that situations like that are very rare.  

Disney and Religion

Going back to the discussion we had in class about how disney related to religion really made me look at disney from a different standpoint. I wasn't really a disney kid growing up so the only times I would watch it is when I had to watch my little brother while everyone was gone. Out of every disney movie I watched, I saw the same thing which was made up characters/animals talking and trying to solve a problem. I would've never seen a comparison between religion and disney without that discussion. Religion plays a part in people's lives that gives them hope, faith/worship, and imagination. By imagination I mean religion helps people see the world from a logical standpoint, to a more hopeful and what if standpoint. The disney sequel The Toy Story is a perfect example of how religion has been incorporated into disney. In the movie you have a civilization of toys that talk, walk, and in a way think like humans. In the beginning these toys were happy because the main character Andy was young and played with the toys 24/7. Later in the sequel he starts to grow up and eventually doesn't want to play with the toys anymore. The toys thought that Andy was going to throw them out but he really was putting them in a charity or something like that. The point i'm trying to make is religion gives you an alternative approach on life because you never know what life has instored for you, but when you have strong faith you are more than likely going to have an uphand on something. Religion to me is about remaining hopeful even when times are getting hard and you don't think you have another route to go. If you remain faithful to what you believe, sooner or later another door is bound to open for you. Just like Toy Story, at the end the toys ended up with a new owner who played with them, took care of them the right way, and gave the toys hope again.