Knowledge

I feel that a point made in Augustine's On Christian Teachings that could be used to interpret the Psalms is found early on, when Augustine talks about the seven stages toward finding wisdom.  The third stage, knowledge, could be used to help us interpret The Book of Psalms.  Being the third stage right after fear and holiness, this stage is reachable by almost every person which makes is relatable because many of the people who read the psalms are average ordinary people looking for guidance.  

In this stage, "every student of divine scripture exerts himself ... and will find that he must love god with his whole heart, his whole soul, and his whole mind, and his neighbor as himself - in other words, his love for his neighbor should be totally related to God." In reference to the Psalms, one has to love god entirely because sometimes God will do things which one may not understand.  "It is at this point that the fear which makes him ponder the judgement of God, and the holiness which makes it impossible for him not to admit and submit to the authority of the holy books, compel him to deplore his own condition." In reference to this are the psalms of supplication, where it seems God has left and one must ask him to return and give help.  In order for God to return and offer aid, one must leave fear behind and continue to believe in God or he may be lost forever. 

Also, there are many psalms which include violence.  This could be read as the violence occurring when the love for neighbors is broken and is no longer related to God.  If one loves his neighbor just like his own self-love, then there would be no violence or bloodshed, but rather knowledge and love for one another.  The third stage of knowledge is applicable to all, and is also has connections to many of the Psalms, thus making the third stage of knowledge very useful when interpreting the Psalms. 

Nature

In our last class meeting we discussed how the psalms are connected to nature.  We made some interesting inferences and conclusions which help us understand some of the ideas expressed in the Book of Psalms.  One of these ideas was how god is a creator.  Nature is referred to as "The work of God's hands."  Whoever wrote the initial version of these psalms could have used the word "nature" but instead used a phrase which seems to make nature seem sacred, and a blessing to have.  Psalm 104 quotes, "All the earth is filled with Your riches." This once again stresses the important and sacred qualities that are believed to be in the world that we live in. There are also moments in the psalms which seem to give humans a sort of responsibility to take care of nature.  We take nature for granted and sometimes don't realize that God does not only give, but is also capable and willing to take away. 

Psalm 104 makes our ties to nature even stronger by quoting, "You withdraw their breath and they perish, and to dust they return.  When you send for Your breath, they are created, and You renew the face of the earth."  This line is a literal translation of the circle of life.  As interpreted by the Catholics, we all began as dust, and then we were created by god, and one day we will return to dust and be one with the earth.

Being a roman catholic, I think that the human connection with nature and the earth is important.  One of the important times of the catholic year is lent, which all begins with ash Wednesday.  On this day we receive ashes on our forehead, not only to begin lent, but to also remember that, metaphorically, we are all dust, one day we will all return to dust and be one with the earth.  That is one example in roman catholic belief, but even if it is not religious, I still believe that we are strongly connected to nature and that many people take it for granted. 

Ethics

I believe that the Book of Psalms shows the reader a kind of grey area about ethics.  I don't think it tackles ethics right on, but rather gives people guidelines and "words of wisdom" about how to live their lives.  As seen in every Psalm reading, the main idea is to worship god.  If you worship god, and believe and honor his moral and ethical guidelines, then you will live a healthy and full life.  There are many ethical stances reflected in this book, and one of them is that one should not steal.

In Psalm 50, lines 8-9 the text reads, "I shall not take from your house a bull, nor goats from your pens."  This is referring to how the main character in this psalm will not steal from any other man.  This is interesting because it corresponds directly to one of Moses' Ten Commandments, "Thou shall not steal."  This guideline relates directly to Christianity because it comes right from one of the foundations of Christian belief.

A second reference comes from the Commandment, "Thou shall not bear false witness." This is of course talking about lying.  There are many Psalms which discuss this but one in particular is Psalm 5, "You destroy the pronouncers of lies, a man of blood and deceit the Lord loathes."  This stresses the ethics of telling truths, and not lying.  Just as the first guideline I found, this guideline refers back to the Ten Commandments, in a very catholic manner.  

Another reference to the Ten Commandments comes from Psalm 79. On lines 3-4, the psalm reads "They have spilled their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there is none to bury them.  We have become a disgrace to our neighbors, scorn and contempt to all around us."  I interpret this as the Commandment "Thou shall not kill."  This quote says that by spilling the blood of Jerusalem, we have become a disgrace and scorn will come to us.  This is also noting of how god will punish us if we don't follow his laws of life.  I see many ethical stances coming from these psalms, many of them related to the teachings and interpretations of god, through other humans, such as Moses.

David

Many of  the Psalms that we have been reading have been a "David Psalm."  David was an interesting person and it is interesting to investigate the man who is behind many of the Psalms.  David was a king from about 1000 B.C.  We have seen through all many of the readings that David was strongly connected to music.  In the beginning of a large percentage of the Psalms, David's name is preceded by some musical commands, such as "To the lead player on the eight-stringed lyre."  This is significant because David become known partly due to the fact that he restored Saul's spirit by playing the Lyre.  In the Psalm Samuel 16.14-23, the lord departs from Saul and he begins to be tormented by an evil spirit.  Saul needs a good musician to rid him of the evil spirits and David rises to the occasion, ridding Saul of his tormentors by playing the Lyre.

This musical aspect of healing is very important to the Psalms.  As with any religion there is always some sort of individual connection with the divine, but group interaction and worship is key to any religion.  Music allows this to happen.  It is much easier to get a group of people involved with worship though song than it would be with only one person speaking to a crowd of followers.  David is directly connected to this because he was actually the first person to implement group worship for god outside of the temple.  I cannot be positive, but I could make a very good hypothesis that in David's sermons and teachings, song was used frequently to get the congregation involved.

Another interesting note about David is that he is a sinner, just like every mortal.  He committed adultery, one of the most look-downed upon sins.  David being a role model gives these mortals some sense of reassurance when they sin because they can think that they will be forgiven just as David will be.  All of David's Psalms reflect what people see in David, from his pre-temple worship, to music, and finally to his sinning, and how to be forgiven. 

Psalm #2

For this post I think that I am going to start at the beginning of the Psalm and work my way toward the end.  The Psalm starts off with a question, "Why rage the heathen furiously?" I interpret this as the author doubting the human race, possibly asking the nobility why are they enraging the lord.  Even though the author doesn't directly it,  I am assuming that that the people of royalty are sinning because they are "with one consent against the Lord."  Because these people are sinning and conspiring against the Lord, they will be forever punished when they reach heaven.  The first half of the Psalm seems like a warning to those people of nobility who are sinning.  The author is saying that if you do not follow the Lord's way, then you will have an eternity of misery in the afterlife.

The author goes on to mention the kings as the "judges" of the world.  This has some irony because in actuality, the Lord is the judge of the world, and the kings are only the judges of the land.  The kings may decide what happens in their kingdom and in their lands, but if they sin at all, the Lord will have revenge in the afterlife.  The Lord is so much more powerful than these kings, that they kings have to "serve the lord with reverence, rejoyce in him with fear."  This is interesting because it is almost as if the author is making out the Lord as something to be frightened of.  I have always seen God as forgiving and merciful, yet this author is making him out as more of a punishing wrathful Lord.

Overall I find this Psalm somewhat aggressive and making the Lord out to be more evil then is intended.  There are many lines where the author talks about the Lord mocking those of nobility as well as the nobles rejoicing in fear.  There is also a recurring theme reminding the sinners that God will have his vengeance in the afterlife.  This seems like a very negative Psalm and I don't particularly like it.

Oneota Pottery

In chapter seven in the Indian Mounds Book, Birmingham talks about the pottery of the Oneota tribe.  As noted in the novel, these vessels were thin-walled and decorated with patterns using some sort of blunt object.  I find it very interesting how these patterns and designs changed of the years based on other people who inhabited the area with the Oneota.  The patterns were first based after the Mississippians and contained such designs as interlocking scrolls, curved lines, chevrons, and geometric figures.  After the decline of the Mississippians, the Oneota's decorations dealt with the upperworld and lowerworld themes very similar to the effigy mounds.

I think that the mirroring between the effigy mounds and the Oneota Pottery is very interesting.  The effigy mounds were constructed starting in about 700 a.d. and the Oneota Pottery did not commence until around 1000 a.d. This connection shows some sort of bridge in the time periods based on what native american tribes thought as possibly sacred but undoubtedly important.  Located in western Wisconsin were mostly upperworld designs, such as hawks, falcons, and other powerful birds.  In the east were predominately lowerworld symbols like the lizard or water spirit.

Another very important connection between the mounds and the pottery is that the Ho-Chunk and the Oneota are believed to be related.  The similarities between the effigy mounds and the pottery designs make more sense now because related tribes usually have the save values and symbols of importance.  I thought the parallels between the mounds and the pottery were too striking to go unnoticed and I think that this is another clue to a possible ancient religion of the native americans who once roamed this land.

Blog Question #2

After looking at the Lascaux Cave and reading chapter four, five, and six in the Indian Mound book, I believe that the animals drawn in the cave and the effigy mounds are drastically different.  I think that the effigy mounds have a much greater chance of being tied to religion than the cave drawings do.  I interpret the cave drawings as the indigenous people being interested in animals. These people hunt them and live the land with them and are therefore interested in the way these animals act.  But these pictures in the caves were only drawings, nothing more.  I don't believe they marked anything special or held any other significance to the indigenous people other than something to pass the time and enjoy looking at.

I interpreted the effigy mounds as something much different and much more important to the people who created them than the cave drawings were to their artists.  When the effigy mounds of the Late Woodland tribes were investigated, there was conclusive evidence that the dead were placed in these mounds.  There were also grave offerings in these mounds, such as spearheads, to accompany the person after death.  Already, this is a clue that the effigy mound creators believed in an afterlife.  

I also personally believe that these mounds can help us conclude that these people believed in some sort of divine being, or a god.  Just by seeing the size and shape of these mounds helps me conclude that these people thought a god existed.  For example, one of the effigy mounds was of a bird with a 624 foot wingspan.  The only way that the entire mound could be seen would be by something flying, or by a god dwelling in the heavens.  Since human flight did not exist in the time of these mounds, the later is the only probable explanation.  Also, the fact that these people buried the dead in these mound along with tools to be used in the afterlife, strengthens the argument for religious belief.  For these reasons, I believe that the effigy mounds and cave drawings in the Lascaux Cave are very different and the mounds are of much greater significance to history and the study of ancient culture and religion.

 

Cave drawings

After viewing the cave drawings online and remembering our discussion in class, I have come to the conclusion that these cave drawings do not constitute proof of an ancient religion. In class we discussed the qualities of a religion, such as worship, tradition, and stories. Even though some of these criteria are met by the cave drawings, I still don't believe that these drawings constitute a religion. These cave drawings imply stories, a group setting, and possibly worship if they thought these animals were sacred. On the other hand, these drawings do not suggest some sort of shared belief, meaning, or explanation of existence or afterlife.

Even though it is possible that these people worshiped these animals, it is a farfetched idea. I think the most probable explanation for these drawings is that these people were interested in animals. These people relied on nature for their food and way of life so they naturally expressed interest in the things that thet shared the land with. These people also followed the animals in nomadic ways because they needed the meat for sustanence.

In the documentary we viewed in class today, The Grizzly Man was very interesting.  He really wanted to be an animal.  In some ways maybe he thought he was an animal.  Either way, I don't believe that he did the bears any good by living with him.  His explorations seemed selfish; if he wanted the best for the bears, he would study them but not disrupt their lives by living with them.  The Grizzly Man was somewhat similar to the cave paintings by he was interested in the animals in nature but also drastically different because the cave drawings were of mostly humans hunting animals, not humans and animals living in harmony.  It is very arguable that the Grizzly Man was not mentally sound due solely to the fact that he lived with bears thinking that he was supposed to be in the wild.

Definition of Religion According to Clifford Geertz

I had to read the definition couple of times to understand it but if I had to re-word it, I would write something along the lines of,

Religion is:

Interacting symbols that invoke powerful human feelings about existence which, by facts, seem realistic.

I think that this definition has a generally good idea but I don't particularly like the words used.  The main concept, which I like, has to do with a combination of things, that when put together invoke some sort of human feeling about our existence that seem realistic because of supporting facts.  I especially like the interacting things because no religion is based off of one incident or symbol, there is always a combination of things, that work in harmony to produce a certain effect on people.  For example, Christianity has many different incidents recorded in the old testament and the new testament, that all contribute to beliefs of God, Jesus, The Ten Commandments, etc.

I also think like how the definition includes something about facts.  There would be no reason to believe in a religion if there weren't facts backing up the religious foundations.  Jesus was at one time alive.  If this were not true, christians would probably doubt that he was the savior of mankind.  Every religion needs at least some factual evidence or there would be no followers and the religion would die out.

One part of the definition which I do not think is accurate is the word "symbols."  I don't think that religion is composed of only symbols.  There could be some symbols, such as The Cross or the Jewish Star, but I wouldn't think of God as a symbol.  I would rather think of god as an omnipotent, omniscient, necessary, and creative being.  Instead of the word "symbols", I would use many different words such as "ideas,"  "concepts,"  "symbols,"  "events."  There are many things that make up religion only when they are composed together.  Religion cannot be only symbols, but a combination of symbols and other happenings too.