Jewish Rappers

Christianity has it's different sub culture aspects such as in it's music. One may quickly arrive at the conclusion that it only has gospel and old time country as it's musical representations but they will find themselves mistaken. With the likes of Creed, Living Sacrifice and T-Bone, Christianity has it's versatility in it's taste in music. So we may also ask, how about Judaism? It's so similar in some aspects of Christianity and it also helped in shaping Christianity as a religion in a way. We may assume to find artists in the traditional sense when it comes to Jewish music but most people would never think that a Jewish rap group would be out there, or if so, be taken seriously. Well, those people are about to be mistaken. Just recently, I found a Jewish rap group called The Original Jewish Gangsters in a Jewish internet news page featured in one of it's articles. It tells of their goal of reaching out to communities, making spiritual connections and representing it in their musical love of hip hop. The article tells of their growing up in Oakland, California but also their period of living in Israel. I think this is a sign of their balance of modernistic taste with a desire of connection of their religious and cultural roots. They're style is nothing like I've ever seen before really. I like their approach though, even though it may seem funny and comedic to most people to see a Jewish rap group. In my perspective, I feel like they deserve a lot of respect because in the article, the lyrics that are shown have deep religious content along with the fresh style of hip hop which tells me of their respect of their identity and community as well as not having to sacrifice their love of the hip-hop genre. Also, it makes easier connections with youth who can relate to that kind of music more than older audiences even though a lot of their critical acclaim and disgust ironically comes from the older audience. I think more artists should follow their basic approach to music, keeping the balance of tradition of one's own culture with the fast moving modern times in an equilibrium.

What's in your font?

Looking through some news articles and I found a kind of humorous one. It was talking about a Windows update file that apparently took away the Nazi swastika symbol out of the symbol tool box. Then, just recently they had another new Windows update that took out the Jewish star of David in order to bring "religious equality". What??!! Religious Equality??!! I can't even imagine anyone thinking that the Nazis had a religion, it was more of a psychotic genocide group! I mean, if they were referring to the ancient Buddhist symbol of peace, it would be all good. Nevertheless, why would they take that one out? So they take out the swastika first, then they take out the Star of David to bring balance to the deletion. One represents insanity, genocide and tyranny while the other represents an ancient tradition built on goodness and an obedience to a benelovent deity. I guess we should just eradicate all the cholesterol and fat in our schools, but we shouldn't forget to get rid of the fruit and vegetables, because the good always has to be taken out with the bad right? Oh yeah, my religion I made up uses the "T" and the "I" as the sacred symbols, try typing your research paper now! Bwahahahaha!

Christianity and Judaism

I am kind of having a hard time thinking of a question or an opinion on our current topic of discussion in class. I did, however see something in the book that kind of interested me. I saw that the Jews were continually persecuted by the Christians. The Jews would be forced to live in ghettos, wear certain caps, and were forced out of industrial and agricultural work. I just can't see the justification of that. It's just so wrong and hypocritical of those Christians to do such things to them. I mean, the Christian religion is based off of Judaism! But I'm sure there's debate over that topic. What would a Christian these days feel like when they know that such things were done by Christians? That's not even just the persecution of Jews, but other things such as the Inquisition and the Christian holy wars against the Jews and such. So I kind of wonder how a Christian feels these days knowing such things were done by their Christian ancestors.

Suicide and Religion...

Suicide is deemed to be on of the most, if not the most, grievous of all the sins in Christianity and some other religions as well. In this news story I was reading on the internet, there were some "suicide survivors" talking with the news reporter, clergymen and some psychologists. They were discussing about the pain and anguish of suicide and how their surviving family and friends cope with it. They also talked about some of the origins and reasons of suicide. The doctors in the article claimed it was not religion, morality but just pain that they experience. The families were said to be in pain also, wondering whether their loved one is in Hell or not. Personally, if a person was good, caring, kind and selfless all of their life and they commit suicide, then I believe that they are at peace. If you think about it, not everyone that goes through severe depression want to or are able to go to help. People are all different and need different ways out. Unfortunately, not all of the experts know all of the ways to reach out to everyone in order to save everyone from committing suicide. To some people, anyone who commits suicide will go to Hell because God gave them the ultimate gift of life and they just threw it away. But what good is a gift if it's ruined when you get it? What good is a gift if it gets ruined while you have it? If life is going to be conceptualized into something like a gift, then you can say that someone who has a ruined, broken gift will obviously throw it away right? Realistically, not from a religious perspective, I believe that someone who is a good person who could not, or did not want to seek help will be at peace somewhere if they commit suicide. The religious part of me also says that they may go to Hell or purgatory or whatever but the realistic subjective side of me almost outweighs that notion.

Aliens! Ahhhh!

I sort of would like to talk about Christianity for a little bit and this blog is going to be sort of weird too. I was reading the Bible for awhile during this past Summer and I was really heavy into Christianity as well. I was watching a television preacher (not a televangelist) and he was talking about a certain vision of God that was seen where God was flying around with his Cherubims. The description was something along the lines of his vehicle was shaped like a big wheel and that when he turned the vehicle didn't turn it just sort of strafed sideways. So this kind of makes me wonder, in a subjective manner of course, what if the notion of God is really an alien race? What if that vehicle God and his cheribums where flying around in was really a flying saucer? I mean, it really isn't that weird if you think about it. Aliens supposedly have far more advanced technology so therefore why wouldn't they be able to fabricate human beings or some sort of life form to worship them? Do not we as human beings do very similar things in our world? Whoever has the better weapons, the better car, the better paying job assert some sort of dominance over another human being? What more with something like psychic powers, the ability to travel at light speed and the fire power that could obliterate an entire city in a matter of minutes? I guess I could just leave that for you to sort of think about. I really wished that we could reply to these things!

Homosexuality in Christianity

In some more Internet news, I was reading something about how the denomination organizations are angering homosexuals by refusing them rights in the church. Also, there are church organizations that are mad that some other churches are allowing some rules and regulations to be broken in order to accept homosexuals within their church or allow them to marry. To me, this is a difficult issue because it's all based on personal belief. A person may argue that homosexuality is a great sin or an abomination because it says it in the Bible. On the other hand, other people may still be avid Christians but question that one passage in the Bible and say that the passage was written in a time when homosexuality was not accepted within the society, therefore saying it was a biased passage. So you can see why some people may be torn, but to me, for the most part most people would think homosexuality is wrong and "gross" in terms of having it in the church. Also, churches base all of their rules and regulations from the Bible, so the homosexuals already know what they're getting into when they step into that church. Homosexuals really can't say people are being prejudiced against them in terms of Christianity because the Bible already says homosexuality is wrong. Even in those old times, they didn't say anything racist or say that black people should be slaves, everybody was on the same level in terms of racial background. So you cant really say that the Bible was influenced by the times when it comes to it being anti-homosexual because it supported anti-racism and we saw abundant racism in the 50s! So personally, the homosexuals trying to be integrated in the Church have, no doubt, an uphill battle. It's just that they should realize the doctrines the churches hold dear from the Bible will be difficult to impossible to break.

Exorcism on Demand

Reading through some news on the net and I found an interesting article about the increasing demand of exorcism around the world. There was a meeting of the Roman Catholic Church for people to learn about the practice of exorcism. The news stated that there were a decreasing amount of faith, especially in youth, which would most likely lead to idolatry. A priest by the name of Gabriel Amorth said he himself has done over 40,000 exorcisms! I mean, C'mon, are there really that many individuals who have just absolutely let themselves go in terms of being close to God? This story leads me wonder if this world is just going to crap! Have demons, devils, evil or whatever you may call it, taken over our world that much? I think it's time we step back and look at the things that cause all the hate and filth in our world and see that a lot has to do with the media and the laziness we have developed through new technology. I'm not saying that we should halt the progress of our civilization, but just analyze what went wrong when 10 year old kids started cursing out their elders or when some teenagers thought it was cool to smoke crack and rape some innocent girl. Our role models in our world need to go back to the simplicity of just plain goodness and do their responsibility of instilling those values in our generations to come. The media has allowed easy access for our young generations to see the hate and filthiness of our world, and telling them its funny or okay to do bad things, especially to others. Again, we need to look at the values that we used to have back in the "good, old days" and put them to practice...And turn off the television and the computer from time to time!

Archbishop of Canterbury against Euthanasia...

In some news I read online, the archbishop of Canterbury stated that he was against voluntary euthanasia while watching his mother's painful death from dimentia. He went on to justify that life is not just something we as humans can just throw away whenever we want because it's a gift from God.

I tend to disagree with his initial statement because ending the suffering of someone, especially a loved one is one of the reason we are all here right? I know that sounds like an opinion, but I think it's all in our nature as humans to lessen or eliminate the suffering of others because we want to release them from that suffering in order to put them in some sort of happiness. Isn't what he did, just watching his mother as she died, the same as seeing a person on fire, or a person blown in half lying on the floor and just watching them as they slowly and painfully die? According to some Christian teaching, didn't he just pretty much put her through a second purgatory? So she had to suffer before she died, and then she suffers again before being judged according to some Christian belief. I don't think it counts as throwing life away anymore when the person's life has already been taken from them. A person in a vegetative state doesn't have a life, a person who doesn't know who they are or where they are doesn't have a life, and a person who altogether faces an inevitable death through much suffering beforehand doesn't have a life anymore. Euthanasia just quickens their journey to death; not actually change their course of life to make it so they are going to die instead.

Catholic Church and abortion

Recently there was a synod of bishops for the Catholic Church (meeting of bishops from all over the world). An issue was raised about how they should go about setting the rules of supporting abortion or supporting politicians or famous people who support abortion. The working document declared that it was a sin for Catholics to support abortion in any way, even if you are for a particular person who happens to support abortion. You would be denied Communion by some priests if you did this and I disagree with this. Some bishops are upset that some are actually receiving Communion while supporting abortion!

This whole issue is apparently dividing the U.S. Catholic churches and anyone could see why. One side supports the personal decision of the woman and the other side says its immoral and goes against preserving life. But how could a working document change any of that split? Even if one was to be denied Communion in the Catholic church, they would either change their opinion, leave the Catholic denomination and still support abortion, or just simply continue to support abortion. I think the Catholic church needs to change some of their doctrines. Times are changing, and because of their strict ways, they are losing followers, becoming split, and are on a shortage of priests due to lack of diversity in their ranks.

Theravada Monks

In my reading I noticed that the Theravada Monks beg for food and the people that donate to them, do it willfully and generously. The lay people (the common folk) of the town believe that they receive beneficial karma in return by donating them food to eat. All in all, it is seen as a win win situation.

Why can't we have that kind of generosity here in America? We see preachers go around, like the Jehovah's Witness and people resent them. They pretty much turn away their presence instead of invite them into their homes. I think that it is the way that the preachers and evangelists go about spreading the message. Unlike the Theravada Monks, these preachers for the most part to most people do not share the same gentleness and wisdom. A lot of people just see another old preacher from the south forcing their religious ways upon them. I also think this has a lot to do with the fact that America allows free religion. Not everyone has to be Christian or accept it, but I still think our views of the religious role models here in America dim in comparison to the Theravada Monks in Asia nevertheless.

Sri Lanka

In the news, the Sri Lanka government has recently made Buddhism the official religion. Some Christian advocates in Sri Lanka are worried and Buddhists are happy about it. The ones that are against this amendment are worried because it breaches the freedom of religion amendment in that it requires that Buddhist parents are required to teach Buddhism to their children. I think that both sides have good points because Christianity has been introduced by foreigners and has been evangelistic in nature. Many of the Sri Lanka people have considered the Christianity in their country as sort of "forced" upon them, so I agree with them in this aspect. But what I don't like is that the Buddhist parents are required to teach Buddhism to their children, whether their children want to be Buddhists or not. This infringes on their freedom of religion amendment and this certain ruling should be left out of the amendment. The other religions, according to this amendment, are free to be practiced peacefully, so that's a good thing. All in all, the amendment can be passed, without that certain ruling of teaching Buddhism to your children and it's also good because it should lessen the anti-Christian violence in Sri Lanka.

Jennifer Aniston...

I was searching around in the news and I found something a little interesting. I read that the "Friends" star, Jennifer Aniston, is turning to Buddhism to cope with her split from Brad Pitt. She is apparently using it's teaching of compassion and nonviolence to, I guess, soothe her anger? Maybe she is just looking for some kind of guidance, but here's one thing i don't understand: Why doesn't she use the Bible instead? Is there some sort of rule for famous people to use non-Christian religions in order to look "cool" in front of everyone? This news of Jennifer Aniston has obviously led me to believe even moreso.(Gwen Stefani-Hinduism, Madonna-Judaism) I'm not saying that Christianity is any better than other religions, but it just seems like the fact that they use the other religions as a publicity stunt. I say this because the fact that Jennifer is turning to Buddhism was publicized in the first place. Isn't everything that's sort of trivial to the public that an actor/actress gets into almost always(99.3%) trivial and unhelpful to the general public? Oh, Paris Hilton just got her dog neutered today! Oh, Colin Farrell just got his wisdom teeth out yesterday! I think these sort of things can be left out of the news and that movie stars need to use what's helpful to them in their lives and not bandwagon onto something that seems "different" or "cool".