Finding Faith In Fickle Fortune

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/14/how-japans-religions-confront-tragedy/
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/opinion/columnists/110321/japan-tsunami-earthquake-culture
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/20/finding-faith-amid-disaster/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/16/6-other-calamities-blamed-on-divine-retribution/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/24/most-americans-think-god-is-in-control-for-better-or-worse/

I thought it’d be appropriate to wait a few weeks before talking on the events that rival the tsunami that hit India a few years back, which I only vaguely remember. The death toll and destruction are unprecedented, especially considering the historical destruction America wreaked on Japan in the final struggles of World War 2. While those attacks had military targets in mind, the earthquake and resulting tsunami had no such intentions as they progressed in a pattern that has no doubt gone on long before Japan was even widely populated. The earthquake was around a 9 on the Richter scale, one of the top 5 strongest earthquakes since that technology has existed. There are those that suggested this was a message from God, either explicitly or implicitly in terms of supposed end times prophecies or simply the proverbial Demiurge exacting its wrath upon impenitent unbelievers, even though Japan does have some Christian population. But that never stopped God before, did it? People have either blamed or even given credit to God for many disasters through history, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of Louisiana.

Before I rant on that touchy subject, I think it’s pertinent to contemplate how Japan in particular has been persisting in spite of the tens of thousands of lives lost and the wiping away of some villages off the prefectures. This is very much related to two major religious cultures in Japan: the native Shinto religion and Buddhism, transmitted from China. The Shinto tradition can be said to reinforce a communal mindset of the Japanese people as a country of individuals that are also a group. Also, there is an affirmation in Shinto of respecting nature, so in a sense, the Japanese aren’t completely bewildered by the earthquake or the tsunami, since Japan has been a historic site of earthquakes and tsunami. Buddhism is especially relevant to the mourning process still going on for many. Buddhism is said to be the funeral religion in Japan, while Shinto is involved with ritual festivals that occur at various points in life, such as births of children, New Years and cherry blossom viewings. Buddhist shrines will be visited in high numbers as people pay their respects to their family members. There is a strong sense of reverence for one’s ancestors and family, reinforced not only by Buddhism to an extent, but Shinto in another affirmation of the importance of family and the Confucian tradition as it spread to Japan, emphasizing the importance of relationships. One could say that Japan doesn’t consider the ontology of the catastrophes as important, since they are more than willing to admit that it is a purely natural phenomena, plate tectonics and subsequent effects on tides. There is not the concern of why God would do this, or even why the kami, natural spirits of Shinto, would cause this, since the kami are part of nature and so they are not so much inflicting any judgment so much as simply doing what is natural to them, causing great upheavals in nature as nature flows in its flux of increase and decrease, such as with the tectonic plates in the earth’s crust or the shifting of the tides of the ocean. The important thing for the Japanese is one’s response to the catastrophe. With Buddhism in particular there is an emphasis on the impermanence of all things, however constant they may be in the general sense. The acceptance in some sense that the people we love might not be here tomorrow, that we might lose our house, our belongings, are all part of a Buddhist perspective. And the Japanese have reportedly not even had instances of rioting, attesting to this strong influence of Buddhist teaching on transience in the face of great tragedy and suffering from natural disasters such as Japan has had on and off for years (in fact, at least one earthquake every year since 2004 by one record). While Americans might see this general mindset as somehow missing the point, it logically resonates with us, regardless of if we share the Japanese Buddhist faith in any sense or not. People were naturally compelled to send aid to Japan in one form or another, not because they were Buddhist or Christian, but because they were humans seeing fellow human beings suffering from something they had no control over. In this way, the last part of this article will confront the other positions on this, including one from a minority Japanese perspective.

The governor of Tokyo was reported to have said that the tsunami was punishment for Japan’s egoism, but quickly retracted and apologized for that statement. I, for one, don’t see how Japan has been egoistic in the last 60+ years since they suffered great defeat in the end of the 2nd World War at the hands of America’s atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For the most part, they’ve been relatively tame, from at least my perspective. China, North Korea and the like have been more aggressive towards their neighbors, particularly Taiwan and South Korea respectively. But enough about international politics; a survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found that about a third of Americans believe that God punishes people for the sins of their country, relevant of course to the recent natural calamity in Japan. The survey found that most people did not believe that natural disasters were either a sign from God or punishment/judgment from God of the sins of countries. Almost 40% believed that catastrophes were signs from God, while 29% believed that God sometimes punished countries with natural disasters. And this is a survey of America. Concerning white evangelicals, the poll found that over half of them believed both that God uses natural disasters for signs and for punishment, which is only reflective of a general problem many Christians find in that position, explaining why there is some drift from this extreme position in its varied forms. The poll found people were more than willing to believe God was in control of all things, but they were less than certain about ascribing responsibility to God for everything, such as floods, fires, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes or even something more human in nature, like terrorist attacks. At best, most Christians would either ascribe these to the sinful nature of the world we live in or Satan respectively (since Muslims could be demon possessed according to some Christians, I imagine). This kind of theodicy, explaining the suffering and evil in the world as it relates to an all powerful and benevolent God, is at least better in comparison to believing God actually consciously judges Japan as undeserving of its protection, as if Japan and many Asian countries haven’t been suffering earthquakes and tsunamis for decades and it’s less likely people gave God credit for those. When you start saying God is both in control of and responsible for every event, you start contradicting what I’ve understood to be a crucial part of Christian belief: that every human has freewill to choose good or evil. If you start saying, like the Westboro Baptist Church for the most heinous example, that God is just mad all the time at people for not doing everything the way it wants, then it may very well be affecting your general regard towards people as little more than pawns in a cosmic game of chess, to use a cliché trope. As much as people might be doing charity in the name of God, I would prefer if we started emphasizing that we do charity because we are humans, because we’d like people to do the same for us in return, as Jesus even spoke of in the Gospels. Until next time, Namaste, aloha and Ganbare (Don’t give up!) Japan.

Human or Superhuman Happiness?

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/07/why-religion-breeds-happiness-friends/
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/09/evangelical-author-philip-yancey-asks-what-good-is-god/

This week I have two seemingly disparate but related articles from Belief Blog. The first is what I found more compelling and could almost subsist on its own as a thought experiment on the survival of religion as a social cohesive: that is, something that enabled society to flourish, indirectly and some more directly connected to the phenomenon of an institution of sacrality. In short, the article expresses a thesis that has probably been around since Emile Durkheim in some form or another. His thesis was, and I paraphrase from rough memory, that religion was a way for people to feel accepted and part of an in-group. Of course, sociologists of religion are different from say, philosophers of religion, but the study is similar in investigating religion from an outsider’s perspective. But sociologists would study religion’s function instead of its substance, which might be more what
philosophers do in studying faith.

The study has two detailed points that show a connection of being religious with being happy. The first is the sense of community and having friends in one’s religion. This of course has a justified connection, but one can present various other examples of this kind of feeling of belonging in any activity that involve a group of people sharing a common interest. Even a group of Dungeons and Dragons players could be said to have that sense of happiness, but it wouldn’t be connected to a religious activity or community (though some would argue it is, but that’s another article). This connection seems only somewhat relevant when one can consider many other examples of communities that make people feel like they belong.

The second point is more concerned with religiosity and the identity it creates. The argument is that the particularly strong sense of distinction that religious beliefs and community give one are what make people happier. The fact that the person feels like they are part of something bigger is the first example that comes to mind, but just the ethical commandments enforced by the religion might suffice in making someone feel like they are part of something with a higher calling or makes a difference in the world. Again, one could suggest that there are equivalents, though not necessarily to the extent that religion colors more of a person’s worldview: political parties come to mind. But anything with an admirable goal behind it can be said to draw people in and create a sense of contentment and fulfillment, albeit there is always the argument that religion promises bigger rewards and brings people together in a more involved sense than simply voting and talking about the big issues of policy. The big danger, of course, with speaking about religious identity is distinguishing between a cult of personality and a cultus of worshipping the divine. The latter is permissible, even with philosophical disagreements being considered. Religious communities can be said to be the best motivation for many to actually act in charitable and compassionate ways. But it also seems disappointing that people need an institution’s approval or support to do things that others have done without any compulsion from outside themselves and their consideration of the other that suffers as they do. This leads in some sense to the other topic of interest that the second article speaks of.

Evangelical author, Philip Yancey, who was in a car wreck three years ago and nearly died because of complications from a neck injury, speaks in his new book about the relevance of belief in God in a world with such abject suffering and trepidation as exists across the globe, from famine to natural disasters to persecution of Christians in hostile countries, such as in the Middle East. The problem he points out is that there is a kind of distance religion seems to create between the believer and God. Christians in China, according to Yancey, pray not for God to take away the suffering, but to help them bear the suffering, since there isn’t as much hope in their minds for any kind of fix to the problems of persecution of Christians that exists in China. In some sense, Chinese Christians might be said to have a deeper relationship with God in affirming their dependence on God in some sense. From what I understand of the Christian faith, this is a pretty important affirmation, but is radical in consideration of what can be said to be radical individualism in Western thought. The idea of complete dependence scares us, so we have to alter our paradigm to allow for the notion of God encouraging independence in some way, even if they also believe in a doublethink way that they must be dependent on God for their salvation. With this in mind, Yancey references Alcoholics Anonymous and their more decisive claim that people have to admit they have failed in some areas of life and need the aid of others.

While I’d strongly disagree that we need God to help us with our problems of addiction and aversion, I can agree that we need to admit our failures and ask for the help of others in facing the troubles we encounter in daily life. In this way, perhaps religion has a benefit in drawing people together to aid their fellow human in their moments of suffering, to comfort them in loss, to rejoice with them in gain and to share some feeling of a similar road they’re all walking on. But one should approach religion with a mind of discernment and not a willingness to take any answer that presents itself as the solution to your problems. The idea of “faith seeking understanding” requires a complementary proverb that “discretion is the better part of valor” Until next time, Namaste and aloha.