The Futility of Dogma
I swear, this is not the Religion Blog, I’ll get back to regular programming shortly.
As I mentioned, I’m a Catholic, and I like a little levity with my religion, thank you. I think that many other religions take themselves too seriously (*COUGH*evangelicals*COUGH*), and they should realize that it’s OK to have your traditions, but be able to recognize the absolute absurdity of them, too. Take, for example, the tefellin (phylacteries) that Jewish men wear. The rules concerning making, wearing, and storing these things is incredible.
Detailed rules about how to construct a tefillin and how to wear it are found in the Talmud. According to tradition, the texts inserted into tefillin must be written in order, without any mistakes or corrections to the almost 1,600 characters. For the hand tefillin, all four passages must be inscribed on a single piece of parchment and placed in the leather container. The head tefillin requires four individual pieces, each placed in its own subcompartment. (Given the intricacies of their production, a pair of handmade tefillin can cost more than $500.)
The tefillin are tied in place with knots that represent Hebrew characters, according to a careful procedure. In general, the head tefillin gets strapped on such that the knot in back sits just above the nape of the neck. The leather strap from the hand tefillin (which sits atop the biceps of the nondominant arm) is wound thrice around the upper arm, seven times around the forearm, and then three more times around the middle finger.* Tefillin cannot be worn at night, in the bathroom, or while eating a meal. Boys aren’t allowed to wear tefillin until after their bar mitzvah; women can choose to wear them but rarely do.
Now this, people, is very funny. I don’t really think God - er, Jehovah/Adoni/HaShem - cares how many times the strap gets wrapped around a middle finger. This is very indicative of man’s need to create ritual and structure, which can be very beneficial in everyday life - as long as you don’t take it to extremes. Another great example of a ritual that’s gotten out of hand is Cat In Rabat’s excellent post (Oct 17th, “If I Were a God”) that mentions the ridiculous question of whether diabetics should be allowed to take insulin during Ramadan. Will we ever break free of this kind of behavior? I fear not.
November 25th, 2006 at 10:26 am
The ritual and religious is part of the human being, so if it persisted since human creation, which wasn’t yesterday, I don’t think we are ever going to break that today, or in the near future.
The tefellin story is astonishing, and I believe one should respect other’s beliefs eventhough they’re exagerated…
November 25th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
Conventional religions are steeped in ritual and dogma. There are (and more often WERE) reasons for these. You are no doubt aware of the ablutions (lwoudu) before prayer for muslims. This is not simply “washing”. I only use this as one example to add to yours…it exists across the board. There are so many reasons for these things, including preparing a certain state of mind or being before proceeding with the more important parts to follow. The problem is that it is easy to get bogged down in the ritual and dogma rather than to come from a more pure and perhaps honest place from within; this, perhaps, being the difference between religion and spirituality…or blindly following rather than believing and truely LIVING those beliefs without the notion of reward or punishment….
But as you say this is not the religion blog (hamdou’llah) -for one could go on forever.If only one could be free to chose for oneself and respect the choices of others-or is that too simplistic or not permissable? Yeah, EVERYTHING seems to be taken to extremes these days.
“You say you’re a Christian ’cause God made you
You say you’re a Muslim cause God made you
You say you’re a Hindu and the next man a Jew
And then we all kill each other cause God told us to?”
Asalaam aleikum
November 26th, 2006 at 12:35 am
Gaouri-Brilliantly said!
November 26th, 2006 at 12:45 am
Ahem, check this out: http://www.writtenonthecity.com/display.php?image=231&loc=14&type=&PHPSESSID=6483baa3ef157f1e0bc5df7297241051
November 26th, 2006 at 2:03 am
Thank you, Yahia and Gaouri (though I suspect you are not, in fact, a gaouri!) You both have excellent points.
And Maryam, I laughed out loud at your link - how true.
November 27th, 2006 at 6:27 am
On another note, I was wondering if you had read Diary of a Heretic? It’s linked on my blog - by an American writer. This blog is posting a serialized set of novel entries — the story is very interesting. The description on the blog says: portrays the rise and fall of a contemporary spiritual movement that blossoms suddenly, and briefly, around Malcolm Tully, the owner of a coffee shop/donut house across the street from a terminal of Chicago’s El tracks.
The blog link is http://www.diaryofaheretic.blogs.com/.
You have to click on a link in her sidebar to read the back up entries. Anyway, if you are interested do go by and take a peek and leave comments for her (She is a lovely person.).
November 27th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
I like it - it’s very eccentric, but quite witty.