The finish line

Religion and Politics

Americans want to learn about religion, it is a topic they are interested in above all else being covered in the media, well newspapers at least. Sadly though, as has been popular thought for a while, reader's are most dissatisfied with the type of coverage that the media is giving in regards to religion. One main issue they have with America is the mass amounts of coverage the Christian Right get, so what about the religious left?It seems like when an issue arises that involves people on that end of the spectrum, the story is turned around to make it seem like they are making radical, immoral decisions, such as Bill Clinton's support of homosexual rights. Another argument they made was that

"Meanwhile, Islam, with its emphasis on social justice and racial equality, has been caricatured as violent, irrational and bigoted."

Now I have a biased view on something like this, as I see the only reason there is positive coverage of Jews with Christians is because they have ulterior motives having to do with their savior. But I do agree that for the most part, Islam is considered as a bigoted and irrational people. My personal opinion is that for the most part, they are a passionate kind religious group, their portion of extremists tend to outnumber and outdo the extremists in any other religion. Along with the fact that they use violence as an everyday solution to problems. But in the end, the media does need to better itself when it comes to something so important as religion. Tensions are bad enough already and the media needs to get over its selfish greedy ways and stop making biased reports that pin one group against another. One day we'll learn, hopefully it won't be too late.

Another one bites the Dust

A reoccurring theme in my blogs have been that religion is the fuel for the fire we know as war. I was in my International Studies class today and we were talking about 16th and 17th century European history. The specific time period was 1618-1648, the 30 Years War. The one that lead to the treaty of Westphalia. Up until now I thought that war was stemmed from city-states constant struggle for boundary lines to their territories, and today I learned that it was actually the war fought between the Protestants and Catholics as they battled for religious supremacy in Europe. It was said that over a million people died in this war.



This just adds to the list of events that have transpired over the hundreds of civilized years in our world that stemmed from religious feuds and ruined the lives of millions and millions of families and friends. Back then it was between the Christians, now it is among the Muslims and Jews. This one seems even more unlikely to end anytime soon, and the amount of lives that will be affected are seemingly infinite. The two biggest powers besides religion that can control people and bring order are politics(governments) and the media, who have done an amazing job persuading public opinion. We'll see who learns first, or better yet, who cares first.

Perfect Fit

Good timing

The basis of this class is to reveal the role that the media and religion play in the field of politics in the United States; this article broadens the argument and gives some insight to how the world reacts to a similar concept. While the Muslims feel that the world is blaming religion for many of the major crisis going on today, they feel that it is actually the media that incites the majority of problems by trying to pin on religion against another in attempt to increase interest in their product. The pointed out many examples of times where the media immediately pointed their finger at a group after a serious crime, such as the Oklahoma City bombings, a crime committed by an anti-US militia group. Now, I see where these leaders are coming from, it doesn't take too much work to realize the media loves to spark tensions between people because it is the easiest way to expand viewership. The issue I have with this claim though, is that it is trying to eradicate blame from the religious aspect, an aspect that I feel truly has caused a majority of the world's biggest debacles. I do not think there will ever be a day when the media reports fairly, because it would just not be an interesting and eye-catching. But again, I do not feel it is the media to blame here. It is not their fault the so many people flock to this type of news like quarantine patients to their cure. Until the American public, and the rest of the world can lose their arousal with the out-of-the-ordinary and be more in tune with reality, the media will continue to dominant opinion and sway their audience with biased stories created to cause controversy.

Teddy Bear Trial

Another Waste of Time

Hard to get off a topic that is so easy to discuss. Another sad story of close-mindedness and hypocrisy fueled by ignorance and an innocent mistake. As Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown, phrased it, "common sense has prevailed." Now, if I were a Muslim hard-liner, this is a statement that would upset me more than the use of my prophet's name (also the most commonly used name in the world) to name a teddy bear for a class project. Though Brown's statement probably won't be taken out of context, in my eyes, he is claiming her release, against Muslim law, is logically the right thing to do. The other side of that pillow is that putting her in jail to begin with was illogical and irrational. Either way, the confusing thing for me are rules such as death by martyr can land a suicide bomber 70 virgins and honor to the family, but simply naming a teddy bear, in a elementary classroom can be "punished with up to 40 lashes, six months in prison and a fine." Really now? Not only do I not see the logic in this law, but I do not understand what kind of people could justify still enforcing it in today's time. Maybe I'm the ignorant one who doesn't understand how much pride and respect Islam has for their holy Prophet, or maybe I do not realize what true devotion. When it comes down to it, something like this should not cause this much outcry, it should not be headline news across the world, but because of the world-wide respect we have for a people destined to death, we have to deal with stupid situations like this.

Hypocrisy

I've been looking for something like this for a little while now. Good image to tell the story that I have been trying to tell, along with Rabbi Miller's point in showing us the Arabic cartoons. Hypocrisy dominates the world, it dominates religion, it dominates politics, and it dominates the media. It's every where, and it doesn't need to be. One of my biggest beefs with religion now-a-day is the lack of logic involved, especially when comparing one religion to another. If you are going to have belief in a higher being, and have belief in a specific story that has been past down for centuries, and there is no way to tangibly prove these stories to be true, then who are you to criticize the beliefs of another person who believes something different. Furthermore, who are you to use the rules and guidelines you follow to judge people by the same standards. This is why logic is more useless as a tool to judge and create laws and standards. The media needs to start equally representing the various religious views, and with similar bias to all of them. If one is going to be condemned and looked down upon, the others should be held to similar standards regardless of how many people are involved or what the big shots in politics believe.

Passed on Peace

Story


In the midst of talks about the Israel-Palestinian conflict in school, the Annapolis Peace convention created by George Bush was taking place trying to see is there was going to be in progress in the near future between the Israel and its bitter counterpart. Ehud Olmert not surprisingly denied the United States request to set a deadline for peace. Now, initial opinion on this may make Olmert seem pompous and arrogant to deny such an amiable request with several nations attending the conference, but a second look should help identify the reason why Olmert would be wary of such a promise. First off, the government in Gaza, Hamas, is not the most trustworthy entity in the world, nor have they kept any previous promises of ceases of violent attacks. Secondly, many citizens of Israel are sick of weakness and frailty in their government, who regularly give back prisoners and land in exchange for a false sense of peace and security. But, in attempts to show that Israel does want to make progress to Abbas, leader of the Gaza lead government, Olmert issued the release of 429 prisoners. If I were in this position, I would probably make the same move, you have to be crazy to think a deadline will be kept, especially with the history of both parties involved. But I do believe that it is necessary to show the other side that you are willing to comprise (even though many attempts are made every year. Either way, I do not believe one year is a reasonable deadline because I do not think that this generation will be able to solve the conflict.

Part II

So the next point I'd like to make is on the cartoons that Rabbi Miller showed us in class. Just wanted to comment on the irony of not only the Arab/Muslim people and their unjustified riots of political cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, but also the hypocrisy worldwide of people who thought it was offensive and inappropriate. It just goes to show just how much sympathy there is towards a certain group of people when ultimately there is little known about the subject as a whole. And the subject here is the constant conflict between Jews and Muslims. I think because of the ample financial support from America to Israel (the media plays a big role in this), the public perceives Israel to be a selfish people who just want more and more while the Palestinians are the underdogs who are left out. The reality is, per capita, Palestinians are the most financially aided group in the world. So it comes back to the cartoons, it is clear the Arabic world has a strong bias towards the Jews, and their radically uneducated population can understand pictures hundreds of times better than they can a story written in words. Are they excused then, are they given some leeway because this is the best they can do? Why is it that these newspapers aren't criticized world-wide when in essence, the government is harboring negativity, hatred, and ultimately violence as it is seen as defense to try and kill the Jews who otherwise would "steal their money" "eat their children" or "try and take over the world"? At the same time, when Israel defends itself from terror with strict racial profiling policies, they are seen as racist and prejudice. The world isn't fair, we all know that, but when lives are at stake and violence ends up as the only answer, fairness should be our primary concern.

Alan Dershowitz

Thursday night I went to the Alan Dershowtiz seminar at UCI. He discussed a topic prominent in not only my religion, my culture, and my family, but the world as a whole. His main idea was his argument for a 2-state solution in the Middle East, but the topic I'd like to focus on is his comments about Jimmy Carter's pseudo-humanitarian efforts in Israel occupied territories. He feels that Carter not only mis-prioritizes the regions that he spends his efforts on, considering the dyer circumstances in many nations in Africa as well as inhumane treatment of civilians on several Arabic countries. Carter believes that all of the problems in Gaza stem from poor Israeli policies and purposeful attempt of the Israeli people to keep the Palestinians down. This goes on with a long-line of traditional Muslim ideology that the Jews are trying to eliminate the helpless Palestinians. Now, Dershowitz claims that these accusations are not only incorrect, but assists in perpetuating the stereotype that Israel is the criminal in a undefendable scenario. Examples such as honor killings of women who have been raped in order to maintain the honor of the family, and greed by the leaders of the occupied territories like Yassar Arafat are true reasons for why these areas are still in dense poverty and are in no condition to emerge as a industrialized region. So the point I'd like to make is that if people like Jimmy Carter manipulate the media and emphasize all the critiques of Israel and completely negate all the positives and trials that Israel has had to go through, then it should come to no surprise that world-wide there is little support for a nation that 60 years later is still fighting for their existence.