Solitary Sex, Dr. Rebecca Alpert

Dr. Rebecca Alpert of Temple University discussed the practice of Solitary Sex in respect to the Judaic belief system. She urged the audience to reconsider the placement of solitary sex in the lives of the Jewish people. She traced solitary sex back to Onan who is mentioned in the Old Testament, the grandson of Jacob. So the story goes that Onan was obligated to have sexual relationships with his sister-in-law who never had children after the passing of his brother. In his refusal of doing so, he was punished. She went on to delineate the sanctions on women and the practice of solitary sex, stating that there were none! Women were allowed to “check” themselves. After the history lecture, Rebecca Alpert shed some light on why it is beneficial for the contemporary man to practice solitary sex: (1) it involves taking care of yourself emotionally and physically, you can explore the realms of your own desires… (2) you will be prepared for sexual activities with others and be comfortable in expressing your desires… (3) you’re doing it privately so its not really effecting anyone, but you! So .. Dr. Alpert would like you to reconsider the position of solitary sex in society today.

 

As long as you’re happy nothing else matters in the world…

“Amongst White Clouds” Film Documentary and Lecture by Ted Burger

Through his documentary film, Ted Burger explores the realms of monastic life in the Buddhist religion. Each monk is empowered with the potential to become a Buddha. The connection between the natural wold and a heightened spiritual life is made. Nature is deemed as the ultimate sacred space for the monks which is endless and with no boundaries except those imposed upon by man. Although, it could be seen that many of the monks along the path of spiritual enlightenment shifted in their views of what achieving spiritual enlghtenment really meant. A central notion advocated by the hermits is that “joy and suffering” are the same. The lives of the hermits question the relationship between man and nature and if it is reaching enlightenment which is important or the chosen path leading to it…

Symposium, “The Creation and Contestation of Sacred Space,” Saturday Feb. 9

At this symposium key issues revolving around the subject of the “sacred” were discussed. Sanctity was examined through a cultural, historical, religious, and political lens. Each lecturer shed light on the definition of the sacred relative to a specific group of people and highlighted contemporary issues questioning pivotal role of the sacred to society as a whole.

• Jodi Magnus: She discussed the sacred in a comparison between the ritual pure versus impurity. Here a timeline was provided highlighting the historical Judaic pure and its transformations paralleling societies architectural standards. She discussed the set up of community areas and the locations of litrines, drawing a distinction between the location of hte impure and hte meaning of it to the Judaic society. She compared hte Qumran Sectarians for whome excrement represented the impure and the Rabinic sect for whome excrement seemed to be of pure nature. She made sure to draw a line between ritual purity and cleanliness emphasizing the difference between the two.
• Maria Subtelny: This lecturer drew a parallel between the body of man and the body of the cosmos. Man was discussed as a being of sanctity in respect to Sufi Islamic traditions.  She used poetic verses from Rumi alongside verses from the Quran to explore the realms of the believers heart. The heart was the ultimate sacred space where the metaphorical Ka’bah was located. The Ka’bah being the most holy site to muslims, for Sufi’s the intentions within the heart of the believer are of ultimate importance.
• Zeff: Sacred Space in respect to Tibetan Mandala practices was discussed and portrayed. The various functions of the mandala such as: consecration of space, construction of sacred space, and were discussed both at a physical and metaphorical level. The sand mandala represents: (1) views of the divine figure, (2) a sacred enclosure, which marks off ritually pure space within which distractions cannot be found, and (3) provides a blueprint for the construction of buildings. As a map the mandala is a representation of a micrcosm. Here the mandala could represent the centre of the world, the axis mundi. At this center is the seat of the Buddha who is surrounded by his advisors in a heirarchical manner. As a sociopolitical map, the mandala is divided by the four cardinal directions whose symmetry in turn provides a map for the governemental heirarchy. The mandala not only stabilizes the metaphorical realm of the cosmos but also reflects stability and structure upon the physical world.

These three lecturers discusses three very distinct notions of sacred space. Jodi Magnus discusses sacred spaces in religious confines basing her discussion on the interactions of humans under religious sanctions. Maria Subtelny discusses sacred space within the religious believers heart paralleling the realm of the divine. Zeff discusses the creation of both a physical and a metaphorical sacred space and its mirroring upon the political heirarchy of the given state. All three of these lectures discuss the boundaries of physical and metaphorical sacred space through the lens of religion.

Contestation of Sacred Space

• Neil Keating: Dr. Keating discusses the contestation of sacred space held sacred to the indigenous people of Six Nations located in Ontario, Canada. He initiates by defining the term “foreclosure” based on religion and applying it to his argument. He questions why the given space is sacred to the indigenous communtiy… what makes it sacred to them … and if it is the history of crimes inflicted upon them what makes it sacred to them…? All of these notions are tied into one definitive idea which is that it is the land which is held sacred to them. The notion that sacred space can be found everywhere for the indigenous people.
• Dr. Asher: Dr. Asher discussed the idea of contested sacred space in India. She uses the Bodhgaya Mahabodi Temple, Babri Masjid, Taj Mahal and various other shrines to prove her point. In examining these sacred sites she examines the creation of a third sacred site which is created by a community. This cultural or communal sacred is the result of the intermingling of religions. Sacred shrines which are visited by Catholics, Hindus, and Muslims alike, the three dominant religions of India were the basis of her argument which highlighted the creation of the hybrid sacred space. Through this it was questioned as to whether or not a universal sacred could ever be established…

The contestation of sacred sites has been evident around the globe due to the proximity of clashing religious groups. These clashes rarely ever result in the acceptance of one anothers sacred sites, yet it has been done. Highlighting the common sacred sites promotes the lingering idea of a universal sacred advocated by Oleg Grabar. These ideas of the sacred will continue to be questioned by societies. Overall, each lecturer shared a definition of the sacred through the eyes of a different group of people. The “sacred” could be found in actions, emotions, the physical, and the metaphorical realms making each part of the universe sacred, although not universally sacred yet individually sacred.

Recently I attended a debate sponsored by the Classical Studies department on “Does God Exist?” The debate consisted of four student panelists — two atheists and two theists, with a scientist and a philosopher from each side. The debate was interesting and I was very impressed with the panelists, who handled themselves very well. However, I was struck by some important concerns I have about how talk of belief in God is structured in general.

First, I would like to say that I agree with a previous blogger that the debate was very Christian-centric. The two theists were Christians, and the arguments were almost exclusively geared towards proving or disproving the existence of a Christian God. (For the purposes of the debate, “God” was defined as an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent personal creator who interacts with creation.) Of course, especially for a two-hour debate, it made perfect sense for the panelists to stick to debating one specific definition of God - especially a definition that has received the most scholarship in Western academic history and in Western religious thought today. However, it might have been interesting to have an Islamic or Jewish perspective represented on the theistic side as well.

Second, I was disappointed to see that the debate seemed to slip into a debate over intelligent design vs. evolution to a large extent, as there is so much more to the debate over whether God exists. Furthermore, the debate is really one about science, not religion, especially because I do not think belief in evolution and belief in God as creator are incompatible.

Third, I was confused by the theist philosopher’s defense of the problem of evil. The atheist philosopher argued that if God is all powerful and all good, he would not allow evil (especially natural evil) to exist in the world; evil exists, and therefore God does not exist. The theist (forgive my rough outline of a more nuanced reply) responded by claiming that the atheist is unjustified in making a claim about “evil,” because doing so implies acceptance of an objective morality, which implies that there is a God who provides the basis of such a morality.

The debate then started centering on the question of whether one could have an objective morality without God. Although I am a Christian myself, I definitely disagreed with the theist philosopher’s broad point that objective morality cannot exist without God. There are scores of contemporary meta-ethicists who adhere to some form of moral naturalism and believe in objective morality while being atheists. Though certain moral problems (moral motivation, for example) are harder to deal with under a non-theistic view, there are many well-thought, fleshed-out, and plausible naturalistic moral theories - for example, “Cornell moral realist” theories of Nicholas Sturgeon, Richard Boyd, and others, or David Copp’s recent book titled Morality in a Natural World.

I think neither the theist nor the atheist side adequately pointed this out or responded to this in the debate. (Of course, that is likely because it was supposed to be a debate about the existence of God, not about moral naturalism per se, so the panelists were perhaps very understandably outside of their areas of expertise.)

Finally, and most importantly, I personally think such debates about the existence of God are at core misguided. At the end of the debate, the moderator asked the Christian panelists why they believe in God. They both cited the historical, scientific, anthropological, and sociological evidence they had been speaking about all evening. I was shocked that neither specifically mentioned subjective religious experience and faith.

Now, this could very well be because they were trying to engage with the atheists on their own terms. However, I think this is a mistake. Ultimately, religious belief is fundamentally different from other types of belief - it is a product not of strictly logical inquiry, but rather of faith that is given to us by God. This is not at all to say that we should not strive for a “faith seeking understanding,” to borrow Anselm’s phrase — I think believers of all sorts should critically analyze their views, and strive to maintain rational and logically coherent belief sets.

It is completely appropriate for believers to analyze their faith, or to engage in dialogue with other believers and with non-believers about their rational, historical, and scientific analyses of their beliefs. However, I think it is impossible and unwise to attempt either to conclusively prove God’s existence through such analysis. First and foremost, God is bigger than human understanding - it would seem odd to be able to prove or necessitate God’s existence through our limited understanding of the natural world.

Second, I think such a proof of God’s existence can never happen. An atheist will never be convinced by rational argument alone, because rational argument is not enough to possess religious belief — some aspect of faith or religious experience is required. This is especially apparent when the historical or scientific evidence being presented stems from holy scripture that the theist holds as truth-bearing when the atheist does not.

All that is needed to show this point to the theist is to present a Christian, for example, with logical arguments drawn from history and from Islamic scripture for the unity of Allah, the status of the Qu’ran as God’s revealed word, and Muhammad as God’s final prophet. The Christian will be unlikely to accept this as evidence for the truth of Islam, because her previous theoretical and religious commitments lead her to believe that the Islamic scriptures are not a sufficient source of evidence.

Clearly, the atheist will react to the Christian’s defense of God using the Bible in the same way. Similarly, no argument an atheist can level at a committed theist will convince her that God does not exist, for there will always be ways in which God is outside of human understanding, and the theist’s faith will help her accept and attempt to understand this.

God is such that God’s existence can neither be proven nor disproven. The strictly rational position is not that of the theist or the atheist but that of the agnostic. Going on logic alone, one should withhold belief, because there is no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that God does or does not exist.

The theist looks at the rational arguments, adds faith to the picture, and gets belief in God. Perhaps ironically, the atheist does essentially the same thing — looks at the evidence and through a kind of reverse-faith adds an ultimately unprovable conviction that God definitely does not exist.

I think debates such as the one I attended are interesting and important. I also think that people must keep in mind what the debates purport to do — whether the goal is simply to look at different sides of and arguments about an issue (which is feasible and productive), or to convince the opposite party that your side is right through a proof for or against God’s existence (which I believe is impossible and misguided.)

– Alida Liberman

I’m writing in response to some of my fellow blogger’s comments about Alpert’s lecture on Jewish Views of Solitary Sex. (First, my apologies for taking so long to respond with a comment about this talk!) I thought the talk itself was interesting, but what I actually found more interesting were some of the responses my classmates had to the lecture.

Many people commented on how the talk made them quite uncomfortable, especially since I think some of us did not know what the lecture was going to be about before it began. Masturbation is probably one of the most taboo topics one could lecture on — the lecture was likely entitled “solitary sex” because people feel so uncomfortable hearing or saying the word “masturbate.” I think I am unusually comfortable talking about issues relating to sexuality in both private and public settings (in large part because I participated in TCNJ’s production of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues this year), so I personally did not really feel uncomfortable at Alpert’s lecture. However, I could tell that other members of the audience did, and I could easily see why they felt so.

One particularly interesting issue were raised by one of my classmates. Another blogger wondered: if masturbation is private and solitary, why try to justify it? If no one knows and no one talks about it, does it even need to be justified?

This raises the question: what is the purpose of justification? Is it to provide a rationale for performing an action? If so, does it matter whether the rationale is public or private? Or is it a reasoning process that helps us decide what we ought to do?

I am inclined to think the latter — though justification is often used as an after-the-fact rationalization, ideally I think we justify actions in order to figure out why we committed them, whether we should have committed them, and whether we should commit them again in the future. It seems that the question raised by my classmate rests on the opposite view, and perhaps betrays an implicit idea that the role of justification is to gain public approval, or that there are different standards for private and public justification.

If we do not need to justify masturbation because it is private, what else might we not need try to justify? For example, is it acceptable to sexually fantasize about children or family members or sheep? Do we need to justify overdosing on alcohol or legal over-the-counter drugs in the privacy of our own home? The above are private acts that affect no one else - if justification is reserved for the public sphere, it seems we don’t need it for these cases. And finally, if masturbation were frequently spoken of and became a standard topic of public conversation, would we suddenly have to start justifying it?

(Of course, I am not at all trying to draw any kind of comparison between the questions I raised and the act of masturbation — such a comparison would be very inappropriate, for abusing drugs is clearly physically unhealthy in a way masturbation is not. Moreover, I wish to remain neutral as to the moral, social, or physical acceptability or unacceptability of the acts I mentioned as examples.)

Forgive me for perhaps approaching this too much like a philosopher, and possibly taking what was probably a casual comment by my classmate too seriously. However, I think the question raises an interesting independent issue about the role of justification that is relevant to many public and academic discussions of moral and religious issues.

– Alida Liberman

Please forgive me for this being a very long overdue post – I’m afraid I am posting about all of the particularly interesting or meaningful events and experiences I have had as a member of the Religion, Culture, and Identity Learning Community this semester very much after the fact. Better late than never, right?

Way back in February, I was lucky to witness the two Buddhist monks who came to campus creating a ritual sand mandala in the library. I went to lunch with the monks and had a conversation about religion and philosophy, and I was particularly struck by two things one of the monks told me.

When I told him that I am both a Christian and a philosopher, he asked me if I thought that, as a philosopher and a person of faith, I should blindly and dogmatically accept anything I was told about my religion or any philosophical theory I was presented with. I told him that no, of course not; doing so would be neither doing philosophy nor being true to the spirit of faithful inquiry into my own religious experience.

The monk agreed with me, but he took a step further and surprised me with his degree of epistemic humility. He told me that he believed in Buddhism and believed in science, but that if science presented him with a new belief that conflicted with his current religious belief, he would give up the conflicting religious belief and accept the scientific belief instead.

I admire his willingness to rethink his own ideas and his open-mindedness and humility. I wonder, though – is giving up religious belief because of conflicting scientific belief necessary or even allowable? Does it perhaps depend on which belief you are being required to give up. Though some might admire and respect a reflective religious person’s process of giving at least some precedence to science, many might see it as a sign of weakness or lack of religious conviction.

For example, I believe that God created the universe. I also believe in the big bang and in Darwinian evolution – but this is because I do not believe the book of Genesis should be read literally, and my belief in the creator therefore does not conflict with what science tells me about how creation happened.

I believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Science tells me that dead men cannot be resurrected or even resuscitated after three days – but I would never consider revising my religious belief in the face of this scientific evidence, for (Christian) religious phenomena seem in principle to be unbound by science. Of course, this example is not precise – the Buddhist monk was speaking of giving up religious beliefs because of new rather than existing scientific evidence, and scientific opinion has long been that dead people cannot come back to life.

Employing a brief “thought experiment” might make the example more relevant. I believe that God endowed humans with free will. Assume for argument’s sake (meaning that it does not matter that this proposal likely could never happen in reality) that scientists prove beyond a doubt that the entire universe is mechanistically determined, such that human action is never truly free – the physical laws of the universe determine everything that happens and thus that will happen, including the laws governing our brain chemistry that causes us to act in certain ways. In light of a conclusive proof for such a theory, it seems the Buddhist monk would give up belief in free will if he were me. I’m not convinced, and will continue to hold my religious conviction that God gave humans free choice – in spite of conclusive scientific evidence to the contrary.

By no means is this intended to be any kind of slight towards the Buddhist monk. I personally think it wiser to err on the side of being willing to critically examine and revise your beliefs in the face of new evidence than it is to dogmatically accept anything you are told. Moreover, I realize that Christianity and Buddhism are very different religions, and the necessary and sufficient conditions for belief in each are not at all the same. I am not familiar enough with Buddhism to make an informed statement about the appropriateness of giving up a Buddhist tenet because of science that contradicts it. Furthermore, I do not know enough about whether Buddhist beliefs are outside of science in the way Christian beliefs arguably are. However, I think the monk’s statement raises an interesting and relevant issue that is worth exploring further, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

– Alida Liberman

I recently viewed the third segement of the Arab Diaries documentary series.  Having studied Middle Eastern history and world religions, I was eager to gain a more personal understanding of Muslim culture.  This film allowed me an intimate look at how Muslims approach the topic of love and marriage.  The documentary followed the lives and experiences of several individuals expressing a variety of perspectives.  The documentary’s look at a variety of MIddle Eastern settings helped demonstrate the consistency of Muslim views from one nation to the next.  Ultimately, I found the views on interfaith marriage to be particularly interesting.  While the strict aversion to this practice in Muslim societies seems harsh, similar views are held by conservative members of other faiths.  In fact, I could somewhat relate to this issue.  The Rabbi at my current synagogue refuses to perform interfaith marriages, and my cousin was unable to be married by her Rabbi because her fiance was not of Jewish faith.   Overall, the film widened my appreciation for Muslim culture and left me with a sense of admiration for those individuals who must overcome the conflict between their faith and their personal desires.  I hope to have the opportunity to review the rest of the Arab Diaries series, and am particularly interested in seeing the final segment entitled Youth.

“Jewish Views of Solitary Sex” by Rebecca Alpert was a lecture that I recently attended.  Even though it was some time ago it’s still interesting to know about all the different ways that solitary sex or masturbation at was thought of by “proper” Judaic laws.  Rabbis had a large impact on the views of the matter throughout time.

            One of the interesting points that she had was made after I asked the question whether her support for solitary sex through the Jewish viewpoint contradicted ideas against adultery and coveting.  These views are considered sins to Christians as they were brought up by Jesus.  However they are sins only through thoughts.  She pointed out that Jews care less about thoughts about more about physical acts thus her ideas do not contradict the ideas brought up.  I still question the validity of this statement however I do notice that much Christian doctrine concentrates around thoughts and the sins that occur solely in the mind.  Are sins in Judaism only outside the mind or are they similar to those of Christianity?

 

I recently attended the campus debate on whether or not God exists.  Ultimately, the debate proved quite interesting and I was impressed with the level of knowledge the presenters possessed.  I also appreciated the structured nature of the debate, which allowed me to thoroughly assess both arguments.  The nondenominational nature of the debate also allowed me to be more thoroughly involved in the discussion.  As a Reformed Jew, I was concerned the debate would be too deeply seeded in Christian doctrine for me to involve myself in the discourse.

For me, the most interesting topic debated was the idea of ethics.  The essential question here is: If God exists, why does he allow bad things to happen?  From the Atheistic perspective, the presence of suffering inherently denies the presence of a deity.  However, the Theistic team argued that evil must exist if free will is to thrive.  If man cannot choose to do evil, then he is ultimately not free and would be a slave to his God.  To counter this point, the Atheistic team asked why God allows natural disasters to occur.  Since these are not man-made, they cannot affect free will.  The counter argument to this point intrigued me.  The Theists claimed that God might not ascribe to the same logical constraints as man.  This raised the question in my mind, how can we have an illogical God?

Many other questions were raised during the debate, and I was forced to rethink my own perspectives on the issue.  I have yet to come to a personal conclusions for many of the questions this debate induced.  However, I hope to continue evaluating these ideas in my personal studies.

On Tuesday, I viewed the acclaimed documentary series, The Arab Diaries, and obtained an interesting perspective on the intimate lives of people in the Arab world. Following several different people, the film explores the question of love in the face of strict religious tradition. For example, one of the people examined by the film was Marita, a mid-forties Lebanese woman who had met the love of her life when she was younger, during the Lebanese civil war. Marita says that their love for each other was strong, but there was just one problem: she was a Christian and he was a Muslim. Ultimately, they would be torn apart by their differences in a society that was not willing nor able to nurture an interfaith marriage. Similarly, the documentary looks at a modern young couple, Lama and Fouad, who have the same problem: she is a Muslim and he is a Christian. They wished to get married and their families were willing to accept that, however they kept urging the young couple to leave the country in order to do so. The couple stated how ridiculous it was that they had to go to such measures to move forward with their relationship but ultimately ended up leaving Lebanon for America.

The clearly shows how the traditions of our beliefs can influence, prevent, or even just contradict our natural feelings as human beings. The unfortunate situations cited above have been difficult on the parties involved but it just doesn’t seem warranted. Perhaps that’s my American, seperation of church and state up-bringing, but I just always felt that love and faith could be mutually exclusive if you wanted them to be. However, this belief is naive, as the Middle East, in many areas, is not prepared to give up on their traditions and the social taboo of interfaith marriage. It does seem tragic though…