The Tao of World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is a complex game in which we can see aspects of humanity and its nature. Ultimately this is an attempt to imitate the real world but with a touch of magic and mystery. So, we can start at the beginning of any player’s experience. Why would a person start playing and continue playing over the years? This is a very good game, which is very well developed and has a great amount of interesting details that make it special. I believe there is something deeper that continues to pull us in to this illusion. I am almost certain that because in this reality all the big questions are answered or are irrelevant, we can find at least an illusion of happiness in here. Not having to wander where we came from or why we are here makes life easier for us. “Give up earning and put an end to your troubles. Is there a difference between yes and no? Is there a difference between good and evil? Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense! Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox.” (p.22) I believe this quote has two parts. In the first one we see how through learning we might get to know great things but as well we discover a great amount of trouble. The second part has to do with the questions that humanity has asked itself all the time. Living in the hands of the gods we continue to think of that but it’s just not relevant there are other more important things to think of or to worry about. It is in the simplicity of the leaver life style in which happiness is found. That is partially what the game is trying to recreate. Although it is not entirely leaver because we have forgotten how to be such, it is the closest thing we can get to through our life style.

There is another point in World of Warcraft and it is through the bosses and what each requires. “Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations”.  (p.3) Here, we see that if we want to understand the Tao one must not want to see it but by wanting to see it one can at least watch the physical manifestations. Taking it to a more general idea, desire to have or understand something can be the only real obstacle to reach our goal. In many cases we can see this way of thought. In the game “Go!” We explored this concept but it is also seen clearly in World of Warcraft especially in the end-game bosses. Supremus for example will start running after someone at random and everyone has to stop hitting him and run away from him so that he won’t kill you. In a certain way one must be desireless in order to master this boss because if you are completely controlled by it you would be unable to stop doing damage and would die in the process making it harder for the rest of the group. Another example of this would be High Warlord Naj'entus who after some time covers himself in a water bubble and one must explode it hitting everyone in the group very hard. He also Pins people to the floor randomly incapacitating them and doing damage over time. In this case one must be desireless because a damage dealer (like myself) not only has damage but take the spines out of people and warn the healers before continuing to do damage. (One must “pop” the bubble in order to continue.) This proves that with all of the action occurring around you one must continue calm and be able to analyze the situation in an objective way because by helping the group first you are helping yourself but by helping yourself alone you will accomplish nothing. We can see a similar concept in the Tao here: “Who can wait quietly while the mud settles? Who can remain still until the moment of action? Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfillment. Not seeking fulfillment, they are not swayed by desire for change. ” After reading these two boss fights you can see that we are acting as if we weren’t seeking fulfillment for we don’t allow desire take over us but ultimately we are trying to get better armor and be admired for it with in the player community. So here we see a contradicting way of acting which obeys and disobeys the Tao at the same time. Although thanks to this, we are able to see a different part of the human being, because we see how we attempt to be desireless, yet we fail because all of that we do due to desire. If this were to be so then we are unable to achieve happiness for we are unable to see the mystery and understand some of it. I think this is part of why so many people live unhappy lives, because of this contradiction.

The World of Warcraft is divided in to three factions. The first one the Alliance composed by Humans, Dwarves, Night elves and Dranei. The Horde made up by Orcs, Tauren, The Undead and the Blood Elves. Finally the wilderness I would say which is basically anything that doesn’t belong to those two factions and is their enemy.  The Horde and the Alliance are enemies to each other. Although there are some situations in which evil and good are clear when it come to the Horde and the Alliance, there is no real good or evil. The problem I think goes beyond this game. We only see things through their opposite: “Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil”. Sometimes, both sides have good and evil. There are battles in which we can’t really see that border where good and evil are divided. Today’s civilization forces you to decide between sides in which there are no goods or evils. This makes us unhappy and uncomfortable, for sometimes, we are in situations where choices are beyond our capability of calculation. But what does the Tao Tell us? To not worry about, it to avoid such situations and to attempt to obtain happiness through other methods through which you don’t have to question yourself in things that only the gods can answer.  “Give up earning and put an end to your troubles. Is there a difference between yes and no? Is there a difference between good and evil? Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense! Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox”. (p.22)

In this game one can see that time doesn’t erase memories, and although (according to the story)thousands of years have passed after the creation of the world, or Azeroth in this case, people still remember how it was created and all the questions are answered in a clear way. What is most impressive is that immortality is something touched by this. Not in the way Gilgamesh was able to live for such a long time but rather the actual body and soul who were able to live for an eternity. The well of eternity was the source of their immortality and in the end they were the ones who destroyed it. This can be seen as a way to prove that all that is born must die and because the Night elves were born they must die. “Heaven and Earth last forever. Why do heaven and earth last forever? Because they are unborn”. (p.9) although this is completely fictional it represents the mortality that all living things have. It also shows us that although this has happened a lot of time ago it is still remembered and it appears as if the almighty time weren’t slowly consuming their memories like I said before and like it is told in the Tao. “To talk little is natural. High winds do not last all morning. Heavy rain does not last all day. Why is this? Heaven and Earth! If heaven and earth cannot make things eternal, how is it possible for man?”. (p.25) Also it is taken for granted that everything will be forgotten even the Tao: “When the great Tao is forgotten, kindness and morality will arise”. I believe this is another reason for why this game has caught so many players. It makes it seem as if time never passed and you are able to relive similar experiences on very similar conditions as the first time you went through the (I make it clear that it is impossible to live the same experience twice but in the game one can restart and through this, attempt to go back in time.) experience. Most importantly if the smallest details of creations are remembered in such way why it is not possible for them to remember you. This sensation which takes away the anguish of being forgotten helps you enjoy the moment more and want to continue playing to get this feeling.

Finally there are also examples in the game of how too much of anything even a good thing can harm us. An example of this would be when the Night Elves began to wonder and study the Well of Eternity. They became corrupted by its energies and by the Evil Titan Sargeras. Because of this they became evil and although they were able to find their path once again they had lost their precious immortality.  Here we see the moment where Sargeras decided to attack Azeroth and due to his almost limitless power was able to greatly harm the world. “The Highborne's reckless use of magic sent ripples of energy spiraling out from the Well of Eternity and into the Great Dark Beyond. The streaming ripples of energy were felt by terrible alien minds. Sargeras - the Great Enemy of all life, the Destroyer of Worlds - felt the potent ripples and was drawn to their distant point of origin. Spying the primordial world of Azeroth and sensing the limitless energies of the Well of Eternity, Sargeras was consumed by an insatiable hunger. The great dark god of the Nameless Void resolved to destroy the fledgling world and claim its energies as his own.” (War of the Ancients) We can see how too much of anything can harm us in the Tao here: “The Five colors blind the eye. The five tones deafen the ear. The five flavors dull the taste. Racing and hunting madden the mind. Precious things lead one astray”. (p.14) We might not call a demon by our reckless use of Magic but we can see similar things happening all the time. Excess of power leads to dictatorships like Cuba, too much food leads to obesity and similar things.

In the end we can see that the Tao applies to a great amount of situations in Warcraft but what does this mean for real life? World of Warcraft can be seen as a reflection of real life, a place where we can have fun and adventures without the worries that a taker life comes with. It is an illusion of how we wish the world to be but at an even deeper level we can see the way we are and our mistakes although unable to see them we put them in a visualization of an idealistic world.

For more understanding on Boss Fights see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbBH0RaSgOI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vFMl5ftQ-8

The Story of World of Warcraft can be found

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/story/chapter1.html

Go...

The purpose of this game is to capture all of the enemy's pebbles. To do this youmust surround them until they can't escape. You eventually win until there is no more space on the board or there are no more white pebbles. The relacionship with Tao and this is that in order to win you have to attack with out attacking. You can't go directly and atempt to take them because you will most likely lieave oportunities for them to take your pebbles. On the contrary in order to win you must surround them and when there is no more space for them to escape you must attack. It requires patience and analisis. One must know which are the most importat places that the oponent has and take them before he does. If you don't do this it is likely he will take those key spots and win due to this. There is also a very interesting aspect of the game is that there are certian positions in which one moves leads to a next move which leads to the one bofore. This is calles KO or eternity. This moves are illegal but I find it interesting that there is such such complexity in a game that it can represent eternity.

Count and Noncount Nouns Exercises

Quantity Terms with Count and Noncount Nouns: Exercises
In the following sentences, substitute one of these expressions for the underlined words:

little
quite a little or quite a bit of
few
quite a few
To clarify, little means "not much," but quite a little (or quite a bit of) means "a rather large amount." Few means "not many," but quite a few means "a rather large number."

1 Quite a few students have trouble with economics
2. It requires a quite a little of reading.
3. Few advisors spend as much time with their students.
4. He has little hope of passing his exams.
5. George's advisor spends quite a bit of time with him.
6. He does know few people in the class.
7. Bill does spend little money on clothes.
8. She spends quite a bit of money on CDs.
9. He does have few suits.
10. He does understand little of the reading.

Count and Noncount Nouns Exercises

Count and Noncount Nouns
Exercise 1
Are the following nouns count or noncount? Put an N next to the noncount nouns and a C next to the count nouns. If the noun can be either noncount or count depending on the context, put a D next to it.

world C
textbook C
acid C
smoking N
poetry D
applause N
thought D
banana C
conduct D
progress N
biology N
essay D
crystal C
shopping N


Exercise 2
Put an X next to the words in the following list that can be used as either count or noncount nouns, depending on the context.

defense X
beauty
garbage X
experience X
baggage
rain
rug
nature X
bag
emotion X


Exercise 3
Fill in the blank with the form of the noun in parentheses that is appropriate to the grammatical context of the sentence and the meaning of the passage as a whole.

Diabetes: Beyond the Basics
Because diabetes can cause devastating damage to virtually all body systems people with diabetes should not underrate the seriousness of their disease. Learning to live with a chronic illness such as diabetes must be an ongoing process.

The Hospital's Center for Family Life Education is sponsoring a five-part educational series on diabetes. The series will begin on April 30 and continue through May 29. The programs will be held in the second floor classroom of the Education Center from 7-9 p.m.

The diabetes series is free and open to the public and will be of specific interest to people who have diabetes and their families and friends.

Exercise 4
On the basis of the rules for using articles discussed in the OWL file "Count and Noncount Nouns," which combinations of words below are permitted and which ones aren't? Put an X next to the incorrect combinations.

a table
these person x
this furniture
that assignment
a boy
the poetry
a difficulty
a research
this eggs
those argument x


Exercise 5
Fill in the blanks with the appropriate article if one is needed.

The Computer Jungle
Though you can make a decision on purely economic grounds, buying a computer is often more like joining a religious cult. Buy an Apple, for example, and almost by default you join Apple chairman Steve Jobs in his crusade against IBM. Every machine has its "users' groups" and a band of loyal enthusiasts who tout its merits. That makes it all more difficult for an uninitiated to decide what machine to buy. Students have a huge advantage, however. The computer companies are so eager for students' business (it builds "brand loyalty") that many offer huge discounts.

In the past six months, IBM, Apple, and others have brought out new computers, and a fierce competition has forced prices down. Also, time is on your side: next year at the time you'll have even more choice and more computing power and features for the same price. On the other hand, this will probably be true for many years. So for those who need or want a computer now, it's a great time to buy one.

Man and Eternity

In Tao we see eternity touched several times. Heaven and Earth to him are eternal. Yet he looks at man in a humbling way. We are always seeking eternity yet we can’t even begin to comprehend it, the words in our language can’t begin to describe its immensity. Even heaven and earth which are so great and supposedly eternal can’t reproduce it. “High winds do not last all morning – Heavy rain does not last all day. Why is this? Heaven and earth! If heaven and earth cannot make things eternal, how is it possible for man?” (p.25)We are in a constant search for self-preservation. We are willing to sacrifice anything for this and it is almost an unstoppable instinctive force. Even Gilgamesh’s story for the search of eternity which has lasted for so long will one day fade as everything else. Time passes and it consumes all no matter what it was made of, for what purpose or who wrote it. Even the great tale of Gilgamesh will one day be forgotten.
There is yet another meaning to this phrase. “High winds do not last all morning. Heavy rain does not last all day.” Although as a whole it is making reference to the fact that nothing is eternal but heaven and earth. (And nothing we make can ever be eternal) It can also have a side meaning. High winds and Heavy rains have been always a representation of bad times. Maybe he also wanted to make people see that evil and rough times do not last forever even though they might seem to do so, anything created by man can’t be eternal. In a way it was a method to calm people. “The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies, by weakening ambitions and strengthening bones.” (p.7) maybe this part of what he wanted to achieve with this. Not just “filling bellies” but preparing for the bad times when maybe there wouldn’t be enough food to do this. He looks like a very skilled person in handling people and has the potential of being a leader since he sees how to manage a state.

Man and Eternity

In Tao we see eternity touched several times. Heaven and Earth to him are eternal. Yet he looks at man in a humbling way. We are always seeking eternity yet we can’t even begin to comprehend it, the words in our language can’t begin to describe its immensity. Even heaven and earth which are so great and supposedly eternal can’t reproduce it. “High winds do not last all morning – Heavy rain does not last all day. Why is this? Heaven and earth! If heaven and earth cannot make things eternal, how is it possible for man?” (p.25)We are in a constant search for self-preservation. We are willing to sacrifice anything for this and it is almost an unstoppable instinctive force. Even Gilgamesh’s story for the search of eternity which has lasted for so long will one day fade as everything else. Time passes and it consumes all no matter what it was made of, for what purpose or who wrote it. Even the great tale of Gilgamesh will one day be forgotten.
There is yet another meaning to this phrase. “High winds do not last all morning. Heavy rain does not last all day.” Although as a whole it is making reference to the fact that nothing is eternal but heaven and earth. (And nothing we make can ever be eternal) It can also have a side meaning. High winds and Heavy rains have been always a representation of bad times. Maybe he also wanted to make people see that evil and rough times do not last forever even though they might seem to do so, anything created by man can’t be eternal. In a way it was a method to calm people. “The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies, by weakening ambitions and strengthening bones.” (p.7) maybe this part of what he wanted to achieve with this. Not just “filling bellies” but preparing for the bad times when maybe there wouldn’t be enough food to do this. He looks like a very skilled person in handling people and has the potential of being a leader since he sees how to manage a state.

How Blind Are We?

In Tao we see he speaks about balance. Most of this balance can be found in simplicity for it makes it easy for us to see the line between what is or isn’t balanced. Part of this balance I believe is on the excess of something. Too much of something good can harm us. “The five colors blind the eye. The five tones deafen the ear. The five flavors dull the taste.” (p.14). Our society, I believe, overwhelms the senses and completely blinds and deafens us. Media is one of the greatest factors in this which finally only works for us to be distracted from the greater problems and to be unable us to achieve true happiness.
There is another way I can see this. There is a great deal of suffering and pain in Colombia. FARC with the Kidnappings and the general insecurity would be something that would shock someone from the United States where even a robbery is something rare. To us this is part of daily life, we became accustomed to it and have grown numb. We can hardly feel the fear or anything from this until we have to face it directly. Here we forget the taste of fear and suffering but in other countries more peaceful and developed they have forgotten the taste of peace and happiness. In most of the times we can only see one thing through its opposite. “Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil.” (p.4)

Comments

Confucius Understanding by Nicolas Zuleta
I agree with the fact that knowledge is there but people need to find it. Also that everyone is different and their needs are different so imposing a general rule for everyone on anything can harm us greatly.
Who Judges My Goodness by Jose Maria Linares
I agree that no one can judge whether we are good or bad. God will judge us when the time comes but here I am sure that we know deep inside what is good and what is wrong. We know what we should do. Whether we are good or bad is hard because we make mistakes and take the wrong path sometimes. It is one of the things that each one of us has to define about ourselves.
Try Things the Hard Way by Ethan Metzler
I believe that although it’s true our society has given us an image of goodness and of wealth that practically leaves the values and morals behind not all technology is bad. Maybe it is true that due to technology we have become lazy and have lost a great deal of simplicity in our lives. It is up toyou to decide whether what you are doing I abusing of the technology given to you. Sometimes it can really help us do great things. Doing things the hard way may not always be the right way or the best way. It should be up to each person to judge whether they are abusing of their benefits or not. I think that Confucius tried to say to find a simpler way and one in which you didn’t have to hurt other in order to obtain happiness. Because many times happiness is in the simple things which with society the way it is right now can blind us and make us loose our direction.

A Life Style

The Analects are a complex set of rules and ideas that not only represent a way of idealistic thought but a lifestyle. It covers a great amount of aspects that must be taking in to count when ruling. We see that he mentions how to rule a state here: “One governs a state by means of ritual.” (p.33) it includes mostly everything to create a perfect society in which everyone was treated equally (according to their needs) and had their own job which was to follow the Confucian way and in this way help society be a better place. This might sound idealistic but it makes it clear that people aren’t perfect or equal and that there are special circumstances in which people do need different things. We see this here: “The Master said, “Ran Qiu is overly cautious and so I wished to urge him on. Zilu on the other hand, is too impetuous, and so I sought to hold him back.” He treated them differently for their needs were different but always with the same spirit and intentions of doing good to people. This is what I believe a state must also have according to Confucius. Although he doesn’t say this in an obvious way he makes it clear through his actions.
Confucius was a wise man and he helped us see a way of living that was possible and in which everyone aspired to perfection but unlike today’s society no one had to go down for another to go up. Instead we find that wealth is in the spirit and true goodness. Also that instead of doing like today’s society he proposed that everyone raised and helped each other do so in order to reach happiness as a group. This book isn’t just for personal good but a manual that all most follow in order to create a utopia. Sadly his voice was lost not because it wasn’t good but because people didn’t understand. “The master said, “The common people can be made to follow it but they cannot be made to understand it.”” (p.23 8.9)

Course Correction

The quote I used for my first blog entry on analects 7, 8, and 11 was this one: “I once engaged in thought for an entire day without eating and an entire night with outs sleeping, but it did no good. It would have been better for me to have spent that time learning.” (p.45) After seeing those examples on the board about correct textual interpretation I saw that in this case my interpretation might not have had any real connection with what the except meant.
After rereading I was able to extract what I believed was the true meaning of the phrase. Although it does include learning as a major thing, the way I expressed my interpretation in the previous blog failed to show the essence of the meaning. Right now I think that Confucius makes reference to the fact that a great deal of the knowledge and wisdom we need to find in life isn’t easy to find and sometimes we need something out side of us to find it. Thought, although useful for many things, can be insufficient for the purpose of learning at some point. We need other things outside of thought in order to stimulate it in order to explore new things, new ideas, and be able to see things from a different perspective.
Thought is not something useless but because it is based on the previous experiences it can be unreliable when it comes to learning. Although it is necessary for such thing attempting to learn only by thought can be fruitless. The Confucian way asks us to reason and to think beyond. To do so one must open their eyes to appreciate the full picture and not just the part we have already seen.

Excercises

What We Learn

Here we see Confucius talking about learning. This is truly, the most important thing to him. The reason for this is that there will always be something new to learn and even when we discover something new, to learn is still more important because what you discover will only be a small part of that huge universal knowledge. Like showed here “The master said “I once engaged in thought for an entire day without eating and an entire night with outs sleeping, but it did no good. It would have been better for me to have spent that time learning.” (p.45)

 

I believe this is one of the most important part of a Confucian life style. I say this because there is always something new to learn and since all the other things we create on earth are forgotten, what truly matters is the things we learn here. Although through our life we are able to learn very little compared tom all the knowledge and wisdom there is to know it is important to know that even we have limits and that we will only be able to learn so much. Whatsoever, the experience gained, the more important it is, we are to remember it and that knowledge is the only thing we are likely to be able to remember after death.

 

Why is death so important when it comes to all of this? Simple, we are used to the idea that death is the end of the road and that all that we can expect on the other side is nothing for we will be unable to even take the memories of what we had here. Someday we will be able to learn a better way from what we are doing which is causing suffering not only to us but to thing. We destroy nature, our only life support system. We kill ourselves and we continue to do so knowingly. The only power great enough to stop us is death.  

Where Can We Find Joy?

In Confucius we see that there is a lot of talking about where to find Joy. In the end this all adds up to a single thing, simplicity. Confucius insists that when one is wealthy and with a lot of power don’t necessarily are the happiest. But being poor doesn’t make you happy either. It is having virtues and being good what helps you find happiness in life. “The Master said, “The gentleman is self possessed and relaxed, while the petty man is perpetually full of worry.”” (p.22)

Today we are very stressed people because we have complicated our lives to such point it is inevitable. We reach such state of worry that we even have health issues derived from this. But why do we keep fighting for this? Why do we keep living a life style, with enough worry and stress to kill us? I believe we keep on going because society continually tells us that at the end of the road we will find happiness even though the trip there will be tough.

Confucius on the other hand tells us that we should enjoy the trip. How do we do this? Well we keep it simple and through this we can find joy. With this simplicity we will find happiness even in the most common of things. This was said through an anecdote here, “Zengxi the said, “In the third month of Spring, once the Spring garments have been completed, I should like to assemble a company of five or six young men and six or seven boys to go bathe in the Yi River and enjoy the breeze upon the Rain Dance Altar, and then return singing to the Master’s house.” (p.33)

Here, unlike the rest who left right after that, he stayed and continues to talk to “The Master”. He was the one who deserved to know what he thought. It was clear that it was through this aspiration that he acquired his approval. Also, his dream was the simplest of all, for he desired neither power nor land but simply to enjoy life.

Finally, through this teaching apparently they mention nature but as something given to them that would never end. Today this is disappearing faster and most likely rivers in which to bathe like this are polluted. It is always with the help with nature and the peace provided by it that we can find true joy and good within ourselves. If we destroy it and all that remains are cities of cement and clouds of pollution then where will we find peace? Where will we find Joy?   

A Profit Based Society

In Confucius we see a wide variety of teachings that although written an era ago are still applicable today. A very interesting thing about the teachings are the fact they are concise using the language as a mean to communicate the true meaning without any of the elegance that King James’s Bible Has. Although this certainly is influenced by the translation I believe the meaning of what is said truly affects the way it was translated. Confucius really wanted his teachings to be simple yet very meaningful while at many points the bible can turn out to be complicated.

There was a teaching which I believe is very important and it shows how rejected the Confucian way is rejected in western society. “The master said, “The gentleman understands rightness, whereas the petty person understands profit.” (p.12) Here we see that we don’t really listen to this wise voice for everywhere we go we see profit being what rule’s us and not the more spiritual and mental growth that is proposed by the Confucius here. This constant search for a greater profit has made us all small in spirit and due to this we are weak. Because we no longer seek to better ourselves but rather see greater profit we no longer develop in a spiritual way.

This constant fight for a great profit is always bloody and in many cases people are left at a bad situation in order to allow others o have wealth. Confucius opinion about this is clear, “The Master said, “Wealth and Social eminence are things that all people desire, and yet unless they are acquired in the proper way I will o abide tem. Poverty and disgrace are things that all people hate, and yet unless they are avoided in the proper way I will not despise them.” (p.10) this I believe is very important and apparently we, as the human kind, have forgotten this. We are desperate to avoid poverty and achieve Wealth but what we don’t measure is the consequences left behind our path to this status. We leave wounded who will never recover and although it might not take lives it will submerge other in poverty. It is rare to see others acquire wealth in a proper way for society makes us fight against each other in order to achieve anything. An example of this could be, when you are trying to find a University, you must be the best in order to get in to a good one for only the best are admitted in to such. In some cases only those with money can obtain education but the main idea here is that we must compete to survive.

To compete isn’t necessarily something bad but what we have done to it, and taking it to such limits in which such competition is constant goes against The Way. I am not against competition but the fact we take it to such savage way in which other people get hurt ends up doing more damage than what it actually helps.

Maybe we should listen to these ancient texts for they are telling us important things and after all the civilization that was guided through these texts lasted longer than we have. Is this book the only way? Is the society we are following bad? Or could this be an alternative?

Obama’s Acceptance Speech: Rhetorical Analysis

In the acceptance speech Rhetoric was seen everywhere. Here it was used to make those who saw it see that he didn’t only win but he did so with humility. Also here, we see that he tries to make people feel confident about his future presidency.  An example of his attempt to make his victory humble was when he mentioned that McCain had been a great person for the U.S and that he had done great sacrifices for his country that we could only begin to imagine. This made McCain look a good person but overall he was trying to accept the effort made by the opposing team. Also, Obama made people see that his government would be trustworthy by including all the different groups that exist in America at the moment.  Finally he used Pathos by mentioning his grandmother.

When it comes o Gestures Obama has very little facial expressions when he does it is to emphasize on some point. Although, this last one, is more directed to the movement of his hands more than anything else. He moves around a little but nothing too noticeable.

Night and Job

In the Novel Night we see similar themes to those that the book of Job showed. God as the Bible present’s him was against all of those who weren’t with him.  If you didn’t believe in God it was only a matter of time that you were smote. Job also questions the Judgment and the Justice of the Lord when he allowed Satan to do evil on to Job using the hand of God. We also see that Job was silent all during his punishments and accepted them with passivity.

How does this reflect in the novel? Well it’s simple because Job could be the Jews and God could be Hitler. The Jews accepted all that happened to them with passivity and they went in to the oven almost without questioning or any sort of revolt. They questioned the Judgment of the Lord for they didn’t understand why was it that God would punish them in such a horrible way without them doing anything. They didn’t understand why God remained silent after seeing that his people were being killed by the German and that apparently no one cared. Finally you can say Hitler decided to play God with everyone. He decided which people could live and who could die. He decided how they would die and he thought that was good. He believed to know what was good and evil.

Finally I would like to say that the fact Jews didn’t Question the existence of God like Job was very interesting. Because while seeing such silence in a supposedly good being makes it a real challenge to believe in him. Specially because in the bible there have always been some sort of divine interventions. Never has God stayed silent in a war or in any place where a great deal of people were killed. This was a moment where faith was truly put to test and like Job they were able to pass it but at a Huge cost.

The Irrefutable Truth

In this last part of Job we see that although he accepts the as a human he truly knows nothing compared to God, accepts that the only thing he truly knows is that God is there. This is blind faith and although it can be good sometimes it can make it impossible for us to see the truth.

God make it clear that those who don’t believe in him will suffer but those who believe in him get rewarded like Job did. So in the end it might not truly be God we end up believe in him but take this faith as some sort of security that such bad things will happen to us. God tried to prove to us that he was all knowing and Job accepted this and continued to believe in him. The fact that he is all knowing makes his judgment unquestionable and in a certain way this makes the Bible unquestionable for it’s the word of God and therefore, it has to be true.

With the previous examples of the punishments that god gave to those that didn’t believe in him we find it impossible to those who heard about this religion not to join or at least not to leave it. Simply because eternal suffering was all that waited for them.

It was an aggressive religion but also it was similar to the Greeks in the sense that the Gods seemed more human than supernatural and that they punished all those that were against them. There wasn’t the message believed in me or die but those who didn’t respect the gods would suffer greatly.

Finally I would like to say that today is it possible to believe in something that bases itself on fear, almost like terrorism? Could Hitler be following this in the sense that those who didn’t believe in what he did and those who weren’t like him had to be exterminated? (Like the Philistines were constantly killed by the “armies of the living God”) 

Fallacies in Presidential Debates

1.       Straw Man Argument: “And I believe this is a final verdict on the failed economic policies of the last eight years, strongly promoted by President Bush and supported by Sen. McCain, that essentially said that we should strip away regulations, consumer protections, let the market run wild, and prosperity would rain down on all of us.”

2.       Red Herring: Now, I have a plan to fix this problem and it has got to do with energy independence. We've got to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't want us very -- like us very much.

3.       Begging the Question : But the point is it's going to have to be somebody who inspires trust and confidence. Because the problem in America today to a large extent, Tom, is that we don't have trust and confidence in our institutions because of the corruption on Wall Street and the greed and excess and the cronyism in Washington, D.C.

4.       Begging the Question: Let's, first of all, understand that the biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system.

The Meaning of Wisdom

In this section of Job we see that they touch a very important point of wisdom. “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding” (Job 28, 28) Now today we can’t seem to find any wisdom in fear on the other hand those who fear are considered weak for not being able to act over it. Fearing the Lord was what made our intellectual evolution stop during the inquisition.

The second part of this quote is really important as well. Because to depart from evil means you must know evil in order to go away from it. Because this would mean that God did want us to take from that fruit and to understand good and evil. This would be a direct contradiction from all that had been found said before. If we are to be happy under the hands of God and be able to live eating from the tree of life isn’t that the way to achieve true understanding of Life? Apparently God continues to contradict itself or at least, the Bible does.

If God truly is all knowing and all powerful it would be better for us to be in his hands and although right now the feeling of power that knowing and understanding good and evil  give’s is a false sensation. It is only a matter of time before we either realize the wrong of our doings or to simply meet the end of this road. This Bible makes it look as though all those who aren’t takers are simply left behind and makes it look as though they are weak.

What we should analyze here is if true wisdom lies in knowing good and evil? Or could it being understanding that maybe we don’t have the ability to distinguish these two and judge each other in order to see  these two in us? Finally should we really judge God and the Lord for what they have done to us if really we don’t understand good and evil?

God’s Judgment and Justice

Here we see that God isn’t a perfect judge or at least we don’t believe so. It is seen in the bible “Doth God pervert judgment? Or doth the Almighty pervert justice?” (Job Ch8, 3) This is a very important part for it shows us that humans had begun to question the powers of God. Although he was still “Almighty” it showed that he still wasn’t perfect. We didn’t see perfection in him anymore. I would say, that we can say this can go back to the story of David. In the end David started to do what I believe are bad things. An example of this was killing the husband of a woman he wanted in order to get her. God forgave him and wasn’t really angry at what he had done but the fact that this was done without the Lord being conscious about it. This would show me that god isn’t necessarily moral by the definition we follow. He even contradicts himself because he said in the Commandments “Thou shall not commit adultery.” There is another explanation of this which is that there is more than one holy entity in the bible. First the God that created the world is the same one that created the Commandments but the Lord seems to be a different person that doesn’t seem to be affected by what God does. This is why I believe he forgave David so easily for his sin.

Another part of God’s Judgment with people is the tests he puts upon them. Before we were talking about the Justice that the Lord gave but now his judgment is the main idea.  In the book of Job we see that Lord allowed Satan to do as he wished with Job. He did several tests and other things not only to make him suffer but to prove the Lord wrong. What Satan proposed was evil in nature and it shouldn’t have been allowed yet the Lord let him go on and even use his powers to perform the test. This proves that the Lord may be more human than what we thought he was before we started t read the Bible, not only because he can make mistakes and have a bias towards someone but also because he can be apparently easily influenced to do evil as well.

Finally it is clear our version of Judgment and Justice might not be directly related with that of the Lord. We are humans and our view might be too narrow to admire the truth but still if we were made in the image of god shouldn’t we be perfect as well? Shouldn’t we be able to see justice in what he proposes? Finally if humans eventually turn evil as the Bible has proven does that mean that deep inside of God there is a seed of evil waiting to grow?

Has God Left Us?

Through the bible we see that God becomes more and more distant. It is clear that in the process of this death, war and suffering takes his place. Supposedly god isn’t evil and in the beginning there was little evil in the world that would last long without being completely destroyed. To me it is clear that god is love and the manifestation of good and light in the world. Although he might not have a physical form he is there with us at all times. Evil in people is not the absence of light in people’s heart but the absence of God.

The greater question here is, why has god left us as we can see that every time there is more evil in the world? Why would go leave us every time more if we need him every time more? This is a hard question to answer. Maybe god is busy with other creations or decided to go on vacations from all the hard work done by him after all of those thousands of years taking care of us. That questions remains unanswered. The only plausible answer I can give for this is that he leaves us slowly; gradually something like a parent would do to his child. Why does he do this, I don’t understand.

When a parent is letting go of his child he tells him what is right and wrong but every time a parent sees that  his child is going the wrong way of about to fall he grabs him and puts him back on track. We of course lost our track completely and there is nothing we can do about it. Apparently the only way to reestablish balance is by finding god within ourselves.

Finally I would like to ask if god is no longer with us why do we keep finding miracle of him? Why do we always try to find a physical proof of his presence? 

David’s Reflection

 In this book we see David slay Goliath in a match which clearly made it easy for Goliath to win due to his physical superiority. We see that the only difference between Goliath and David truly lies mentally. As I have said in previous blogs believing in god can help people survive and during this fight the believe of David in god made him calm and helped him concentrate to attack Goliath in the right spot. Also we see that Goliath on the other hand was nervous for the fate of his entire country was in his hands and probably failed because his religious support wasn’t as strong.

We can also see this as a demonstration of what happens when humanity comes together as a single banner. Although Christians don’t have to be this it sets the example that those united by something like this can succeed in an easier way than what those who were divided by many gods were. Although other religion can be greater than Christians as long as we stand under a single banner we will be strong.

It is interesting that God show’s us the way to become better people is to believe in him. This might be a contradiction because of what god has showed us to prove this wrong. First he breaks the first commandment by allowing David to kill. This should have been a sin but yet he is forgiven. Also we see that same contradiction when Moses is made to unleash all of those plagues upon Egypt. Although they aren’t circumcised, they are still humans and god’s creation. This shows that maybe believing in god isn’t the best way because a god that contradicts it does no good to anyone.

A similar contradiction can be seen because he wanted us to be separate from each other by making us speak different languages. This means that if he wouldn’t have done that then he wouldn0t have to bother saving all of those people in the exodus or even in the wars.

Barack Obama Acceptance Speech Rhetoric Analisis

We see in this speech examples of the three different types of rhetoric. When it comes it Pathos we see Obama uses this in when he says that when a woman in Ohio is one sickness away from disaster after a lifetime of work and when a man in Indiana has to pack up his suitcase and sees it shipped off to China. Here we can see that people feel sad for those in similar situations or even for themselves but Obama puts a solution to these problems so that this feeling can go away. When Obama mentions that the United States is a better country than what it’s been doing it makes people feel pride for their country. Finally when he mentions that McCain said America was a nation of Whiners made people feel angry at him.

Obama uses Logos when he says that by electing McCain the only thing they will get is another four years of even more bad policies that have brought the U.S to the state it is right now. Also that McCain has voted 90% of the time for Bush instead of voting for something different. Finally he says that McCain told the people that the economy was fine and that its foundation was strong.

He uses Pathos when he tell’s people that he will reduce taxes on the middle class which makes people trust him more and feel more identified with him because he won’t make them go under a worse situation. He also used Pathos when he said that he will bring change to the situation. This will make people feel more identified with him because they believe they need change for everyone due to the harsh times happening. Finally when Obama mentioned that he has “the best temperament and judgment to be the next commander in chief” it evoked Pathos in people because it made people feel confidence and a good person in him because he is confident that he can win a debate on that theme because of all of that will make a good leader in the eyes of the people.

How Fast We Forget

In the latest part of the bible we see that the descendants of Abraham were saved from Egypt by the lord. Then we see that they forgot about this and when Moses left they made a new Idol and started worshiping it. This makes us see that sometimes we are unthankful to what is given to us. We make mistakes and although we advance in some areas we tend to go back. Although god has showed them his power and that he does exist we also see that they decide to make a god.

There is something very important about human nature and gods. We see throughout history that we need something to believe in, always need something to pray to in times of need. Although can be good and might help us at times with our survival as the story shows it we see that it can hurt us as well. God tried to make us something more than animals and yet we are constantly pushing to go back to that state.

When it comes to the meaning of the statue the fact that it was an animal and that it was made of gold represent very important parts of human nature. IT was of gold probably because we are always looking for greater wealth and sometimes we can let ourselves go and make this wealth our religion and our god. When this happens we are lost and it can require a great work almost a punishment to get back to our original belief.

I believe that the fact the Statue was an animal meant that it was something material and earthen.  This means that they started to believe in more superficial things. This replaced god because of its great power we aren’t worthy of looking at him, instead this more earthly figure made it easy for us to understand it and worship it. We can say that because of this we made images of Jesus, god, angels and Saints, to be able to understand them better and be able to make it clearer to what we were worshiping. This, of course, done in a way as to not offend god.

I think it is interesting that every time god becomes less earthly and more of a divine figure as the bible moves on. This might be due to the fact that he realizes earth and men aren’t what he intended them to be. We aren’t really what he first created us to be that would be to become people before the fall or takes as said by Ishmael.

I also believe it’s interesting the way we forget the lessons of the past. Sonoma and Gomorrah were both destroyed because they sinned to god excessively and the flood occurred because of the same reason. For some reason we forget and I believe this is what makes us so flawed, because we forget very easily what has happened and as we gain more power and better technology it is unforgivable for us to forget. Not only because it is easier now but also because with such power as we have there might be a point when making the same mistake as before can become irreparable for us and the planet.

                                                                                                                                                       

Brutal Law

In the bible we see on chapter 21 “life for life, Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” (21. 24) There was evidence of this same laws and punishments in The Code of Hammurabi. Now for us, these rules seem absurd and too great for the crimes. In that time these were normal. Sadly today we have taken it to the polar opposite; in the Colombia system the penalties are very low for great crimes. It is so that we have to send some of our most dangerous to the United States partly because of their involvement in drugs but also because otherwise they would be free again and back on business in a matter of years. To many of us this isn’t justice and although work is being done to improve the system we still have a great task ahead.

As we continue through these set of laws we can imagine the problems of the time. Laws reflect the problems in our society and here, that is what we see. Although problems were simple and had simple solutions we were very savage and had to do a lot of things before we reach a more “civilized” stage. We can also have a glimpse of the social classes at the time, we can see who wrote this and for whom. When the Moses says, “And if he smite out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake.” Here we can see that although the punishment for tow normal people was “tooth for tooth” for one social class bellow it wasn’t really as great. We can see that this was given to those who were rich on order for them to treat people in a fairly good way, but written by people with a higher status in order to ensure that nothing too bad would happen to them because of their actions.

There is another way to see this which is its exact opposite. We can say that this was written by people of lower social status in the group in order for them to achieve their freedom in an easier way and in this way achieve a social jump from a lower one to the next one. Also this would help those that were Menservants and Maidservants to get a more decent treatment. We can see it both way but in either there had to be a great inequality at the time.

Although the people at the time might have been savage this was a very good step to what we call civilized today. They realized the error of their ways and decided to make this set of rules in order to maintain an order. The role of god in all of this is to scare people of future generation with the anger and justice of a being which they can’t run from and to whom they will eventually have to pay what they owe. Finally I would like to add that it is interesting that until here god reappeared after the first chapters of the genesis and people couldn’t really see clearly who he was for he came covered in smoke. 

Presidential Debates

When it comes to these presidential debates, Rhetoric is a constant which is used almost all the time. McCain used it to prove some of his points. When it comes to forensic Rhetoric he had some very good points. First, the government in the United States had grown over 40 percent in the last four years. Senator McCain also said that the business tax rating in America was the second highest in the world. Finally he added that 1billion dollars had been required to take all the products from United States to Colombia which was a reason to accept the free trade agreement.

When it comes to Demonstrative Rhetoric, Senator McCain said that women were the ones that had to choose whether to abort or not. He also questioned the values of Obama when he didn’t react to some of the accusations made to Senator McCain and said that Obama’s campaign was also the one that had used the most money in all of U.S history. He also questioned Obama’s values due to his relation to some questionable organizations like Acorn and with a Terrorist.

McCain in the debate made it look as if when the people voted for Obama he would increase taxes for some people while if they voted for him he would cut taxes for everyone. Also he said that Obama wanted to make the government take control while he said that the government was already too big to make it continue growing. Finally that Obama would rather sit with Hugo Chavez one of the closest declared Enemies to the United States rather than strengthening relationships with already existing ally like Colombia.  

Obama used Rhetoric in a Forensic way when he said that the Bush administration had not made a ny sort of rescue plan for the middle class. Also, the financial package had to be working in a faster way that before. Finally, when it comes to Colombia, he blamed it o the government of some assassination of work leaders.

When it comes to demonstrative Rhetoric he questioned McCain values because all of his publicity had been negative towards Obama. Also, that all of McCain’s Campaign had been based in a supposed relationship he had with Acorn and with a terrorist. Back on the work leader’s part because it was supposedly the government that had done this, its lack of values made it impossible for the United States to make a trade agreement with them.

Finally in deliberative Rhetoric, Obama said that McCain wants to increase tax cut to companies while he wants to reduce them for working America. Obama said that there had always been a choice between more money and a reform in education which he said wasn’t contradictory and said that if people voted for him they would receive this reform. When it comes to the wealth of America he would try to distribute it in an equal manner rather than what McCain proposed.

The Meaning Of The Plagues?

In the exodus the Lord made the Egyptians suffer for the actions of the Pharaoh. The reasons for this I believe obscure and although there can be scientific explanations I believe that they might have not happened. As well as the moment when Moses opened the red sea so that the Hebrew could pass. They are both improbable and in the case of the red sea impossible. I believe that this has a greater message below it which is trying to get to us but of course we have to go deeper than the literal level.

In general the idea of the plagues was very improbable but it was a way to explain the customs of the Jews at the time. Why did they celebrate the year in that month and why they didn’t eat leafed bread are examples of these. Also it was a way to warn them of the punishments of god. It was a way to scare them in to believing what the bible wanted them to believe. These are cataclysmic events that lead to the releasing of the Hebrew and they were thankful at the beginning for that entire god did to them but at the end we all forget.

This part can also be seen as a way to show people what the benefits of being with god are. Having someone to watch over you, someone you can trust and someone who will always try to teach you what’s good and what’s wrong. It is interesting that we humans having eaten of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil still choose evil as their way of being. We still do today although we might be getting a little more conscious about it we don’t know any other way of living and we end up attacking the symptoms and not the cause. As Ishmael said good and evil are only for the gods and only they should know this, yet we like the Pharaoh decided to go on with evil. It is interesting to remember the time when Ishmael said that we weren’t on the hands of the gods when we ate the fruit of that tree. Incredibly although that might be true when God decided to take the Hebrews out of Egypt we were completely on the hands of the gods and maybe this might have another message below what religious thought I might have.

When we think of the bible we immediately associate it with religion but it can also be seen as a book from which we can learn how to live. Here we see god taking care of the Hebrews and we can see that it was when they were in the hands of humans that they were suffering but once they were in hands of god they were happy. I believe this might be a message to us to get back in to the hands of the gods. Otherwise we wills suffer but back in the other hand we will be given everything we need. I believe that this meant that the way we are supposed to live is under the control of god. We might as well be living trapped inside Egypt all our lives like many Hebrews did before they were freed from the hands of man itself.

 Yet there are still many questions to be answered here, like: why would they want to tell us this? Or even better what was that they really want us to interpret? If this was written for us why did they have to use metaphors or similar devices to get the message through why not just say it clearly and straight out?

Is Faith In God Necessary?

When we read the exodus we see that the main theme here is faith. All of those who had faith in god were saved and all those who didn’t died. This is a way to ensure the maintaining of religion because it threatens people with death, pain and suffering if we don’t believe in god. When you are in the hands of god like is shown here, things go out the right way and everything ends happily most of the times. Although god may not necessarily have anything to do with it. When it comes to faith this gives us confidence and with it we can accomplish great things. Having faith in god can help us overcome some difficulties but sometimes, even with this confidence we fail to accomplish our goals.

When we fail the goals and we are greatly dependant on the faith on god we may blame it on him. We may say that it was god’s will. This is of course not something very good for your personal evolution. Sometimes this faith in god that can help us accomplish unimagined things can also make it hard for us to evolve as human beings. The question is where does this force from faith come from? I would say it comes from us.

Faith can be a way to make it easier to believe in ourselves. Being self-confident and perseverant can be as good as having faith in god but when you fail, which will eventually happen, it will help you learn from the experience. If you know that you are in control it will help you evolve more. I am not saying that we are not to have faith in god but other than that we must also have confidence in ourselves and what we do. Without it the experiences in life will have no meaning.

It is possible to think that both contradict but this isn’t so. The reason for this is that they are completely different things that don’t need each other to subsist and having them can give similar benefits. But over all having both will also give you even greater benefits. Confidence in god is shown in the bible because Moses was completely dependent on god to free the Hebrew but after all that was given to him the actual act of releasing his people, facing the pharaoh and over all facing his own people with the truth took courage from him.

In conclusion you must have faith in yourself and in god to accomplish anything in life. One without the other won’t help you accomplish as much or if you do the experiences you could get when you aren’t able to accomplish what you wish will be lost. Finally I would like to state some questions which seem interesting points to be touched in this chapters: Why would God use the snake as the animal in which the walking stick would be come to, if it was cursed above all animals? Why would he use Moses as a channel of his power when with his only presence he could’ve convinced everyone and free the Hebrew? Finally why did god make the river in to blood if the Hebrews drank from the same water? 

Why Was It Made?

King James’s bible was created to Unite a kingdom but the original version of the bible as interpreted by me is not necessarily made to be an account of historical events although it does mix them, in such a way as to make people feel a connection and have a sense of reality o these stories. I believe that it was created to show what was the way people were supposed to behave. There are contradictions that like the one in which god said he wouldn’t do any more harm on to the people because being bad was part of our nature and yet when with Gomorrah he killed everyone because of their sins. Now I don’t think that this actually happened like this but I believe that it is some sort of warning for us. It tells us that we are to obey god in all that he tells us to. Otherwise we have to love him and if we don’t we get punishments as those described. Now it is very unlikely that those kinds of things will happen to us exactly but it is more probable that it was a way to scare people in to doing well. Although for us it might not have been the best way to convince people in to doing something it was the best way for people wouldn’t listen to other reasons.

The bible doesn’t mention any specific crimes against god but it leaves us to figure out which are they at this point. Now I believe this might have been for our own conscience to judge our crimes rather than a book which might have helped it keep up with the ages. This ambiguity helped it maintain the vision of what was wrong up to date. Sadly our vision might be too distorted by time to figure out what it was we were supposed to see in those times but all we can do is interpret it in our modern terms.

The reasons why the James bible and the Original bible were translated might have been different but not contradicting. James only wanted to unite his kingdom and the bible wanted them to become better people that had a sense of good and evil strong enough so that they wouldn’t do bad things or crimes against god. Sadly this did lead them to make crimes against other people which can be seen in British colonies in Africa and India. These might have been from another time period but still were affected by this bible.

I can’t really say if the bible really did mean for this to be this way and many people in the world won’t know because most of them won’t see what it truly meant. The problem is that we are seeing what the translators want us to see. Although they might have tried to maintain a certain truth and accuracy of the original bible at the time because it was meant for the poorest of people there was nothing they could do but believe what was presented to them. Because of this the bible might not be entirely true or parts of the meaning might have been changed slightly in order to make some sort of message to the people. Although the translations of this bible might be modern and understandable to us the true meaning of the original one remains a secret and all we can do is hope that what we are reading is really what it was meant to be.

“Because God Wanted It To Be That Way”, Is That What We Really Need to Know?

There is one thing in common with the people in the bible and is that all have blind faith in god. We see that they have explained everything through god’s will but more importantly god does appear to show them that they are right. Now we don’t see god anymore telling us what his will is and what is not. Since the flood he was supposed to leave us alone and let us evolve in to what we wanted. The main problem was that this lack of explanation will not fulfill the needs of what we need to know. We will have to interpret the bible very deeply in order to understand a part of it. Now the fact that the meaning of this was meant to be for Hebrews a long time ago, then the actual meaning behind the words will be hard to pass on to the other language,  especially if you don’t understand completely the world that it was written in.

Now today we go beyond that simple explanation to everything, we want to know facts, things that we can see and feel. The scientific method for example is a system based on observation and this is what we want to have as proof, observation. There is nothing we can do to contradict this because that is almost second nature. Since the moment we are born we are thought that you have to see in order to believe something even in a subconscious way like Ishmael said about the constant whisper of mother culture in to our ears. Although we ignore it is there and we follow it. Maybe for today’s standards people want something more than just believing in what other saw a couple of thousands of years before. It is more about what we can see and live now.

Another thing that I would like to point out is that as time passed man lived less. Adam lived almost a thousand years but Abraham and some of his closest ones only lived seventy or around that time except for some exceptions. This could prove that as time passes man lives less and less probably meaning something very deep which I too will try to understand. To me it could be a constant reminder that death exists and that there is no way of stopping or escaping. It could also mean that the fall of man wasn’t really something good, that we are all part of the energy of a single being that as times passes the breath of life originally given to Adam is spread so much that no other living human exists.   thing could happen and that this could  

Finally I would like to add that because the way the text can contradict itself at times and the way in which can make it confusing but more importantly free to deep analysis, maybe this analyzing of the text has done us no good. Maybe after so much interpreting the text has began to lose its meaning because we can’t really understand it the various theories of what it means eventually separated the religion once again. If this were to happen and our religion be based on other’s people’s translation of the bible then all we can do is wait and hope that when there is a new translation and this one has been forgotten, then we can hope that some of the original meaning will remain to teach us something. 

Poem

God touch his son

giving him a blow of life,

Adam saw upon 

Himself the power to strife

He forgot that God 

Told him don't be God

Tales for Another Time

Although the translation of the bible is something beautiful, a true work of art the original version might not have been written for us. Those who wrote it tried to explain the world to the people of their time and not to us who through science have created a theory of creation. There is one thing that I do wish to point out from the bible which might help me prove my point: “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” (Gen 3, 22) Now today, we Catholics believe that the bible says there is one god and we are in essence monotheistic. I am not questioning our belief but I do wish to point out that god referred in that “us” as if there were other gods other than him. I might be mistaken and he might be making reference between the holy trinity but this did confuse me for a second. Now it might have been an error of translation (which I find unlikely) or some other kind of mistake. It makes no sense either that the translators would be willing to leave that word as it is there which can lead to think that the bible says there is more than one god. Ishmael said that only gods new the difference between good and evil and I agree with him. We might be fooled by the feeling of superiority we have but that is all. I would agree that the church and those who translated the bible did want to make clear that after that moment man did know what was good and bad. But even if that were the meaning why did it say us in such way as to make clear that there were others that knew this before man? I would say that if this were the way it had been written in ancient Hebrew (or at least the meaning had been preserved.) then this bible simply wasn’t meant for us because we live in a different context. Now this is a very different context which I believe we don’t really understand. The reason for this is that the bible had been written thousands of years before it was translated in to this version. There is no possible way we can understand the way in which people lived in that time. There might have been things that were said in the Hebrew version which might have been sarcasm, or similar things for which you need to know the context. Now there are important works of literature that have become classics and have been written quite some time ago, like Don Quixote or Shakespeare plays. The difference is that we have a greater amount of records and more information to draw a clear picture of what that truly means above from what the words say. That “us”, if translated correctly might mean that it was meant for a polytheistic culture and would then mean that we have been interpreting the bible all along in a different way that what it was meant to.

I would say that the bible might have been better off without a written version of it. I say this because although there would never be a hard copy of the original, it would change and adapt to the time. Although part of the original meaning might have been lost, as there always is it wouldn’t suffer this type of deterioration in which we might ponder what a verse means for as long as we want and almost for sure we will never find one true answer. I must also be clear in one thing which is that these aren’t the words of god and never where. These are the answers to questions of a different time for different people and which were interpretations of tales said by generations. As far as we know the story might have been deteriorated going from mouth to mouth enough time before it was written for it to have lost some of its meaning. We were desperate for answers to questions which are hard to respond. We did find answers but they weren’t necessarily the right ones nor are those written on the bible.

I would also like to add that the reading of Ishmael did in a certain way give me a bias when the moment came to read the bible. The interpretations that he gave to Cain and Abel did affect the way I would’ve otherwise read these chapters. I believe it would be better to read the bible before Ishmael that way we can form our own opinions before, without any partiality rather than having another book affect them in any way.

The Catholic Church has done no good to us when it comes to all of this. For centuries it has blinded us with fear of death if we weren’t to believe exactly in to what the bible said and interpreted as the Church said. Very recently has there been a greater liberalism in this sense and we have been able to go against all of this and realize that maybe what they have been saying to us all along hasn’t been right. As a Catholic I disagree with parts of the bible which don’t go with what we know right now. I might be looking it from a taker’s point of view but I believe that today’s theories are against what the bible says but still we have to take in count that it has been a book which hasn’t changed greatly in thousands of Years.

Now, why would a book so dependent on the context not change even if the people do and can make it go out dated? Why did the translators decide to put that us right there? In the beginning why did god seem so human?

Genesis 1-2:The Beginning

Translation and Interpretations, Are They Really Different?

All we see, we do according to our experiences, therefore when we read a book we may not completely get the message the author wanted us to get  because we see according to what we have lived. With King James’ Bible it is possible that the translation of the book was but an interpretation of it? I would say that this is very possible. When you translate something from one language to another you try to pass the meaning and not the exact words for most likely there are none that fit the situation specially with Greek and Hebrew (which unlike Latin based languages they aren’t as similar to English as Spanish or French are.) which most likely don’t have direct translation for words into English but rather the translators tried to take the meaning from the words.

This explains why the historical context in which the bible was written was so important. It explains what the majority of English men felt including scholars. Because of this we can understand to some limited extent (We would have to actually live the situation in order to completely understand what it felt to be an English scholar at a time.) what the translators felt and calculate how this affected the bible. Because of this, although this bible is one of the most neutral ones, it does reflect what the translators were living at the time. Yes there were corrections and other proof reading processes to try and avoid these to some extent but since they were all living in the similar situations a great amount of these interpretations probably went through to the final copy. Naturally if it’s a single person doing this job most likely a greater amount of his interpretations will pass on.

These Intellectuals had another job on them, they had to make the bible as the king wanted to make it suitable for the Job. This bible was meant to be used for the most ignorant and poor of Englishmen. As said in God’s Secretaries “The English sentences were being prepared for others, the non-educated, who had no access to the essence of the text which there scholars, like Bois, had been drinking in for decades. The English, in other words, was itself subservient to the original Greek.”(p.210) This meant that they had to simplify the essence of the text to the less educated people, make it simple, basically, “if it sounds right, it is right”(p.209). It was made so that people listening to it on the Sermons though as if it were the true words of god and because of these we can’t assume it to be an exact translation. They probably changed the meaning of words or phrases slightly to make them fit in to this.

Finally, when we translate are we saying what the author wanted to express or what we think he wanted to say? Is a completely accurate translation possible?

Religions, an Eternal Persecution

Throughout history there has always been persecution between different beliefs. This hasn’t helped us at all, instead of being tolerant about other cultures we have always tried to convert other to ours because we believe that it is the only truth. Although only a single person or a group of people might have done something bad his whole religion is accused for the crime. In the case of World War II it was against Jews because they were believed to be an inferior race, today it is against Muslims because of what they did to the twin tower and finally back on England when Christians and Jesuits were prosecuted because of “the attempt by a group of desperate and marginalized catholic renegades and romantics- terrorists is the word we would now use- to blow the king, queen, princes, peers and other members of the parliament at its opening.” It was an equivalent of the terrorist attack on the United States in 9/11. England was in the same advantaged position as the U.S is today leading the world economy of the time. As time passes things change their name and although violence was an accepted way of revolution at one time it no longer is. It is clear that doing so only harms others and if it ever does succeed it only leaves a wounded land to use. Similar to what happened to us in Colombia, through the years the different revolutionary fights only left pain, sorrow and death. If it wouldn’t have been for this we would be at a better level than the rest of our neighbor countries. Similar to what happened between Britain and Spain the war between the two only kept a constant loss of money from the state which is exactly what FARC is doing here. Wounding the government’s budget which only makes the country’s advance to stop and forcing us to focus on the conflict before anything else can be done.

Back to religion, this group of people that were forced out of England didn’t help the country at all. I am almost certain that a great number of those who were forced to leave didn’t have anything to do with the attempt and most likely they were only helping England become a better place. As said by Nicholas Adams “The crowd around this little party in St Paul’s Churchyard is aid to have groaned and mumbled at the sight, not because it was a death sentence-over seventy thieves and murders were executed every year in Jacobean England- but because quite clearly, this was a good man killed for no good reason.”(116) This was a symbolism in which this good man was killed and in a certain way having to go banished from you homeland for no good reason must be a horrible experience comparable with death. Due to all of this extreme prosecution a great amount of people had to go from England on to America. This in a certain way marked the difference between those the Spanish colonies and the English colonies. This religious prosecution which might have looked bad at the time ended up being good for the United State’s future. First those were entire families which were good people. Proof of this can be seen in the way the US evolved from the colonies. Instead here prisoners were sent, no entire family was sent here for Spanish were only interested in natives rather than bringing their own families. This made us a land which would have a harder time to grow and become a better place. In the United States the Seasons disciplined the people while here we had nothing to control us. Eventually we did settle and tried to become independent. The war mostly harmed the country and the cause wasn’t because we were able to win the Spanish, not at least the first time only because Spain was weakened. We did have a rough start and it will probably take us a long time to reach the point in which the US is now.

Religious prosecution actually had a positive side in the end, although the prices that had to be paid at the time were too great. Sadly it is possible that today there might be no good side to the prosecution against Muslims. Because of a single extremist group all have to pay and this is of course unforgivable. Although our society tells us that those kinds of religious prosecutions are no longer present they still exist. The Holocaust exterminated a great amount of good people, but thanks to this they are now one of the most united communities in the world and wherever they go they improve the community to which they go to. There is always a balance either we see it or not but the true question here is. Will this hatred against Muslims caused my ignorance cause a new holocaust? And if we see that it´s coming will we allow such a monstrous act to happen again? Or could it be that it already is happening and the media is just hiding it from us?

Exercise

Religion and Politics, a Weapon of Mass Destruction

Through history Religion and Politics have always been together. It’s been this way until very lately and still has a great influence on politics. Fear has always been the greatest weapon of religion, the fear that you will not receive salvation when you die. In medieval times it might have been a good idea to control people with fear of eternal punishment if they didn’t do as the king said. In a certain way it was an interdependent relationship in which the state made religion obligatory and religion told the people the state was good. Yet this did have consequences on the way of thought and on the control the state had over its people. When religion started to become more independent from the state (In the sense that the majority of people already believed and the state was no longer necessary for the existence of religion) it started to go bellow religion and when god is the master of all that exists on the kingdom problems occur. Everything that went against the Catholic Church would be destroyed and the people behind it killed. Scientific discoveries were paused completely. Yet not all was bad for the royalty. Christianity offered salvation to the poor; to those who had nothing at all and this calmed people down, revolutions which could’ve happened never did because of this. "Religion is the opiate of the people." Karl Marx In a certain way this is what King James wanted to achieve. To use religion in a way to control those who might want to change the way things were. Maybe the king wouldn’t have been able to convince them; after all he didn’t have such a powerful entity as the Catholic Church to back him up. This might be the reason why the translation of the bible was so important, to maintain order in a country of which the king was losing control. Proof of this can be found with the attack done on the king. This made it only clearer that this translation of the bible would have to give control to the king, to tell the people that things were supposed to be this way. Poor people were supposed to suffer, rich people were to suppose to enjoy life as they did and after this everyone would obtain salvation. The purpose of this translation was to make sure things on the way chapter one showed them. Everyone was happy to be on the role they were.

But why would politics and religion together make such a deadly combination? Well because together they put people to sleep. They neutralize most thoughts of a better world. With this society stops to evolve and become something that eventually will need to change. Now in a normal situation not many people would die but the change would occur gradually at least in an ideal manner. With church and religion together people won’t realize they are falling until they hit the ground. In that moment they will raise angrier than ever and things won’t be solved in a peaceful manner. Maybe the kings who were supposed to be above this never really liked thinking of what would happen. Maybe religion had finally gotten to them and didn’t allow them to see these terrible consequences. What makes this even worse is that if things weren’t changed on time when the people did rise together and neutralized those who governed them, they will fight between themselves to decide who should have the power, they would divide in groups of people with similar ideas and something similar to the war between the Liberal and Conservative Parties here could happen. 

When We Read What Happens to us?

Through this first chapter we see what was the historical context in which this bible was translated. But through this we have to see the reasons behind reading parts of the holy book. When we read a book or basically anything it changes us. Although we might not notice it and this change happens at a deeper level when it is something as profound as the bible and all the meaning it has if you read it with attention and with the intention of discovering this meaning behind what’s written can change the way you think about Christianity and what the bible might truly mean. It is incredible that a book can do something so incredible as to change the way a person thinks but it does. Now as neutrals as this bible is there must be some sort of bias in some way, an attempt to express the situation of the time through the book. At some parts it mentions kingdoms which could be taken as proof of this. Since this was a king that climbed up into the throne of England he could have tried to force his translator to attempt and show some of the beauty of Britain but there is no way to know if this really did happen.

I believe books can have a greater impact on your way of thinking than movies. I say this because they are open to interpretation and you have to imagine you are in the book. This can drag you in to a new world. Similar to a movie but because you created what you see through the interpretation of the book it creates a stronger and deeper bond. Because of this reading is so important and although a movie can change the way you think for some time a book can do the same thing for a greater period. What I believes happens today is that people have decided to go the easy way, it is much easier to go the way of television and movies. You don’t have to think at all, analyze or anything similar to that. All you do is watch reality as is presented to you without having much interaction with it. Even with videogames which was a new way to interact with that reality it still submerges you into a world given and not one created by you through your interpretation. It is possible that because of this government or companies can have more power over people since they decide what we watch. Basically books although simple and with little whole to fill with imagination have a magic that can’t be replaced because as we fill them we create a new world and learn from it or at least entertain ourselves with it.

Although we might not know aIl books have a great influence on us because they have formed a great part of what we are. Even when we are children the books our parents read to us like “Little Red Riding hood” and similar to that have shaped us in unsuspected ways. Sadly is very plausible that with time books will be replaced by Television and movies. When this comes to happen all that we watch and listen to will be programmed by someone and we might miss books. It is something simple yet with our brain we can turn it in to a work of art comparable only with a real life experience.

The Context and What We Write

Every book we read every movie we see and song we listen has a context and is therefore affected by it. Gilgamesh was affected by the context of Uruk and how life there was. Don Quixote was affected by the context in which Miguel de Cervantes had lived in and finally the bible was affected by, not only the context it had been written in but also the context in which it had been translated.

James was a king from Scotland, a poor country with not as much support of the church as he would have wanted. Then he was to go in to the land of riches and civilization that was England. This change I believe would have marked any human being for life. The context in which this Bible was translate I believe was a period of change, of renewal for the country. Although a translation is supposed to be objective and try to express the same thing the author of the original language did those who translated it were influenced and couldn’t be completely objective for no human can. “Can there be a book without there being interpretation?” I believe the answer to this question is now and because of this James’s bible has a point of view although slightly hidden and not very straight out. I believe this because the translator team wouldn’t want it to be a new bible according to James and although they would make sure that none would go too subjective this still exists. It is a bible written under the point of view of British people of the time. Now this is assuming that there was no direct pressure from the king to the team of people who worked on this. Since I don’t speak Hebrew nor have I read the original version of this, there is no way for me to know how they have changed it.

It may be something like Don Quixote which is a reflection of Cervantes’s life and opinion not only about knight’s books but also reflects parts of what he lived. This may be partially the case of this translation. Because of the anonymity of those who did the work it is impossible to know how it was written and if the time affected what they did.

The political time where changing constantly and this most likely affected them. The new religious politics and the attempted union of the two countries were very stormy times especially if all of this was made by a new king. We can’t really understand the situation each of the people that did this were living only an approximation based on what the general public had to go through. They weren’t bad time in fact it was the other way around. England was going through some of their best times with the hope that a new reign brought. Because of this we can determine that there was some sort of extra support towards the king. Because it was probably him who set them to the task (It’s a guess but very plausible I believe) they were most likely in his favor and because the bible is one of the books that are sold the most they may have tried to do some slight changes to favor him and to include him in some sort of way even if it were very subtle.

Because there is not one impartial way to look at a situation and everything we see we do by a window with limited range of sight it is very likely that this is what happened to the translators and what we see there isn’t really anything other than a version of the bible adapted to the time and seen through the eyes of people who lived the situation. Unless we actually live the story there is no way we will know exactly what happened. The only story that remains is written under points of view and we can only interpret based on that. Because of this no matter how holy the bible is it is still written by humans and therefore can’t be expected to be perfect.