Lost in Translation?

When comparing the Alter translation of Psalm 2 to the translation in the Bay Psalm book, I found that the most striking discrepancies were dealing with quoted dialogue and the narrative perspective of the psalm.  I found many discrepancies between the second and sixth verses. In verse 3, Alter chose to include a quotation that is believed to be uttered by the narrator of the poem. In the Alter translation, the beginning of the poem talks about how the nations and kings and princes of the earth are conspiring against the Lord. Alter then translates, "Let us tear off their fetters,/ let us fling away their bonds." But in the Bay Psalm book, there is no quoted material. Instead, the translation reads:

Though the content of the verse is still the same, there is a different point of view established in these translations. There is no attribution to David in this psalm, so the narrator or poet is quite vague in this psalm. But in the Alter translation, include a quotation for this verse has a couple different interpretations. First, it puts the text somewhat removed from the narrator. I get a sense that the first, unquoted part of the psalm, is acting more as stated fact, and that the quotation is the poet's reaction to the disrupt world leaders. Or, perhaps this quoted material could be illustrating a group dynamic where people are banding together against these leaders and chanting this material. In the Bay of Psalms translation, aside from having a more poetic and ancient feel to it, I get a sense of a more personal or introspective character to the psalm because there is no distinction between quoted and unquoted material in these first verses.

Also, at the beginning of verse 5, Alter translates, "Then will He speak to them in His wrath," while the Bay of Psalms translation reads, "Speak to them in his ire and wrath." Again, this illustrates the more distant and abstract quality of the Alter translation when compared to the more internal or personal nature of the Bay of Psalms translation. In the Alter translation, "Then will He speak" can be understood in more of a doubting or questioning way. There is uncertainty in this text, while there is no uncertainty in the Bay of Psalms translation. The Bay of Psalms translation is more personal; it is not expressing doubt or questioning, but is rather a personal plea from the poet directly to God.

Alter again includes a quote in this psalm. In his translation, there is a direct quote that God spoke to the narrator, and the quote is included in verses 7-9. Though there is no quote in the Bay of Psalms translation, this discrepancy is not as distinct or separating because the Bay of Psalms translation is still obviously quoting God, though no real quotes were used. The Bay of Psalms translation reads: 

  Both these translations start off with "God spoke to me" or "He said to me." What is significant about this is it illustrates how influential and experience of talking to god must be on a person. Though I feel the Alter translation creates a sense of distance between the narrator and the text while the Bay of Psalms translation does not, this quote comes off as extremely intimate in both translations.  You are led to believe this is the actual voice of God talking to the poet. That is a momentous occasion, and is illustrated in a personal way in both translations. 

I also spent some time comparing the translations of Psalm 8 in these two books as well. An interesting discrepancy I found was in the fifth and sixth verse of the psalm. Alter translates, "What is mad that You should not him,/ and the human creature, that You pay him heed,/ And you make him little less than gods,/ with glory and grandeur You crown him?" While the Bay of Psalms translation reads:

What is interesting here, is that there is a question mark after the sixth verse of the Alter translation and not in the Bay of Psalms translation. There could be several reasons for this. First, there could be more of sense of skepticism or uncertainty in the newer Alter translation which could reflect the skepticism of religion that is more of a modern notion. Or it just could reflect the sheer sense of awe the poet was experiencing while examining the great and many things God had created. Or, when looking at the whole quotation, it can be summed up to, "What is man that You should note him.... with glory and grandeur You crown him?" This could be interpreted as the poet asking who humans really are. He is asking, "who are we exactly?" and seemingly questioning what the meaning of life is.

Lady Gaga: Monster Religion

So I am sure that none of you guys in the class know this about me, but I am a HUGE Lady Gaga fan. I have been a "superfan" for around 2 years now. Since starting this class, I have been thinking a lot about her views, statements and her love for her fans. I have seen many, many of her performances and interviews, and she uses her voice as an outlet for an agenda filled with love and acceptance of all kinds of people.  I would say I am fairly tuned into the fan base that is little monsters, and a lot of us view this fanbase as a religion.  In her performances, she makes statements with religious undertones. She says "my religion is you" to her fans as well as says that her fan base views pop culture and music as a religion. Here are just a few videos that I think kind of shows her love for her fans and says some of the things that she believes.

 Now I know that not every person reading this is going to feel the same way about her as I do, but I think that her message of love and acceptance of everyone is something that can really help and change the world. I was lucky enough to see her in concert a year ago, and that night really changed my life. I felt free and empowered. Though many would think that a fan base calling themselves a religion is blasphemous or wrong, but I highly disagree with that.  To me, religion can be separated from spirituality.  I believe that someone can be extremely spiritual and believe in god and Jesus and still not be religious. One of the biggest problems with religion, in my opinion, is that there isn't one religion that doesn't hate or feel strongly against another religion or different group of people. But in the "monster religion," if you really listen to the things that Lady G is saying, we are really striving to accept everyone. I think that religion is something that people get involved in so that they can learn a moral code for which to live their lives. They join a church or believe a religion because it tells them what is right or wrong. Isn't this the same thing? We believe in acceptance of everyone and living life without prejudice and hate. 

There are many people who would not say that there could ever be a Monster Religion. To quote Lady Gaga, "they just see wigs and lipstick and shut down." Or people could think that because God is not involved it could not be a religion. I am not saying that I personally view Lady Gaga as God. I am saying, take god out of it, and just try to live life free of prejudice or hate, which is hopefully the main belief of Monsters everywhere.  This Monster Religion could give people who don't believe in God something to believe it. Religion came about as a way to bring people together and support one another, and this monster religion does just that. To illustrate how united a fan base can be, a fellow fan, Jamey committed suicide recently. Though I had never met Jamey, I followed his blog on tumblr and had some contact with him in that way. He was 14 years old and ended his life because of the immense bullying he endured everyday at school because he was bisexual. After people learned about Jamey's death, people were extremely upset. Lady Gaga was extremely upset, and tweeted:

"The past days I've spent reflecting, crying, and yelling. I have so much anger. It is hard to feel love when cruelty takes someones life."

A couple days after his death, a group of 150 fans made this video in response:

And Lady Gaga herself dedicated her most recent performance of her song Hair to Jamey.

I guess what I am trying to say here, is that though God is not involved, this fan base could be considered as religion as well. We all love each other, and when someone is hurting, strangers unite to support that person even if they have never met them.  To me, I don't have a problem saying that this group is a family or religion. I personally do not feel a strong connection with God nor do I even know if I believe that there is a god. But I do know that the outpouring of love and support for this one person means that the Monsters are doing something right. We are millions strong, and hopefully hate and cruelty can be diminished a little less if we speak up. 

Effigy Mounds in Wisconsin

Man Mound, Baraboo, Wisconsin

In his definition of religion, Geertz writes that religion is "A system of symbols which acts to establish a powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that that moods and motivations seems uniquely realistic." When it comes to effigy mounds in Wisconsin and surrounding states, the "system of symbols" that Geertz references seem to correlate with these mounds. These effigy mounds acted as a sacred place where Native American would gather and where they would bury their dead in what is believed to be mass burial ceremonies.  

Free Post: A little about me

As I was writing my first blog post, I found that I had the fight the urge to ramble on about things that were not related to the question. So, for this free blog, I thought it would be fun for me to just rant "stream of consciousness" style and see what happens. So here goes:

I would not consider myself an extremely religious person. Actually, since starting college and distancing myself from my hometown church I would attend every Sunday as well as musically contribute to several times a week, I found myself in a little bit of a crisis. I really cannot say whether or not I believe there is a god or a higher power. I think I am at this point in my life where I don't think God exists, but that is a super scary and terrifying thing for me. There was one night when my friends and I were having a deep conversation and I started thinking about the concept of eternity. I started thinking about the fact that I barely remember 3 out of my 4 grandparents because they died so long ago. I thought about all my ancestors and how I didn't know any of them and how I would be forgotten pretty soon. That being said, I had this weird existential crisis that made me really upset. I just really think that we are no different from animals, and that scares me at times. I think one of the drawbacks to being super educated is the fact that it causes you to maybe question the existence of god much more. I have had many discussions about this with my best friend. She works at a bank with people that are very different from her and I. They are all conservative and religious, and many of them tend to just say "whatever happens in my life is God's will and I can't change that." To me, I just can't accept that as a reason for things. I believe that we control our lives. This may sound pretentious, but when people say things like that, they come off as ignorant and unintelligent. So at home in rural Minnesota, I am surrounded by people who blindly follow religion and attribute all things bad and good to God. I see them as unintelligent or ignorant, but the thing is THEY'RE HAPPY.  Some of the most joyful people I meet are the most religious. So I am here, completely questioning the existence of god and unhappy at moments in my life when it seems like those people are not unhappy in the slightest. One of my closest extended family members died almost 2 years ago. I was really sad when she died, and when I am around my family and we are talking about her, I find myself saying things like "she is looking down on us" or "Judy would have really gotten a kick out of that." After I say things like that, I feel better in the moment, but then I always wonder why those statements came out of my mouth. I guess what I am trying to say is that religion comforts us if we let it. I took Astronomy last spring term, and I found the more I learned about the universe, the less I believed there is a god. We learned of the cosmological principle, which means that on large enough scales the universe is the same everywhere; our place in the universe is neither special nor unique, so why would a god be looking over us or controlling us. So I guess this could be the plight of the liberally educated fifth year senior, everything is up in the air and I have been trained to critically think of everything. I guess we'll see how it goes.

Shoud We Ditch?

As far as religion goes, I am pretty up in the air about it. I am not a strong believer in or against religion. But I definitely think that religion is something that should not be ditched. I believe that religion has endured for so long in human history and I don't think that it will every disappear. In "Why We Believe," I believe this article contradicts the notion of ditching religion. Though the article takes a very scientific approach to explaining the existence of religion, the scientific conclusions made basically say that humans are hardwired to believe in a higher power.  Some people may argue that because the existence of religion can be explained by science it should be ditched altogether in favor of science.  But this article basically states that religion is human nature. It's unavoidable and part of who we are. I would say that the adaptationist view is the strongest contradiction to the notion of ditching religion. The adaptationist view is that humans created religion because it directly benefited the group as a whole. Though the circumstances centuries and centuries ago were much different than they are now, there are aspects of religion in all ages that benefit societies as a whole. Centuries ago when all the technological advances had yet to be made, religion served as a way to get people together, create a collective group that could work together to protect themselves from the elements and hardships they had to endure. Today, worries have completely changed from surviving a long winter to making enough money to send your kids to a proper college, or from building protecting yourself from wild animals to undergoing surgery or battling depression. Though the woes have changed, the need for a strong support group to get you through something is there and will always be there.

I personally believe there are several alternate ways of thinking about religion. I don't believe we will ever truly know what is out there until we pass away. So instead of focusing on if there is a god or not, I think we should focus on the function of religion. Many fundamentalists would argue that the function of religion is to educate people to solely serve god because you will be saved upon death. They believe God as fact. But I say, don't worry about that. There is really no way of ever knowing. Instead, look at religion as a way to bring people together. It is a way for people to meet their acquaintances, friends, family, lovers. I prefer to think of religion as a community. Also, something that was not really addressed in the article is the fact that religion acts as a moral compass. Though religions differ greatly in what they believe in, they all have a moral code that their followers try to follow at all times. Religion helps to guide us. In conclusion, I prefer to not think about the existence of god frankly because there is really no way to prove it and, to me, it isn't the main function of religion.