Category

Judaism

Losing Oneself: Brief Reflections on Identity, Roles, and Alienation

“Although the social structures in the contemporary world are less rigid than in ancient cultures, there are still many pre-established functions or roles that people readily identify with and which thus become part of the ego. This causes human interactions to become inauthentic, dehumanized, alienating. Those pre-established roles may give you a somewhat comforting sense…

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The Power of Powerlessness: Tough Guys, Weaklings, Patriarchy, Plants, and Meat

“In her 1990 classic, The Sexual Politics of Meat, Carol J. Adams connects the oppression of women to the oppression of non-human animals by examining the cultural roles and meaning of meat. She first identifies the association between meat and masculinity, noting how men consume the lion’s share of meat while women, due to various…

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Every Unfertilized Egg In The Body Of A Nun: Sanctity of Life, Abortion, Personhood, Murder, Blessings & Curses

“What is the moral question regarding abortion? Some people say that the fetus is alive and that, therefore, killing it is wrong. Since mosquitoes, bacteria, apes and whales are also alive, the argument is less than clear. Even plants are alive. I am not impressed by the rebuttal, “But plants, mosquitoes, bacteria and whales are…

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There Cannot Be a Person Without a Body: Greek and Hebraic Tensions Over Body and Soul

“Part of the problem is the dualistic way that we have conceptualized human beings through most of Christian history. Simply, this holds that human beings are made up of two (dichotomy) or three (trichotomy) distinct parts, one physical (body) and one spiritual (soul, spirit, mind). In either di- or tri- models, death is the breaking…

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