Much of class today centered around discussion of whether a belief in a god, or higher power correlates with diminished stress in life. Life would be care free, if one believed that a guardian angel or benevolent spirit was looking after them. A person can withstand most stress with the philosophy that, at the end of the day, everything is going to turn out alright. Following a recommendation made in class, I researched the book of Job, to understand a Christian perspective on God’s relation to us. The story of Job, describes god’s most devout follower, who was wealthy, and happy. Satan took notice of Job, and one day challenged God to a test of Job’s faith. He asserted that if Job’s life was made miserable he would reject god, and cure gods name. And so Satan killed Job’s sons, and took his fortune, and livestock, leaving him with nothing. However, Job remained strong, and stated “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord”. Yet Satan was not satisfied with this outcome, and bet God that Job would relent if his body was tortured, and so Job broke out in horrendously painful boils, and his wife told him to curse the name of the lord and die. Yet, Job remained strong, and said, “What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” The rest of the book of Job is a philosophic discourse on God’s reasons for punishing Job. In the final section Job’s wealth and family are returned to him. God makes a number of speeches that indirectly answer the question of why he allowed Job to be punished. His answer is basically that he is mighty, and his methods are not to be questioned because we cannot understand them. He describes all of his very important jobs in the universe that Job cannot understand, such as controlling the Leviathan and the Behemoth. In my view Genesis, and the old testament are a terrible place to look for stress relief, as god appears fickle in nature, and capricious. In the modern mechanistic world of western medicine, I believe there is more stress relief to be found in truly understanding how the machinery of our immune system works to fight disease, rather than looking for stress relief from a higher being that is little understood, and has been the source of argument for 1000’s of years. People feel the most stress when they are presented with a problem or affliction that they do not understand and thus cannot act to fix. Thus, at a time before the development of modern science, god represented a relief device: an explanation for diseases that could not be understood mechanistically. The patient could then actively work to improve his condition by praying and repenting for his sins.
Personally, I would not put my faith in a god that gambles with the devil, using the lives of his believers as the chips. That sounds considerably more stressful to me. I believe that the stress relief received from religion comes from the community and congregation. The coming together of a group would perhaps be equally good for lowering blood pressure, or increasing mortality. I would like to see studies on the power of friendship.
I also read Genesis 34, about the rape of Dinah; however, I failed to see how it was relevant to the class discussion. It relates the story of Jacob’s daughter, who was strolling across her father’s land, when she was seen by a Canaanite prince, who lusted after her, and raped her. The Prince’s father approached Jacob’s sons, asking for the girl to be bound in marriage with his son. He agreed to pay any price to rectify the wrong, so the brothers demanded that the men from his city all become circumcised. A few days after the circumcision, when all the men were still recovering, two of Jacob’s sons swept through the city, killing every man, and looting all of their wealth. Jacob was angry at them for creating enemies of the Canaanites, however his sons replied, “Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?”.
I guess retribution is a common theme in both these stories; however, both also contain an exceptional amount of deceit, which is a major stressor. Perhaps the new testament would be a better place to look for stress relief.
I think that what Dr. Graham mentioned in class relates a lot the discussion we had about stress and religion. I think the idea of stress relief through religion is often hard to accept in day-to-day occurrences. For example if you lose your job and can no longer afford to live in your house or feed your family, it is hard for most people to not be stressed by this. Even if you are deeply religious and have faith in God’s ultimate plan, the very real stress of housing your family and avoiding starvation is hard to deny. Although there may be some, such as Job, who are able to fully trust in God’s will and relieve their stress in this way, I would argue that many religious people are not able to reach this level of trust and still suffer quite a bit of stress from unfortunate situations. While they may not blame God for their troubles, I don’t think having faith is a cure-all way to avoid stress in such instances.
Keeping this in mind, I thought it was fascinating how Dr. Graham said how he had found that “there are no atheists in an operating room.” Could there be some threshold for the severity of a situation that causes even non-religious people to turn to a higher power and pray? Perhaps it has to do with the amount of control a person has in a given situation. As Graham mentioned in his post, we feel the most stress when we don’t believe we have the ability to fix a problem. Although some stress relief may come from understanding the mechanism of disease and the steps that can be taken to recover, when we are faced with very severe illnesses such as cancer or the necessity of surgery, there is little we can do to affect the outcome. This could explain why when faced with such situations many have renewed religious belief and greater faith. Embracing the idea that a higher power is protecting us could be the very way that we seek control in an uncontrollable situation.
I see what Graham is saying in that many times the stress relief from religion does come from the gathering aspect and connections made with others increasing endorphin levels and other happy hormones, while also providing comfort and support. However, the spiritual leader of any specific religion does play a significant role in people’s actions, and it shouldn’t be seen as something negative. This aspect of the unknown provides hope in people’s belief of life after death, comforts them through the bad, and provides reasons for the good. Many people use religion as a crutch to get them through the bad times. So if you’re putting your faith and trust in something powerful that you believe is greater than yourself, it can give you a sense of hope. Like Kelly said someone is pulling the strings, and you trust that those strings will hold you up even in bad times, almost giving believers a sense of eternal stability. This could in turn reduce stress levels through vitalistic practices.
This is how I understand the story of Job. I agree with Prof that life is arbitrary and capricious and not so much God himself. When the bad(the devil) hits you with hardships, you have to resist blaming God for all of your problems and instead have faith that he will get you through it. It was a test of loyalty and not as much a deceitful situation in my opinion. It reminds me a bit of Luke:29 where it states, “If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.” In our world this sounds a little crazy. No one wants to readily let someone steal their clothes and beat them up resisting the innate response to fight back. Yet, it’s telling people to put faith in God that he’ll protect them and take care of them. In return they must worship him and be loyal to him resisting evil that could weaken their faith. Although the events are stressful, the trust formed in this higher power, similar to the trust some patients have in their doctors, provides comfort that everything will be ok.
As for Genesis 34, it was hard for me to conceptualize a meaning as well. The story filled me with questions, but I couldn’t come to many conclusions.
I interpreted that story a bit differently. Like Prof said, I think this story was meant to show that faith itself was the action Job used to fix himself; the hardest part of committing this act was to not know for sure his actions would be rewarded by God. Job himself does not know God’s personality until the punishment ends and his faith proves true. He is rewarded for accepting the vital force behind what was happening to him; essentially he’s rewarded for accepting Vitalism as the reason behind life, rather than it being arbitrary. The lesson is, I think, that life isn’t arbitrary and capricious, because someone is pulling the strings.
I think giving God a personality is directly related to why we try so hard to empirically study naturally inexplicable or subjective phenomena, such as near-death experiences. We may want to view the world through a vitalist lens, but because we cannot observe this vital force, we need a way to put it into a form we can observe with our natural senses. I think this results in a Platonic idea of God rather than God himself, which causes some intellectual rifts in our stress relief when reading the Old or New Testaments.
Graham, the story of Job is in the Hebrew bible, so it conveys Jewish ideas as well as Christian. One thing to consider is the importance of attributing aspects of personality to God. What if you were to say “Life” is arbitrary and capricious? Indeed, life can be just that. Does removing personality from the equation make a difference to the way we perceive what happens to us?