attention.
And so I am trapped in this room, surrounded by thoughts, words, and books—not enough fresh air coming through here. Too many hours of mental strain are aging me prematurely. I swear I can hear the sounds of the neurons in my overworked mind reaching a boiling point. The body, in the meantime, is left behind, forgotten, sinking in the chair, its desperate requests to go out, move, and play falling on deaf ears.
Every minute that goes by, my mood gets worse, and my energy goes stale. If a good preacher got a hold of me now, it wouldn't take much effort to convince me that I'm a worthless sinner in need of redemption. I'm just a few steps away from confessing my sins and asking for forgiveness. Hell, I feel so bad I have almost degenerated into a scholar, one of the gloomy ghosts haunting the halls of academia—their lives, and the lives of anyone coming in contact with them, ebbing away under the weight of too many theories and not enough action.
But then . . . as I await a coup de grace to free me from my misery, something inside reminds me I still have a spine. Not all hope is lost. My destiny is not to be bossed around by a psycho, domineering computer with control issues. If you have a problem with it, screw you, evil, glowing screen. I'm out of here. The computer goes hysterical, calls me names, and throws dishes in my direction, but I'm long gone.
For the next three hours, I lull my mind to sleep as I stretch, pump iron, run six miles, and sweat enough to cause a minor flood. Inside the temple that is the gym, I remember my barbaric nature. I remember I'm a healthy, adult mammal, with raw, powerful energies flowing through my veins. I am more than my brain. I'm tendons, muscles, and ligaments. I'm nerves, bones, and blood. I feel the joy of vitality at last returning.
By now, you may be wondering what's the point of all this. Why this overly dramatic tale of a sick, symbiotic relationship with a control-freak computer? Why the gross story of finding solace in sweating like a pig? Where am I going with this stuff?
It's about bringing the body to the forefront. Every philosophy and religion that ever existed has had to come to terms with the physical dimension of existence. Our bodies have been the object of scorn and disdain by some, and fascination and attraction by others. But in either case, our beliefs and attitudes about the body affect our lives profoundly.
If I was planning to keep my argument as a big mystery and reveal it only at the end of this chapter, I'm afraid the preceding paragraphs just blew it for me. Psychic powers are clearly not required to figure out what stance toward the body I'll be supporting. But despite the lack of a climactic, surprise ending, I hope the next pages can help clarify how different religious outlooks on the body lead to dramatically different consequences.
Religions' Attitudes Toward the Body
This is not the time and place to delve into an extensive overview of the ways in which the human body appears in the eyes of world religions. The topic is so rich and so vast that entire scholarly books can be written about it. Anyone seriously interested would do well to explore the already existing literature on this issue. Here, at the risk of being overly simplistic, we'll just skim the surface in order to focus on the results caused by certain beliefs.
As a good rule of thumb, typically the more emphasis a religion places on spending eternity as a disembodied soul in the afterlife, the less importance it will attribute to the body. In their view, thebody is little more than clothing shed by the soul as it will move on to bigger and better things. This can be seen in many branches of Christianity, to a significant extent in Islam, some versions of Judaism, and at least a few schools of Buddhism and Hinduism. On the opposite side of the spectrum are the many Animistic cultures that focus primarily on life in this world.
In the West, Judaism and Islam praise the
And so I am trapped in this room, surrounded by thoughts, words, and books—not enough fresh air coming through here. Too many hours of mental strain are aging me prematurely. I swear I can hear the sounds of the neurons in my overworked mind reaching a boiling point. The body, in the meantime, is left behind, forgotten, sinking in the chair, its desperate requests to go out, move, and play falling on deaf ears.
Every minute that goes by, my mood gets worse, and my energy goes stale. If a good preacher got a hold of me now, it wouldn't take much effort to convince me that I'm a worthless sinner in need of redemption. I'm just a few steps away from confessing my sins and asking for forgiveness. Hell, I feel so bad I have almost degenerated into a scholar, one of the gloomy ghosts haunting the halls of academia—their lives, and the lives of anyone coming in contact with them, ebbing away under the weight of too many theories and not enough action.
But then . . . as I await a coup de grace to free me from my misery, something inside reminds me I still have a spine. Not all hope is lost. My destiny is not to be bossed around by a psycho, domineering computer with control issues. If you have a problem with it, screw you, evil, glowing screen. I'm out of here. The computer goes hysterical, calls me names, and throws dishes in my direction, but I'm long gone.
For the next three hours, I lull my mind to sleep as I stretch, pump iron, run six miles, and sweat enough to cause a minor flood. Inside the temple that is the gym, I remember my barbaric nature. I remember I'm a healthy, adult mammal, with raw, powerful energies flowing through my veins. I am more than my brain. I'm tendons, muscles, and ligaments. I'm nerves, bones, and blood. I feel the joy of vitality at last returning.
By now, you may be wondering what's the point of all this. Why this overly dramatic tale of a sick, symbiotic relationship with a control-freak computer? Why the gross story of finding solace in sweating like a pig? Where am I going with this stuff?
It's about bringing the body to the forefront. Every philosophy and religion that ever existed has had to come to terms with the physical dimension of existence. Our bodies have been the object of scorn and disdain by some, and fascination and attraction by others. But in either case, our beliefs and attitudes about the body affect our lives profoundly.
If I was planning to keep my argument as a big mystery and reveal it only at the end of this chapter, I'm afraid the preceding paragraphs just blew it for me. Psychic powers are clearly not required to figure out what stance toward the body I'll be supporting. But despite the lack of a climactic, surprise ending, I hope the next pages can help clarify how different religious outlooks on the body lead to dramatically different consequences.
Religions' Attitudes Toward the Body
This is not the time and place to delve into an extensive overview of the ways in which the human body appears in the eyes of world religions. The topic is so rich and so vast that entire scholarly books can be written about it. Anyone seriously interested would do well to explore the already existing literature on this issue. Here, at the risk of being overly simplistic, we'll just skim the surface in order to focus on the results caused by certain beliefs.
As a good rule of thumb, typically the more emphasis a religion places on spending eternity as a disembodied soul in the afterlife, the less importance it will attribute to the body. In their view, thebody is little more than clothing shed by the soul as it will move on to bigger and better things. This can be seen in many branches of Christianity, to a significant extent in Islam, some versions of Judaism, and at least a few schools of Buddhism and Hinduism. On the opposite side of the spectrum are the many Animistic cultures that focus primarily on life in this world.
In the West, Judaism and Islam praise the
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