In wrapping up the religions portion of the year, I have been doing a lot of self-reflection on how I have changed since the beginning of 9th grade. I think for one, I have become far more aware of myself, and who I am as a person, and more specifically, a religious person. While I still do not have full clarity on my religious identity yet, I am now much closer to this clarity than I was five months ago. Along with this I also came to the realization that I don’t think I will ever have “full” clarity of who I am. We as humans are constantly evolving and developing based on our surroundings. If we are constantly changing, how can we possibly fully know who we are?

So, what did I learn about myself? For starters, I learned that I identify far more with the culture of being Jewish rather than the beliefs of Judaism. I consider myself a relatively non-religious person, who mainly associates with the ethical aspects of religion (how should we live our lives, treat others, etc.). I associate far more with Confucianism’s beliefs in how we should treat others, but I will go more into that in my next blog post. In addition, I believe that when we die, we kind of just disappear, almost like very deep sleep. I don’t believe in god, however, I do think we are all connected in some type of way. I also believe that there is great value in a community believing in a greater good in the world. I think that the world began with the big bang, and while that is a “miracle”, the beginning of the Earth had nothing to do with anything other than science. I do not pray or go to synagogue, however, I am not opposed to the latter as a type of meditation. I celebrate the basic Jewish holidays as cultural and familial celebrations, and I plan on continuing to celebrate these holidays as I grow older. I also realize that none of my beliefs are “right”. My opinions are just as factual as someone who believes in God or the afterlife, and not only do religious differences bring us together, but they carry us one step closer to revealing the “truth”. ←(I put the word “truth” in quotations because I am not yet sure if there is a real truth when it comes to religious ideas on things like God, creation, and the afterlife)

This summer, I am going on an Outward Bound trip to the north cascades in Seattle, where I will be backpacking for fifteen days. How does this relate to what we are learning you may ask? Well, in class we are learning about negotiation, and how to prevent war and encourage peace. It is critical that when vulnerable and in the woods, my group of fifteen travelers are not “at war”. In a group this large and in a new place, it is expected that there will be arguments and disagreements. Instead of acting like Athens and Milos and going at each other’s throats (which probably isn’t the best idea), we need to cooperate with each other. At times, this may mean making sacrifices for the rest of the group.

Milos consciously avoided war with its neighboring countries for years. Only when Athens directly approached the small island country demanding Milos join the Delian League, did conflict occur. While I do believe that Milos was smart for avoiding war, I also think that Milos had the right to advocate for what they wanted. Now do I believe that war is something that should happen? Of course not. But I also think there is great value in countries and people advocating for what they believe in. If Milos and Athens were to genuinely listen to each other with the mindset that they would leave the argument peacefully and in a situation where everyone got at least some of what they wanted, I think they could’ve prevented war. However, that is not always how the world works.

So, how does this go back to Outward Bound? Like I said previously, it is inevitable that people will have different ideas of how to lead our trip. What path should we take? How should we build a fire? What should we eat for dinner? With the independence of getting to make these decisions, we as a group are also tasked with the challenge of keeping the peace. At times we might not get our way, but as long as we are in a place as a community where we can talk about our opposing ideas cordially, we can prevent this “war” and negotiate to the best of our abilities as a team with the same end goal.

My family’s name is carved in the stained glass windows in the largest temple in Philadelphia. Looking up towards the ceiling, I see the name “Wolf” carved in seven out of ten of pieces of art in Rodeph Shalom. With that being said, my family was once, obviously, quite religious. So, what happened? Why am I not carrying on that religious legacy? So far, I don’t really have answers to these questions.

My father was bar mitzvah’d, but my mom was not. Before I came into this world, my dad went to synagogue about once a month. Now he goes once a year, and in the last two years, he has not gone at all. Because of this, I have never really got the chance to go to synagogue, Hebrew school, get bat mitzvah’d, and have that religious awakening that so many Jews I know have experienced. I wish that I had that opportunity, not necessarily because I believe it would be a good fit for me, in fact, I don’t think I would particularly connect with going to temple, but because I want to make that decision for myself. However, it is unfortunate how many people end up following the path of their families. Religion is supposed to be individual, but so many people never get the chance to venture out from their religious upbringing. 

In my project, I speak a lot about religious freedom, which is something that is quite important to me. While I am not religious myself, I want to advocate for others to explore whatever their religious path takes them, and do so safely. However, in many places, this is still not the case. In many countries, people are still being forced into certain religions, and if they choose to rebel, they will endure consequences, and sometimes, death. According to NPR, religious-fueled hate crimes are at a decade high, and it does not look like these crimes are stopping anytime soon. It makes no sense to me why this is the case, and the majority of attackers are most often quite religious. While many people may have opinions on people of other religions, so many religions clearly state in their books and “rules” to accept all, including people of all religions.

What if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had been entirely successful in executing their fatal plan on April 20, 1999?  I asked myself this question as I wrote about the Columbine High School mass shooting. The teenagers’ original plan included propane bombs. They built and placed two in the school’s cafeteria, two in their cars which were strategically parked at the two main entrances to the school, and a large bomb in a park a few miles away. Harris’s plan was to have the bomb in the park go off earlier than the others, distracting the police from the massacre that was to inevitably follow. Then, the cafeteria and car bombs would explode. This would collapse the cafeteria roof on the unsuspecting students eating lunch, causing them to run, giving Klebold and Harris targets to then shoot. While the bombs never exploded, the duo still managed to be the cause of one of the deadliest school shootings in history, killing 13 students, 1 teacher, and themselves over the span of an hour.

According to inside sources, there were about 480 students in the cafeteria at 11:17, the time in which the bombs were scheduled to go off. If the bombs had been released, we can assume the majority of those students would have been killed, and those who were not would have likely been shot on their way out of the scene. 

So, what if 480 students had been killed that day? I believe that there could’ve been potential for two separate outcomes. On one hand, because so many students were killed, as a result, today there would be far stricter gun laws and far more security in schools, especially mass shootings, further preventing future school shootings from occurring. Knowing that Columbine served as the catalyst for many future school shootings, including Sandy Hook and Parkland, with stricter gun and bomb laws in place, and more security in schools, these shootings would’ve been prevented, saving many students lives who were lost in the past, and many students who would’ve been killed in the future. 

On the other hand, if the bombs had been successful in killing hundreds of students, there would have been potential for far more deadly school shootings to occur today. Knowing how powerful the NRA (National Rifle Association) is, it is likely that even if there had been a shooting like Columbine was expected to be, the gun laws would be the same as they are today. Not only would there be no prevention for future school shootings, but those shooters who looked to Columbine as their model for shootings would see bombs. Who’s to say that future school shooters wouldn’t take a page from Harris and Klebold’s book and use bombs in addition to guns at their shooting, resulting in even more deaths than occur today as a result of school shootings.

I believe that religion is a spectrum. Obviously, not everyone is on the same level of religiousness as, say, the Pope, but that is not the kind of spectrum I’m talking about. I am talking about the idea that someone can identify with many different religions. So a Catholic can have Islamic views, an Athiest can also have Buddhist views, etc. Yet this variation of beliefs does not make someone any less religious or devoted to their religion. 

I identify as Jewish culturally, however, my beliefs alongside Judaism pretty much end there. I do not believe in God, which could classify me as an atheist, but I also recognize that I do not know for sure if I am right, so by definition, I am agnostic. To be honest, I think these labels are nothing more than a classification. In fact, for me as a teenager in the midst of discovering her religion and beliefs, I believe that titles hurt more than help. In today’s society, I feel so pressured to identify with a certain group of people, that I begin to lose sight of the most important thing about religion, self-discovery, and individual beliefs. Putting all labels aside, I would identify myself as someone who does not believe in God as a form, rather than as a metaphor for good in the world and a way for humans to better understand ideas too complex for words. I do not believe in heaven and hell, and when we die I think we just cease from existence, almost like a night’s sleep without dreams. With that being said, similar to my interpretation of God, I believe that heaven and hell are, in many ways, just hyperboles for really good and really bad things here on earth. 

With all of this being said, I still have yet to classify myself religiously and do not think I will ever box myself in by adding a label to my abstract and constantly developing opinions. I truly believe that if we as a population were to put our religious labels aside and purely discuss our opinions, we would quickly learn that our beliefs are all far more similar than we first thought and that much of the oppression that occurs regarding religion is, in many ways, a misunderstanding. 

At the time of writing this post, I am about halfway done with my interview project. I had the privilege to speak with three people. Firstly, I spoke with a close family friend of mine, Gina, who identifies as Roman Catholic. Later that day I spoke with another family friend, Shira, who identifies as an Orthodox Jew. Lastly, a few days later, I had the chance to interview my neighbor, Hannah, who is a Unitarian Universalist minister. While on the surface all three of these religions sound very different, very early in the interviews I discovered that all three were far more similar than I originally assumed, holding a strong value in community.

The main similarity between the three that stood out to me, is that all of the people who I spoke to, strongly value this idea of community in their religions. In talking about going to church or mass or temple, they all spoke enthusiastically about the social opportunities that go along with attending their religious gatherings. Shira spoke about this idea of community more in-depth when expressing her opinions on the existence of God. She told me, “I think it’s interesting because for a while now, I don’t actually know that there is such a thing in the world, but I think that there is value in a community believing that there is such a thing.” She then went on to explain this value, saying that “when you believe in something greater than that helps you understand that you’re part of this greater community”. This way of thinking was very interesting to me, as it was not a concept that had ever crossed my mind, however, I agree that there is immense value in a group of people sharing a belief in good. Hannah also expressed this idea of communities serving as a force for good. She revealed to me that “As a minister, you are in a unique position to help channel that good and to help harness that power and to help give structure to people to give meaning and structure to communities such that they are a force for good in the world.” 

The other week we were asked, “What If” regarding historical events? Essentially, I was asked, how would the present be impacted if just one detail from history was to change. For example, what if Anne Frank had survived the Holocaust, or what if Columbus never sailed, therefore never discovered America? In light of the recent and tragic Oxford school shooting, when asked this question I thought back to the event that was the catalyst for many of the shootings to follow, Columbine. For those who are unfamiliar with this event, Columbine was a shooting that occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold planned on releasing bombs in and around the school in addition to shooting students and staff, and while the bombs never exploded, the two high school seniors still managed to kill thirteen students and staff, in addition to themselves, causing the deadliest school shooting in American history. I then asked myself the question “what if?”, and created two completely different alternatives to this tragic event. Firstly, what if the bombs had exploded in Columbine? And secondly, what if the police had filed a warrant for Harris and Klebold?

In this blog, I will be going into detail on the second scenario. It is likely that if the police had signed the warrant for Harris and Klebold or the judge had taken a closer look at Brooks Brown’s report that was filed against Harris regarding his suspicious behavior and writings, Harris’s pipe bombs for what the shooters called “Judgement Day” would have been discovered. Further, Harris would have been arrested and put in jail, entirely preventing the Columbine Massacre. Of course, there is always the possibility that when Harris was released from jail that he would revisit his plan, knowing that many psychologists believe that “he was a full-blown psychopath”. However, for the sake of this theory, we will assume that this would not happen and if the police had put Harris in jail, the Columbine shooting would have never happened. 

Of course on the surface, if there was no massacre on April 20, 1999, in Ohio, twelve students and one teacher would still be here today. Who knows what lives those twelve budding adults would have led? Maybe one of them would become president? What if one discovered a cure for cancer? However, when I began to dig deeper, I realized that not only would thirteen lives have been spared, but twenty first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary, 32 students and staff at Virginia Tech University, and so many more. The Columbine tragedy was one of the first widely publicized school shootings. Because of this, “of the 63 school shootings that took place after Columbine collected by Kiernan Group Holdings in its Active Shooter database, 16 (25 percent) were directly inspired by Columbine, including the Virginia Tech shootings and the Sandy Hook, Connecticut, school massacre.” Knowing this information, we can assume that the frequency of school shootings that occur today, at least 149 this year, would be significantly less, as events like these are caused by a domino effect, saving hundreds of innocent lives.

James, Susan D., “Psychology of Virginia Tech, Columbine Killers Still Baffles Experts,”
ABCNews.com. Retrieved on 7 December 2014 from
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=7345607

Nicholson, Kieran, “Cho: Killers at Columbine ‘Martyrs’,” The Denver Post. Retrieved
on 7 December 2014 from http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5699066

Lenoir, Andrew. “‘No Easy Answers’: The Full Story of the Columbine High School
Shooting.” Edited by John Kuroski. All That’s Interesting. Last modified
July 11, 2021. Accessed December 12, 2021. https://allthatsinteresting.com/
columbine-high-school-shooting.

 

On April 21, 1998, Eric Harris wrote in his diary, “[School is] societies way of turning all the young people into good little robots and factory workers. I will sooner die than betray my own thoughts. but before I leave this worthless place, I will kill who ever I deam [sic] unfit for anything at all. especially life.” 364 days later, he and his friend Dylan Klebold became known forever as the teenagers who began an epidemic that has become so common in the United States, school shootings. 

The following year, on April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Columbine, Ohio, as they had done every day for years. However, on this day, coincidentally Hitler’s birthday, they had different intentions. Earlier that morning they had planted bombs around the school. Two in the school’s cafeteria, two in their cars which were strategically parked at the two main entrances to the school, and a large bomb in a park a few miles away. Harris’s plan was to have the bomb in the park go off earlier than the others, distracting the police from the massacre that was to inevitably follow. Then, the cafeteria and car bombs would explode. This would collapse the cafeteria roof on the unsuspecting students eating lunch, causing them to run, giving Klebold and Harris targets to then shoot. However, their supposedly “foolproof” plan was unsuccessful. The bombs never exploded. This did not stop the two from causing one of the deadliest school shootings in American history, murdering 12 students, one teacher, and themselves, over the span of an hour.

Perhaps one of the most alarming details of this event was yet to be discovered. Brooks Brown, then a senior at Columbine High School, had been close with Harris and Klebold since elementary school. The boys bonded over a joint love for video games and philosophy. Brooks and Klebold both attended Colorado CHIPS (Challenging High Intellectual Potential Students), a program for gifted students in third grade. While Brown transferred quickly due to the overly competitive environment, Klebold attended the program through sixth grade, bottling his stress and misery to the point of rages. Klebold and Harris met in middle school, however, did not become close friends until partway through high school. Although it is unclear whether the boys were bullied, it quickly became apparent to Brown and his classmates that the boys enjoyed messing with their classmates, playing pranks that gradually became more and more violent as time progressed.

At one point, Brown and Harris got into a fight, resulting in Harris shattering Browns’ car windows, then out of anger, Brown revealed Harris’s poor behavior to his parents. In January 1999, Klebold gave Brown a letter containing a web address, telling his friend, “I think you should look at this tonight, and you can’t tell Eric I gave it to you.” While the motives behind this action are unclear, many assume this interaction was a cry for help. The web address was Harris’s AOL account which detailed his plan to build pipe bombs and wishes to kill people with “voDka”, Klebold’s screen name. At this point, Brook’s parents notified the police. Unknown to them, the two were already arrested for breaking into a van and stealing electronic equipment. The two were placed into a Juvenile Diversion program in which they completed quickly, were deemed rehabilitated, and were let go, records clean. All That’s Interesting (ATI), along with numerous articles and people theorize that “Had the presiding judge seen the Browns’ report, or if the resultant search warrant had been executed, Harris would have been rejected and jailed for the van theft and the police would have found his growing pipe bomb arsenal.” Unfortunately, this information was never shared and the warrant was never signed. So, not only could the Columbine Massacre have been prevented, but it should have been.

Klebold, Sue. My son was a Columbine shooter. This is my story | Sue Klebold.
TED, 2017. Accessed December 12, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=BXlnrFpCu0c.

Lenoir, Andrew. “‘No Easy Answers’: The Full Story of the Columbine High School
Shooting.” Edited by John Kuroski. All That’s Interesting. Last modified
July 11, 2021. Accessed December 12, 2021. https://allthatsinteresting.com/
columbine-high-school-shooting.

https://online.seterra.com/en/vgp/3007?c=RF8R3

Earlier this week I was thinking back to some of the philosophical stories that we were told at the beginning of the year. I found myself continuously looping back to the allegory “Plato’s Cave”. I began to compare it to some common themes across the religions. I observed that all of the religions’ morals and central ways of life are based on one idea; the nature of humans as a whole. For example, Legalists believe that the nature of man is evil, whereas Daoists believe that humans are “uncarved blocks”, meaning that they are born neutral. While the purpose of “Plato’s Cave” can be interpreted in many different ways, one of the most common questions asked from it is centered around the nature of man. This got me thinking about, one and less importantly, what would happen if followers of these religions were placed in the scenario exhibited in “The Cave”, and secondly, what are my opinions on the nature of man, and how do my beliefs shadow the main polytheistic religions? 

The short answer is, I’m not quite sure yet. I want to believe that humanity’s resting point is good, but I realize that just optimism talking. While Legalism does make a good argument for the idea that humanity is naturally evil, I do not believe this either. So, I moved on to Daoism. Daoism’s opinions on this topic are less clear. What is clear is that Daoists believe that the nature of humanity was meant to be untouched and left in its natural state. From here, I was able to interpret this concept into Daoism’s belief that humanity’s natural state is one in which it can singlehandedly succeed and thrive. This is one concept that I objectively do not agree with. I believe that humanity needs outside forces to thrive. I agree most with Aristotle’s opinion on human nature. To put it simply, Aristotle believed that “human beings are rational… and a major component of rationality is the ability to reason”, as stated by the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (The link to an article going into more scientific reasoning for Aristotle’s opinion is below, and I found it very interesting). To capture it best, I believe that humans are naturally logical. However, I ultimately believe that humans are complex beings, meaning that their resting state cannot be captured by just one word or description.

 

Johnson-Laird, Philip N. “Mental Models and Human Reasoning.” Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Last modified October 26, 2010. Accessed November 29, 2021. https://www.pnas.org/content/107/43/18243.