Critical Commentary on the Interviews

Critical Commentary

1. Do you think it is acceptable to draw pictures or show images of God? and

To what extent do you agree that God cannot be materialized into human standards?

Yes, because we believe that representations of God are something that helps people focus their worship and centralize their beliefs around something they can visualize. This helps create a common image for people to associate with God and their religion. I think it is up to the religious persons to represent their God in the way they would like. This also allows religious artwork to have religious meaning.

I believe that God is not something that can be broken down into our standards or human image. However, in representing him as a human man this allows practitioners to connect with God on a personal level and feel closer to him. I think most people believe or understand that God does not look the way we portray him, but this gives them an image to the name. I think images of God may be seen as more of a symbol than a picture, and this is something that is used on a personal level and differs greatly throughout different religions and practitioners themselves. God may not be materialized into a human, but he may be represented symbolically with art and images that happen to resemble the human figure.

2. Muslims do not believe in representing God with images or human figures. They use words and calligraphy to represent Allah. This is due to the belief that God can not be understood in the context of human standards. He is beyond what we can imagine or see on Earth. Artwork that gives Allah or Muhammad a face is considered extremely controversial.  This is shown by the extreme retaliation to the publication of a comic by Charlie Hebdo that shows an image of Muhammad. As a group, none of us are Muslims. This comic strip does not make any of us upset or offended, but we understand how it could offend some Muslims by bringing Muhammad, one of the prophets, down to their human level. We also find it interesting how Charlie Hebdo created this work of art with the knowledge that it would stir up a lot of controversy and we wonder if this controversy is the reason that his comic became popular.

3. The questions asked during student/teacher interviews were:

• Do you think it is acceptable to draw pictures or show images of God?
• To what extent do you agree that God cannot be materialized into human standards?

After interviewing 5 different people-2 teachers and 3 students, our group came to the consensus that these five people had similar opinions and viewpoints. In response to the first question, most people believed that it was acceptable to draw pictures and show images of God as a way of expressing themselves and it gives people something to look at or picture in their mind while worshipping their God. As a group, we agree with these interviewees and found it interesting that we all agree on this specific question. The response to the second question sparked multiple ideas and different thoughts. Some people agreed that God can be materialized into human standards just by the way one thinks of Him. Others expressed that they do not agree that God can be materialized into human standards and believe that God is not something that can be broken down into what we believe is a human image. Our group found it interesting that there were more than one major viewpoint expressed and we believe that God cannot be materialized to human standards, but in representing him as a human, it allows personal connection.

4. Integration (Connection) of evidence: examining how the question relates to Muslims in comparison to MHS society.

Showing images of God and attributing human traits to God are both strictly forbidden in the Islamic religion. Through our questions, we were trying to compare these Islamic ideas to the ideas present in the Millbrook community. Our community is mostly influenced by Christianity and Judaism rather than Islam. It was interesting to see how people that were more influenced by these religions would answer these questions since it is easy to hypothesize how a Muslim would answer them based on the beliefs of Islam.