My Final Paper!

AGF Final Paper_Goldman

I'll take my ashes "to go"

Drive-through service to offer Ash Wednesday service | Maryland News - WBAL Home

It is hard to believe that winter term is almost over and that in just a few days I will be flying home for spring break before heading off to London. I have to admit though, I will be very happy when my final papers and exams are done, and I can spend some quality time with my family. I have really enjoyed this Apple, Google, Facebook class and I enjoy telling my parents what I learn in the class and hear their thoughts. My parents are technophobes and technologically impaired...to the point where they still do not know how to highlight, copy, or paste. Anyway, when I told my dad what I was writing on for my final paper, he told me he had heard that for Ash Wednesday, certain churches were offering a “to go” service, so that people did not have to take the time out of their busy schedule to go into the church and get their ashes. People will be able to stop by, say a quick prayer, and go on their merry way. The church is hoping it will give people a chance to participate in Ash Wednesday who might otherwise ignore the holiday. Robert Bellah would say that this is expected in a culture like America where everything including religion and religious holidays should be catered to the individual's needs. In my opinion, having this option, is almost hypocritical. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent and is a time for the individual to reflect on their transgressions and that one must repent for their sins. The Ashes are a physical reminder to repent. So if an individual decides they are too busy to go to the Ash Wednesday service, what are the odds that this individual is going to take the time to reflect on their sins? To me, having this service is just a way for the individual to feel less guilty about not going to church. It shows they can do only the bear minimum. Maybe the individual should add "not going to church on Ash Wednesday and getting drive-thru ashes" to their list of sins.

Final Paper Ideas

For my final paper for the class I am thinking of looking at a large synagogues’ use of technology and how it reaches out to its members through technology. I will talk about how both of these use social networks like Facebook and twitter to build a support network not only within the synagogue but while they are at home. I want to compare how a big synagogue like Temple Emanu-El in New York City uses technology, versus a smaller temple like the one that my family belongs to in New Jersey, and how they reach out to its congregants through technology, and which one is more successful.

Specifically how each of them reaches out to its younger members through technology in innovative, creative, and fun ways to get the youth interested in education and religion. This could be through technology within religious youth groups like using Facebook to harvest virtual friendships on Facebook.

Also live webcasts of services so that one never has to leave their home, but can still observe. These live webcasts, plus apps that make holy books and religious texts accessible, are proof for Bellah’s assertion of religious privatism. We want to be able to choose the way we observe our religion and we don’t feel that we necessarily have to attend services, when we can access services from the comforts of our couch at home.

I also found apps that are associated with this idea of connection- not only to a synagogue but to Jews around the world. One app called “Western Wall 3D Interactive Virtual Tour- Jerusalem in the Jewish Faith” allows the person to visit the holiest site in Jerusalem from home. Going to Jerusalem is an extremely spiritual experience, and for those that might not be able to make the long and expensive journey, it allows them to again experience the holiest site in Jerusalem from their home. It is not only a spiritual tool, but an educational tool. Thus apps are making spirituality accessible to everyone! It is a free app, whereas traveling to Israel from the USA costs thousands of dollars. This is only one app of many that makes religion accessible. More apps such as a Jewish calendar, Kosher cookbook, 250 Jewish recipes, allow for one to easily maintain a Jewish lifestyle.

I will connect these apps to Bellah’s idea of religious privatism, to Facebook friendship circles, to Apple’s customizing of religion, and to the anonymity of having private spiritual engines and how Lanier says this is destructive.

I will refer back to how a larger congregation does this versus a smaller congregation and if there is any difference at all.

If I am not a gadget, then who am I?

In our class, we have thought about the way Apple, Google, Facebook interact and influence the Self. Just like social media platforms and search engines have different manifestos on how it should interact with the users’ Self, Robert Bellah asserts that the “first language” all religions share is fulfillment of the Self.



Currently, we are reading You are not a Gadget by the computer scientist and virtual reality pioneer, Jaron Lanier. Lanier looks at how the internet as causing us to lose our sense of individuality and thus lose our entire Self in the process. This loss of Self will force the “first language” of religion to change completely. Lanier says on page 29 of You are Not a Gadget “But if you want to make the transition from old religion, where you hope God will give you an afterlife, to the new religion, where you hope to become immortal by getting uploaded into a computer”... “you demand that the rest of us lie in your new conception of a state religion”... “you need us to deify information to reinforce your faith.”



Lanier proposes that our entire idea of religion is changing. Humankind is shifting from a Self that shapes its beliefs, morals, and actions around what will lead them to a heavenly afterlife, but a humankind that relies on a belief of technology. We no longer need God or religion to guide us and help us shape our own values and Selves. All we need to do is “believe information is real and alive.” This focus on information being real and alive, leaves a void for the Self. The Self has no mission and no place because there is no goal to work towards or values to format around because we are now relying on the immanence of immortality through technology. The “first language” of religion is the singularity.


This means then that technology is becoming a new religion or even taking the place of religion because we deifying technology. Belief in God only promised an unverifiable afterlife, but belief in technology (and the singularity) can promise IMMORTALITY.  So you might be asking, what is the problem with a new religion based on technology? I agree with Lanier to say that the old religion was a religion founded on the principles of Self, and when we transition to the new religion, our individuality and identities will be lost, leading to a future with a collection of apathetic, confused, and unmotivated people.

Ilana Kate Goldman has a website!

This is the link to my new website. It is my first experience with html!

I am hoping that with my new knowledge of html, I can continue to develop this website, and use it to keep my family and friends updated with my adventures abroad. I have an about me section, a link to my blog for class (which I hope to continue with), and pictures that are a timeline of my journey to London!

Love at First Swipe

A few of my blog posts, and my social media project, have discussed how technology has changed the way we form and harvest relationships. It is a correlational relationship that several of the speakers we have listened to in class have analyzed, and even an Oscar winning film, “Her” is about a man that is in a relationship with Siri. Needless to say technology is changing the way we date whether that be through the way we communicate with our dates, through an online dating site like the JDate project, and now addictive apps. In this blog I am responding to an article in the most recent TIME magazine. The article talked about the new popular app, Tinder, and it immediately reminded me of Zuckerbergs Facemash-- highly addictive. These games give the users a kind of endorphin rush to make the user hooked.  Both Facemash and Tinder are based on a system of snap judgments--so really these dating apps are really just a game. In Tinder, you just swipe your finger whether you like or do not like, in Fashmash you click the hotter girl. This truly turns dating into an addictive game and while “dating has always been something of a game, it is now built into a device we carry and check some 150 times a day.” The author seems to take this as a negative thing, because these apps become addicting like Candy Crush, and the users are mistreating the app, using it instead for bets or the spurring of drinking games. In my opinion, this is not a negative thing, but it just means that the rules of the dating game are going to have to change. This addicting quality of Tinder that gives the users a sort of “high”-- the same high that one can feel when going on their first great date, or having their first kiss with someone! So whether this app is being used for meeting someone and falling in love with them, or if it simple is a fun game, it is producing the same “high” and bringing people together.

Mark Zuckerberg- MISS understood

Over 500 million people in the world are on Facebook. Half of those people log on to Facebook every single day. The movie “The Social Network” tells the story of the creation of Facebook and the twisted and callous creator Mark Zuckerberg whom detached himself from his friends only to create a social media site that aims to connect the world to one another. A Harvard classmate of Mark Zuckerberg, Zadie Smith gives her opinion of the movie in her article “Generation Why” and specifically both at the way Mark is portrayed in the movie, as opposed to his personality, in addition to what the movie says about “Generation Why.” While I it could be said that Smith is anti- Facebook because it traps the Self and is based only off of what Mark Zuckerberg thinks we should want to say about our SELVES, I instead want to develop her idea that the movie should not be seen as a critique of Mark Zuckerberg but instead an evaluation of why our generation uses the social network, Facebook.

I agree with Zadie’s point that Aaron Sorkin, manipulates the motivations for Mark Zuckerberg to create Facebook. I myself while watching the film sided with Mark Zuckerberg. From the beginning, while Mark is shown to not understand social relationships, but an amazing gift in programming and creating addicting websites. Sorkin instead of highlighting Zuckerberg’s strengths paints him to be a backstabbing, money-grabbing, womanizer. Zadie asserts that Zuckerberg, like everyone else in the world, just wants to be liked; because Sorkin is of a different generation he can not understand the motivations for creating or using such a site as Facebook. I will go as far as to say that Zuckerberg is almost a scapegoat for “generation 2.0.” Aaron Sorkin represents generation 1.0 that is grappling with new media and just “doesn’t get” Facebook or what it means to be an entrepreneur, and so completely misinterprets its founder.

The best thing to take away from the movie, is for generation 2.0 to reflect on what makes Facebook so addicting and how has it completely changed the way we see ourselves, our relationships, and the people around us. Zuckerberg is just one person that was affected by the Facebook. Facebook affects 500 million people as part of our everyday life; and yes hours and hours are passed looking at profiles and editing our own profiles instead of creating real friendships and instead of actually self-improving. In conclusion, I agree with Zadie in that Mark is a martyr for this generation, and is misconstrued by the old world media that “just doesn’t get it”. We can still be on Facebook and understand that it is not a true reflection of ourselves. But when we are putting things on the internet, no matter if it is through Facebook or not, we are creating an idealized version of ourselves. Facebook is not an expression of self awareness or self reflection, but the way we want to come off to others. This is not a problem inherent to Facebook, but an issue that has always existed, when we are trying so hard to show our best selves to others.