If you haven't heard of Angry Birds, then to tell you what it is by saying that it is the most successful mobile web app ever doesn't really give you an idea of how huge it is. I mean, how long have apps even existed? No, to give it the correct historical proportion, I should better tell you that Angry Birds is to my kids what the hula hoop was to my parents and what Cabbage Patch Kids were to my generation.
I must confess that after hearing all the buzz, I tried Angry Birds and after several hours of diligent research late into the night, I came up with some pertinent thoughts on the game. In the spirit of finding life lessons all around us, I compiled this list of concepts to ponder:
• The pigs are the bad guys.
Ask anyone to name an unkosher animal and nine times out of 10 they'll say a pig. Why don't they ever say an armadillo or a platypus? I mean, those things are as treif as it gets, yet swine have always been the quintessential impure creatures. But the reason why the pig is particularly reviled is because it symbolizes false piety. There are two signs of a kosher animal: a) it chews its cud and b) it has cloven hooves. The pig is the only animal that has the outer sign of being kosher (cloven hooves) but does not possess the inner sign of being kosher (chewing its cud). In other words, outwardly, the pig would appear to be kosher, it's only when you look at what's going on inside that you discover that it's not. And this is why the pig, or what it symbolizes, is so loathesome. The greatest enemy of spiritual growth is not obvious dysfunction but rather dysfunction that outwardly appears to be just fine.
• The pigs snatch the birds' eggs away from them.
There is actually a Biblical commandment (Deuteronomy 22:6-7) that if you take eggs from a bird's nest, you have to shoo away the mother bird first. One explanation for this is that it trains us to be as compassionate as possible. We are allowed to take eggs for food. But even when doing so, we don't have to force the mother bird to witness something that causes it to instinctively feel pain. One extreme says not to take the eggs at all. The other extreme says take the eggs however you darn well please. The middle path says that you may take the eggs if you need to, but do so mindfully and with respect for the web of life.
• If they're birds, why don't they just fly?
The bombshell question you gotta ask after playing this game is that if the birds are birds then why do they have to shoot themselves out of a slingshot and not just fly? We've got to assume that either their wings aren't working or they're not working well enough to do their job. In the kabbalastic book, the Zohar, the two opposite but complementary emotions of love and awe are compared to two wings that cause our good deeds to soar. Thus it says, "A good deed done without love and awe is like a bird without wings." While this might lead you to believe that if you can't get emotionally enthused for a good deed then there is no point in doing it, the truth is that it's not so, for "a bird without wings is still a bird" meaning even if you can't get inspired to do good, just do good anyways. Force yourself... even if you have to (figuratively) shoot yourself out of a slingshot to do so.
• They're angry.
The Talmud says, "Forever let your inclination for good rage against your inclination for bad." If the pigs represent false piety (see above) and the birds represent getting good deeds done (see above) then, yeah, let those birds be angry!
• The pigs' forts are just begging to be knocked down.
The pigs' forts are so elaborate and at the same time just so ridiculously precarious. They go to all this trouble erecting these complex structures, but with the well-placed pressure of a couple of flying birds they are easily toppled. I mean, if an architect designed any one of these buildings they would be totally sued for negligence. It's like the pigs subconsciously want their fort to be knocked down. In a similar way, our own "little green pigs" (read: the negative forces we encounter in life) may very well create formidable-looking obstacles, but in truth they actually want us to overcome them. Judaism teaches that the evil inclination placed within us wants us to resist it. It has to do its job by creating an opposition to our good deeds, but at bottom, its own modus operandi is to be defeated.
• More about that slingshot.
The farther you want the bird to go, the farther back you pull the slingshot. This is one of those spiritual truisms in life. The greatest ascents are preceded by the greatest descents. A setback in life is only a setback when you look at one frozen moment in time. Let things play out and see yourself catapulted to new heights.
• The different kinds of birds.
There are several different kinds of birds. The blue bird is small and light. His greatest power is when he splits apart into three. The ego always tries to tell us that bigger is better but sometimes when you're small, the solution is to get even smaller. Humility can pack a punch that brute force cannot.
The yellow bird speeds up and slices through objects with his triangular body. Interestingly, although he makes mince meat out of wooden boards, he is very ineffective against ice even though ice is weaker than wood. Of all the emotional obstacles in our spiritual path, the toughest to deal with is "ice." Coldness and apathy are even more difficult to break through than outright hostility.
The white bird's body has very little impact but the exploding eggs that it drops are quite effective. In some areas of life, it is more productive not to put ourselves into the task but rather to just employ the tools at our disposal. For instance, I don't have to immerse my deepest inner self into balancing my finances. It's okay to just use Quickbooks and save the real me for more important things like becoming a better person.
On the other hand... the black bird is the exact opposite of the white bird. It explodes like a bomb. To do its task, it gives away its entire self. This is like the areas of life where we have to put our entire being into the job and nothing short of that will do. So while I can buy a computer program to balance my finances I can't buy a computer program to raise my kids for me. I've got to do it myself and put my entire being into it.
Anyway, that's what I came up with. Oh, and I want to thank my brother Dovid Taub for helping my figure all of this out.
Follow Rabbi Shais Taub on Twitter: www.twitter.com/shaistaub
Angry Birds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Angry Birds Online | Play Free | Guides | Cheats | Downloads
In some ways the English at the time were the pigs of the Angry Birds, Their claim appears "kosher" --the English leadership originated in France, and they spoke French.
80 years into the Hundred Years war, the English with one sided victories at Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415), were clearly winning. They were about to solidify their claim by taking Orleans (1429) when a farm girl, claiming Divine Guidance, got herself appointed general of the French army ahead of all the other hardened veterans; and was sent to relieve Orleans.
Like the black bird that gives its all, Joan pre-predicted one year of active service, broke the English power and the 100 Years War turned to French favor. Orleans was relieved and Joans victory is celebrated each May 8th. Some English leaders refused to fight when it was discovered she was to be on the field. Though Joan was captured imprisoned and executed a yea later it all went bad for the English and their fortunes declined to the point they had to abandon France save for Calais.
There is much spirituality that can be gleaned from these games and reflected upon real life situations.
It's sad how gods are perceived and used to elevate one against another and perpetrate great evil. This article is a reflection of that. The problem with such religion is it demeans and attacks those not of it's tribe, because it's deity is perceived to do so.
Civil morality requires the grant of respect, equality, freedom, protection and empowerment of humanity. The worship of lords is the antithesis.
Honest skeptic inquiry is the only path to TRUTH. One should psychoanalyze their deity to understand how emulating or pleasing them can be a corrupting experience. Repetitive prayer or behavior is not 'worship'. Rather it is a brainwashing technique that diminishes brain activity, silences any inquiry, resulting in a resting experience.
“Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time." - Larry Flynt
“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry” - Edgar Allan Poe
“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.” - Richard Dawkins
The "need" for religion, the addiction, is the sad state humanity's in. Repetitive chants affect the mind like drugs. Nationalism and Religious indoctrination are drilled repetitively en mass with peers. Such brainwashing suggests truth without substantiation, simply because their peers accept it as truth while those who challenge it are put down.
The Israelite, having slaughtered Canaanite humanity, was at peace with god and self. The knowing believer also chooses peace. For god and country, they joyfully promote prejudice, segregation and kill.
Civil morality requires the grant of respect, equality, freedom, protection and empowerment of all humanity. The worship of lords is antithetical.
Skeptics are those who are challenged to think fresh for themselves, on the basis that what they are told is questionable, to either substantiate or reject. Skeptics excel as scientists, inventors, judges and philosophers and function at a higher level of intellect. They do more for the benefit and progress of humanity than believers.
Honest skeptic inquiry is the only path to TRUTH. Only TRUTH set's humanity free. Why not live it? Why not live honestly, civilly, without fear of or subjugation to perceived authority, but for the compassion and care of humanity?
Let's not promote Angry Birds as good guys and Pigs as bad guys. That's evil justifying violence.
The game sounds like thousands of other semi-violent, colorful, and fun to play games. To try to dredge religious significance up from it is a waste of time. Enjoy the game (I love video games!) but think of something with a little more depth to write about.
I don't have one for Donkey Kong but maybe if I can dig out my old atari 2600 I can do some research.
If one can find depth and inspiration in a fun and silly little computer game, is it any surprise that so many people found so much inspiration in the ancient tribal middle eastern campfire legends that were assembled into the Hebrew bible?
Morality, inspiration, spirituality and togetherness can be found anywhere because we already have it in us to begin with, and it is we who grant it to bibles and deities and yes - to video games. We really do not need a wizard of Oz or a Yahweh or Allah or Vishnu to grant us anything or give us purpose.
Which proves....that folk/myths handed down for generations by illiterate, itinerant herders, recorded hundreds of years after the fact, can be used to draw meaning from a mindless web app.
....or not. Pondering this deep universal question is a similar waste of time to actually playing Angry Birds.
However if, from birth, a child is indoctrinated into a culture that is accepted blindly (for the same reasons) by everyone around him/her, that would be a more rational reason to expect belief in that culture than "instinctive recognition". While humans have amazing cognitive abilities, they generally lack instinct--it's kind of a trade off. We lost most of our instinct but gained the ability to solve algorithms.
The need for sentient beings to answer the un-answerable questions along with the very strong desire to NOT DIE creates religion(s). Greed, and the desire for power over others is what drives religions.
The fact that those same herders were smart enough to correlate disease (likely, trichinosis) with eating the meat from pigs caused them to create rules to avoid that outcome. The fact that cooking the meat sufficiently would have had the same effect wasn't known until the cultural damage had been done...for millenia; all of which means, don't expect bacon with your breakfast in the Middle East since it's neither halal or kosher.