The Secular and the Sacred

2009-04-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

Now that my work load has lightened and free time has become more abundant, I've been able to sit down and start watching cartoons again. Childish, yes, but that's not to say it's not a good form of entertainment. Though, it has made me a bit nostalgic.

I remember watching cartoons when I was a kid. Back then, I wasn't concerned with ethics being taught, and I definitely wasn't paying attention to the hidden morals and themes throughout episodes. Now, however, I'm noticing certain themes coming out in jokes made during episodes of cartoons like Spongebob, Hey Arnold, and Invader Zim. One of them, was religion.

I noticed that more and more cartoons are addressing the issue of religion and its values. Spongebob, for example, has an episode called "The Magic Conch Shell" where Spongebob and Patrick come across a fortune telling conch shell toy, and begin to both worship it, and follow its words as law. Spongebob is notorious for having subliminal adult content, but this was blatantly overt. I took this as an obvious mockery of religion, those following an "all knowing voice." Despite the fact that the episode is sped up, you still get the point. I couldn't find an original clip of the video.

Throughout the video, allusions to organized/cult like religions are made. In the beginning, Spongebob and Patrick make a club and don't allow Squidward to come in because they don't think he'd understand. They then get lost, and show Squidward "the magic conch shell." The shell itself represents a diety or religious icon in which they abide by. Like all religious icons, there is oposition to it and its teachings. Squidward denounces their belief that the conch knows all and will lead them to freedom from the kelp forest, but the other two insist. Through a series of fabricated events, the conch is made to seem as if it's truly magical, and eventually Squidward believes too.

Although it's done ina ridiculous manner, the message can be taken one of two ways. The first and more cynical view is that religious belief is fabricated, and any miracles that occur are chance. On the other hand though, it could be seen that infact religion and the miracles that follow it are actually a series of circumstance and chance. The question is what are our kids getting out of it? Is it inadvertently turning the younger generations against certain beliefs and values that our country and many others were founded on, or is it just all in the name of entertainment?

Religion in America

2009-04-28T17:21:00.000-07:00

I came across this article on ccn.com just yesterday. I thought it was an interesting read because it talked a lot about what we talked about in class. The article mostly talks about how religion has changed a lot in America. According to the article, more than half of American adults have changed their religion. The article also touch on the fact that religion has shifted. As we found in our class alone not to many of us do not go to Sunday church. Also, in the article I found it interesting that one of the reasons people may have drifted away from church is because of the Catholic Church sex scandals, which connected to the movie that we watched "Doubt". When one of the Sisters believed that the Priest was being inappropriate around the students.

Doubt

2009-04-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

After watching the movie Doubt in class today, I began thinking about the whole Catholic Church molestation scandals. A certain line in the movie struck me as being funny on the surface, but when I started to think about it it worried me a bit. Father Flynn was talking to the boys about girls and how to handle themselves around them. When a boy asks him what if every girl he asks to dance turns him down, Father Flynn replies "then you become a priest." This may make the boys laugh at the time but maybe Father Flynn really didn't mean it as a joke. Maybe these men are turning to religion because they can't find women to marry and, being human, they feel the need for companionship and they will take it any way they can find it. And even if the clergyman finds a woman that he could potentially date and marry, the church does not allow it. The molestation scandals could potentially be avoided if these clergymen were allowed to date and get married. Maybe the church could amend their rules to accommodate this new trend of lonely priests.

Wanting More

2009-04-27T04:14:00.000-07:00

As the semester comes to an end, I have been thinking a lot about American life and how religion fits in. I feel like we as a nation, are missing out on something because of our lack of faith. This brings me to think about the Amish people with their simplistic lifestyle. Our world is so full of commodities that we don’t need and these commodities have taken us away from something important. Religion is something that is very different in today’s society. These commodities have taken us away from what truly is important. Some would probably argue about this. My response would be; What do you get out of your video games? There is no true meaning in video games. We constantly overlook the best part of life. Spending time with family and friends and enjoying nature as it is. I think the Amish have all this. Yes, their life is very hard but I argue that they truly live life to its fullest. They appreciate every day and are experiencing life as many of us won’t. I want what they have, a life with peace and a true understanding of their faith. I feel very strongly that the faith of the Amish and people from the beginning of our country, had faith like we never will. I guess this is due to the lack of knowledge about evolution and commodities but I want that. I want to not have this faith that isn’t questioned but truly believed because I feel they have peace in their lives do to this. It’s just something I have been thinking about for years and really feel I have missed out on something. I want the world to go back to these days but realize this will never happen. The Amish interest me with their simplicity and community based society. I constantly wonder what it would be like to live in their society. Would I feel more at ease? Would it really provide me with all that I’d hoped it would? I have this urge to know this and yet I probably never will.

So I know that I probably won’t become Amish even though that thought is very tempting. I have realized I need to make changes in my life so that I don’t feel I am missing out. William Deresiewicz wrote an article “The End of Solitude”. He talks about how our society has turned away from solitude but specifically refers to our generation. “I once asked my students about the place of solitude in their lives. One of them admitted that she finds the prospect of being alone so unsettling that she’ll sit with a friend even when she has a paper to write” (1). This is a very startling thought to me because it describes me in some ways. Ever since I have been in college I have this fear of being alone. I don’t like it at all. I contribute this fear to when my parents had to leave me at college and I stood there knowing no one. That was the scariest thing I have ever done. Never have a felt more alone in my life. Ever since then, I make sure I am not alone for long periods of time. Yet, when I’m home, I seek out alone time. I can’t wait to spend time by myself just thinking but often to read and let my mind wonder.
Deresiewicz also talks about the use of cell phones and facebook. I honestly don’t have facebook because it would take up too much of my time and I don’t want that. I do agree that I would meet a lot more people if I did have facebook but I don’t feel I’m missing out. The idea of being on the computer that long is truly frightening to me. I also am not a fan of texting. It is not personal enough to me and I feel like I’m talking to a robot. I admit my phone is constantly on me and I should try not being with it but I am not constantly using my phone either.
To wrap these two ideas together, I think the reason I want to be Amish is because of the lack of solitude in my life. If I were to have more time to myself to enjoy my surroundings and get to know myself more I would find the peace I am longing for. Does anyone feel they need more solitude in their life or is it just me?

Educational Philosophy

2009-04-27T04:09:00.000-07:00

We have spent a great deal of time in school up to this point. Most of us in this class have spent at least sixteen years in school to reach the point that we have today but what is the point of education? Is it to make us better more enlightened individuals? Maybe it is to train us for our future careers? What about to make us good consumers to stimulate the economy?

Depending upon what one views the purpose of education to be the methodology taken for that education can vary greatly. If education is to make us mindless consumers then maybe the best method is a rigid curriculum with frequent standardized assessments. Or maybe this is how we should be educating people to prepare them for the workforce. On the other hand, to be successful in a career people need to be independent thinkers with good leadership skills so maybe a loosely structured curriculum with both teacher and student driven aspects is best.

The Core at Champlain College is an experiment in educational philosophy. The idea that by mixing disciplines such as history, economics, philosophy, psychology, science, literature, arts, and aesthetics students can gain a better understanding of each by being able to analyze them from the perspectives of various disciplines. But yet for some reason many Champlain students in Core consider it to be stupid and a waste of time. The argument against Core that makes me the angriest is “This has nothing to do with my major so why should I have to waste my time learning it”. Champlain College is a four year liberal arts college. It seeks to give its students a liberal arts education which includes a cross section of many disciplines to ensure students are well rounded and prepared for the real world. If you are among those who do not want this then leave. There are many great two year technical schools that focus on teaching a skill or profession without the general education component.

In the Western World Philosophy, Immanuel Kant describes enlightenment as “man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage” and nonage as “the ability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance” (149). If the purpose of Education is to create enlightened individuals, which I believe it should be, then the Core’s goal of teaching us how to think is certainly pointed in the right direction. The problems associated with Core and any of its shortcomings are as much the fault of its students as its professors and administrators. Kant points out that laziness and cowardice are the primary reasons why “such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance” (149). If Core, or even education in general, is to succeed at created enlightened individuals then students need to break free from laziness.

Is our faith blind?

2009-04-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

As Stephen Prothero states in the article “Blind Faith” that Americans are some of the most religious people in the world, but that they are also the least knowledgeable about their religion. He states that

“Americans are also the most religiously ignorant people in the Western world. Fewer than half of us can identify Genesis as the first book of the Bible, and only one third know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount. These are just two of the depressing statistics in Stephen Prothero's provocative and timely Religious Literacy. The author of American Jesus (2003) and the chair of the religion department at Boston University, Prothero sees America's religious illiteracy as even more dangerous than general cultural illiteracy ‘because religion is the most volatile constituent of culture, because religion has been, in addition to one of the greatest forces for good in world history, one of the greatest forces for evil’” (1).

Recently, The Daily Show did a stint where one of the reporters interviewed several people about the Rapture. Many of them believed heavily that followers of Christianity would be saved from the eventual end of days while those that did not follow Christianity would not. One interviewee was Scott Butcher, the creator of Raptureletters.com, a site that would email anyone that was left behind after the Rapture and would explain what had happened. He could not even answer a simple question when asked about a specific detail about the prophecies regarding the Rapture. The video is shown below.

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Miss California

2009-04-26T23:14:00.000-07:00

One of the Miss USA contestants, Miss California's Carrie Prejean, said that she believed that marriage was meant to be between a man and a woman. Here's a clip of her from the pageant.

She later claimed that "Out of all the topics I studied up on, I dreaded that one, I prayed I would not be asked about gay mariage. If I had any other question, I know I would have won." Well, how fortunately for her that she yes indeed received a question on the topic of gay marriage AND in fact was asked the question by celebrity-(ish) Perez Hilton who is homosexual.

This issue already has a lot of attention in recent politics and she did acknowledge that it could have been a potential topic to be asked upon. Should have studied harder, tsk tsk.

Her answer caused her to be faced with a lot of negative attention-- Perez Hilton blogged about her on his site calling her a 'dumb bitch' and went on with how her having 'half a brain' and even said he would've stormed up onto the stage and ripped her tiara off if she had won.

It amazes me that in 2009 we still manage to live in such a closed-minded society. This is exactly one of the things that's wrong with the world today. Yeah, I do believe that Miss California had every right to express HER opinion on gay marriage that "Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage." She later told Fox News that "By having to answer that question in front of a national audience, God was testing my character and faith. I'm glad I stayed true to myself." But when did we become such a religiously strict Christian society? (I'm not exactly sure what faith Prejean believes in.) In McDannell's Material Christianity, she states that Christians believe that "sexuality is God-given, homosexuality cannot be 'natural' " (pg. 217).

Still, I think that Miss California did not answer her question the way that a beauty queen should have. She wasn't asked what she thinks of same-sex marriage, she was asked if she believes that states should pass laws regarding same-sex marriage. And THAT is a completely different question than how she answered it. She was competing to be a representative of her state and country so she should have known that. Again, she definitely should have given more thought and much more carefully worded answer that didn't address whether or not she thinks same-sex marriage is wrong.

It's almost like we are going backwards; we fought so hard over the past years for our rights and beliefs, and now there are still people being told that they cannot marry because of their homosexuality. It's pretty silly that only FOUR out of fifty states make same-sex marriages legal. The other forty-six needs to realize that when religious and sacred meaning is taken away from the equation that homosexuality isn't a negative impact on our society.

Source

spring meltdown

2009-04-26T22:24:00.000-07:00

This Friday was last day of classes; every single student in Champlain College was very happy person. At the same time, many of the students were not happy mainly because many of them had many other projects to finish. While many of the students were having great time at spring meltdown, many were in the library working on their papers. But that is live, you can’t always have fun, sometimes you need to do something that is more important. Besides homework and spring meltdown fun activities I saw something interesting this Friday, which is the Red Cross on the back of the free shirts that they were giving away.

What was the meaning of the red cross? What was the meaning “Of Duty” on the t-shirt? Did everyone on campus know the meaning of these words and the sign? To me, when students were coming up with these words and the red cross, they assumed everyone knew the meaning of these words and the red cross. To me, the words and red cross sign can be viewed in many different way, if someone had just shown up to this campus on Friday, this people would have interpret this signs differently. In the book Material Christianity, there are lots of symbolic symbols used. So if you had to ask someone why the red cross was used, I feel like no one would give you the right answer. It could have been used to represent lifeguards or it could have been used to represent international organization that cares for the sick, the wounded or homeless. It could have represented many other things. In the book of Material Christianity, “Christians use religious goods to tell themselves and the world around them that they are Christians”. The point that I’m trying to make here is Champlain College students did not do very good job on what they were trying to saying by using red cross sign and with the word “of duty”. I do not know what the school was trying to say; besides that school was over.

I think the school should have used something else where the t-shirt would have more meaning. This t-shirt that was giving out was complicated shirt to understand. Like in this video, people that wearing t-shirt says, “Give peace a hand” were being friendly to people in the streets. The t-shirt said it all; they were there to give you a handshake. It was easy to tell the meaning of the t-shirt, it’s not like the t-shirts that we got this Friday.

Twitter- Everyone is doing it.

2009-04-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

It is finally the end of the year, and I found myself learning a lot in the Secular and the Sacred. I learned more about religion. I learned about stereotypes and how it can affect people. I even learned about how our generation is when it comes to technology. As a lot of our blog posts have been about texting and how are generation is dependent on being around people. I found an interesting article on cnn.com called "CNN 'twitterer' completes London Marathon." I found this article interesting because it was about a CNN journalist who decided to twitter about his London Marathon experience. Peter Wilkinson the CNN journalist, basically ran in the London Marathon which is just over 26 miles and while running he was texting to his twitter to update people about his event. While reading this article it made me wonder what this world really has come to, I use to run in high school and I cannot even imagine running and texting at the same time. The fact that he still ran the marathon in about three hours and 30 minutes still amazes me. I have recently learned about Twitter and what it is. What I have learned is that it is a way for people to "tweet" about what they are thinking or doing. It is a new form of Facebook and Myspace but a little more simpler and with less features. When reading the article and just learning about Twitter, it brings me back to one of our course readings, "The End of Solitude" by William Deresiezwick. In his article he explains how our generation has a really hard time being alone. He mentioned how some students have to have someone talking to them while they are trying to do homework. He also mentioned how we are scared to be alone, and how we rely on technology. In the article it shows that its not just our generation who is relying on technology. I find that a lot of the older generations are starting up Facebook pages, and are starting their own Twitter accounts. I am even finding that instead of a parent calling their children they text.

Twitter Fever! Dir. E! Perf. Joel McHale. Youtube. 23 Apr. 2009. .

In the video above it shows how a lot of celebrities are becoming a part of the Twitter community. When you look at the different celebrities talking about Twitter they are a part of the older generations. Also, it is a video to show how everyone seems to be a part of Twitter, and a lot of them are telling people to look at their Twitter page to get updates. It is basically a reach to the fans. But just as our generation alone it seems like another way to stay up to date with our friends, and to meet new people.

Click here for another video about Twitter.

Watchmen

2009-04-26T14:49:00.000-07:00

As I get older, I continue my quest to what I truly believe in. I feel myself extremely critical of religion, but believing in something above me. When I watched Bill Maher’s film Religulous, I was a huge fan because I appreciated how he questioned the religious extremists. How does Bill Maher or these religious extremists know that either is correct? Once studying religion in the Secular and the Sacred it is hard to segregate myself from parts of society that mention religion. Every object or person I see or hear that refers to religion, I relate it to this class. In the light of this realization, a couple weeks ago I saw the film Watchmen, which made many connections to components and themes within the Secular and the Sacred. This film not only recreated a comic book, but made many comments on American culture as well.
When viewing Watchmen, there were many comments about American society and how it functions. Watchmen made points about how advanced humans were becoming. In these advancements, people were ruining the human race. These advancements were making humans empty and detached from reality. This detachment reminded me of "The End Of Solitude" where the idea of people longer being alone and constantly engulfed in technology is presented. Similar to this concept, the humans in Watchmen need more than this technology, they need people to look over them when the world is not working out. The only thing to make the human race better was a group of super heroes who were nearly non-human. When this group of super heroes could not do anymore to save humans, they were looked at as deranged and evil.
From seeing Watchmen, I wonder is if this is what the film and comic book were predicting for the human race. Since the beginning of time, many humans have looked up to a higher being to be the savior. When things in life go wrong, they turn to this savior to eventually fix what has gone wrong in their lives. What if this is what ends religion? What if people forget about religion because the world may get to a point of no hope that even God looks evil or non-existent?
A point in Watchmen that stuck with me was when Dr. Manhattan spoke to his girlfriend, Laurie Jupiter in outer space of how the universe moves along with no regard for the human race. He claims that it gets along just fine whether one person dies or makes a difference on Earth. Although Watchmen is just a movie, it was a scary concept to grasp and probably a frightening one for many people. What if this is the truth? Without the organization of religion, would humans be disorganized and in absolute mayhem? Would human life just lose its value?

Here it comes the final exams

2009-04-21T06:31:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s finally week fifteen and now is the time when every student is stressing over papers and studying for their final exams. After the semester of work, the student can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel and then, bam, the whole world comes crashing down on you. You have so many exams that you need to study for, and are you going to be ready for all of your exams at the end of the day?

After already being tested on all the materials in a course throughout the semester, you are now asked to recall fifteen weeks of material on dates, numbers and definitions. Is this fair? For students, this is not fair, but for the professors, it seems like this is not a problem. We, the students want to argue with the professors about the type of exam that he or she is planning to give, but we know we are going to lose the argument. The only thing we are going to hear from the professors is “life isn’t fair” lecture. Let’s face it. With the finals right around the corner, we don’t have time to argue. Time is a very valuable commodity at this time of the semester.

For many students, the time before finals is a very stressful time. Before finals, it is usually where emotions are very high with desperate acts: study, cry, study, pray, study, cry, pray. And if you were like me: study, cry, curse, study, cry, curse. No matter which merry-go-around wagon you jump on, the end result is going to be the same: an upset stomach and nearly not prepared enough to take the final exam.

Majority of the student at this time of the year are writing papers and studying for their final exams. It’s not just this year; this happens every year. And this keeps continuing every year and for generations. This is the time when student know they have to study extremely hard in order to pass the class. Can anyone be prepared to take comprehensive final? Instead of taking this long exam, would you rather give up one of your limbs then take the exam? Or do you need Stewie to help you to study for your final exam? Click to see the video.

Piece and Quiet...Whats That?

2009-04-20T08:32:00.000-07:00

In class we discussed how each of us as a different opinion about solitude and what that means to us. Some students said they rather be around people all the time and don't like being alone, while others said they like the piece and quiet. As I thought about my life, I realized that I don't like to be alone and I try to find something to do instead of being by myself. I'm the type of person who likes to keep busy and cannot just sit around and think or read. As the article "The End of Solitude" states, "technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone." I agree with this statement 100% because when I'm on the computer I go straight for my email and get side tracked instead of going straight to finishing my homework. I believe that this is an ongoing problem and will get worse as technology advances more. Another problem is cell phones. We discussed in class how many students always have their cell phones on and they text all day long. As for me, I don't text during class because I get distracted and I miss important parts that the teacher is explaining. I find it rude to text when you are with your friends especially if you are at dinner with them or if your just hanging out together. Most of the time my cell phone is near me where ever I go, but I hardly get calls and most of the people I talk to on my phone are with me all day. I believe that technology is sometimes ruining our education because it distracts us more than it helps us.

As this commerical points out, young kids are texting more than ever and even adults are using their phones to text there friends. Many of my friends text their parents instead of calling them. I feel that texting is not a personal way to communicate and I think that by texting someone you are more likely to say your true feelings to them, then you would if you said it to their face. For examply many people break off their relationships with someone over texting and that shows that they don't have the guts to tell them to their face.
Cell phones can be helpful in many ways, but we have come to take advantage of the benefits and now they are ruining our way of life. Could each of you spend one day without texting somone?

Evolutionary Religion

2009-04-19T16:55:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, being Easter, I was called by several of my family members to wish me tidings on the holiday. More than once I was asked if I went to church, which made me think why they would ask that. I myself am not an avid church goer, nor do I really believe in the gospels and words of God that most religions teach, and my family is pretty aware of this. But, that isn't to say I don't have faith in a transcendent being or beings. It makes me wonder how many other people feel this way. Spirituality and organized religion often go hand in hand, but they're not the same thing.

Religion, in my eyes, is in fact a whole other thing. There are a lot more people who are "religious," than there are people who are spiritual. Most people that I personally know claim to be religious, but only turn to their religion in times of need. In the article "Born believers: How your brain creates God," Michael Brooks explains the phenomenon of the rise of religion in times of global crisis. As the article states, "Our brains effortlessly conjure up an imaginary world of spirits, gods and monsters, and the more insecure we feel, the harder it is to resist the pull of this supernatural world."

If we all think back to times that we've encountered something complicated, we've probably looked to some higher power and asked for help wether it be on the SATs, or for patience. It's not wrong, nor is it uncommon in any way. Though it's arguable about whether the presence of a God is real or fabricated, it's not undeniable that we embrace religion and the unexplainable more readily when we're in distress. Brooks points out that this belief in God(s) is connected to our need to thrive. Religion and it's foundations, in recent times, have been believed to be "an evolutionary adaptation that makes people more likely to survive and pass their genes onto the next generation."

It's ironic to think about these two ideas in conjunction with one another, religion being a facet of the evolutionary process. Seth McFarland's short video about Monkeys talking about religion satirizes.

The two sides had argued against each other for years, but now scientists are now linking the two as one justifying the advancement of the other. The more you look at it, the more it seems fesible. If we look at how far both we as a species and we as a society have advanced, it makes sense to link evolutionary progress to religious progress. The further we move along in development, the more religion changes and morphs to conform to our societal needs. Could it be that in fact evolution and religion can't exist separately from one another?

Economics and Religion a la Steve Colbert

2009-04-16T18:20:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting and entertaining clip that highlights some of the connections between the Secular and the Sacred and Capitalism and Democracy.

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Why Gay Marriage is Bad

2009-04-15T11:04:00.000-07:00

Vermont recently overrode Governor Douglas' veto of same sex marriages.

I'd like to point out that an outstanding majority of people opposed to same sex marriage are very religious and many see it as redefining a sacred institution. A sacred, religious institution that is deeply embedded with rights granted through government. Many religious people also ignore and deny the separation of church and state which was reiterated in a series of court hearings such as Reynolds versus the United States and McCollum versus the Board of Education. I've also read arguments that identified Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Church as not bringing about the separation of church and state, which when read is clearly outlining the separation. He write's: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State," (Jefferson). It can be understood in the establishment clause of the United States Constitution found here that it was purposeful to separate the two and with a glance back at history should be maintained. This separation has given our country a lot of power to enable everyone to gain the rights that were left to be fought for by minorities overlooked when establishing themselves in a country of equality. As there are a lot of different arguments, I think that it is safe to say religion should be left to the individual, their God and their Church, not to oppress other peoples right to marry. The stigma in society of homosexuality was brought about by religion. If you look into the history of Ancient Greece you will see that homosexuality was an accepted practice until it was outlawed in Rome when Christianity gained power.

It is also believed that same sex marriage is bad for children and would be harmful taking away their right to a mom and a dad. In a society that is full of children without any parents at all, this seems ridiculous. Artificial insemination is also looked down upon for women in a committed relationship with another woman. How is giving a child life and being raised by two women bad? They never would have been given life if they hadn't been artificially inseminated. It is only an expectation of our society that a child should be granted a mom and a dad, even when divorce rates are high. So many children in this world would love to have two parents or even a single parent. If you google "same sex parenting" you will find little evidence that there is a harmful effect on children from having same sex parents. In return, you will find studies that show that same sex parents are just as good as heterosexual parents.

Last night aired the pageant competition, Miss USA, in which one of the contestants, Miss California, said that she believed that marriage was meant to be between a man and a woman, not same sex. In return she has been faced with a lot of negative attention. Past Miss USA winners have even come forward advocating for same sex marriage. I think that this shows that our society is making a turn around. This issue has had a lot of attention in recent political and social spheres. When religious and sacred meaning is taken out of the picture people realize that homosexuality and same sex marriage is not an evil curse on society.

When it comes to the argument of letting "the people" decide on same sex marriage I would like to put forth this from The Transformation of American Religion by Alan Wolfe. "Democracy, liberals of this persuasion believe, is a wonderful form of government, but when it comes to protecting the rights of religious minorities or nonbelievers, a nondemocratic institution like the courts is required to keep it in check," (257 Wolfe). A mixed constitution of the many, the one and the few creates a balance of power. This is why we have a mixture of types of governments, a democracy (legislative), a monarchy (president), and an aristocracy (judiciary). They keep each other in check and protect the rights of the minorities.

Easter

2009-04-14T07:08:00.000-07:00

This week was Easter Sunday, the celebration of the resurrection of the Lord, Jesus Christ. For me, this holiday has no meaning, but for other students, Easter has so much meaning, or at least that’s what it seems like. I mean, I knew this holiday existed, but didn’t know when it was till this Friday, when many of the students were going home to celebrate with their families. Since I am one of those people that does not celebrate Easter, and don’t really know much about Easter. I decided to look into what Easter really is. Some of the questions that I thought of where: what is with all of those rabbits, and the colored eggs?

This Easter celebration happens every year, and churches are packed with strangers, women are dressed in fancy clothes and men in suites. After the service is over, kids scramble across the yards searching for eggs under the trees, porches, flowerbeds, and near the scrubs. What is the point of searching for eggs? Where does this egg hunting come into play? I thought Easter Sunday was the celebration of Jesus Christ rising from the dead. I just don’t understand where this egg hunting thing comes from.

I guess in order to understand what the meaning of Easter is, you have to talk to a true Christian and I did. I called my friend from back home who goes to church pretty much every day and asked him, “What is the meaning of Easter to Christians?” and he said Christians look beyond nature to the creator, the true and living God who put everything in motion and who keeps making move all the things by his eternal word. At this time of the year, Christians look back and remember the terrible death Jesus Christ went through and the awesome resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter is sacred day to all Christians; it’s the day we celebrate for his scarifies, his gift of life, and the power of light to every darken soul.

This is just part of the story he told me. It was just amazing to listen to a person who can talk about their religion and knew so much about it. Then he sent me this video called “Easter.” Do all religious people know this much about their religion?

Where did religion come from??

2009-04-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

Some of you may remember my previous post, helping to explain what religion is and why it is important to us. Recently I had watched a video called "Zeitgeist." This movie is very controversial, due to the many conspiracy theories discussed within it This video discusses, among other things, the origins of most of the religions in the world. The point this movie makes is that many religions have very similar qualities, teachings, and even religious stories. Although the entire movie may be found here, I found a clip on Youtube that, while cut short by Youtube's time cap, is perfect for this.

This video also shows just how easily a religious text can be misinterpreted, as the video explains that much of the writings are based upon constellations and their relationship with the sun, rather than what the religious stories told today tell us happened for real in the world. Perhaps this revelation can help us connect to other people with different religious beliefs than our own, and develop a bigger understanding of the cultures around us.

The End Of Christian America

2009-04-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I came across a Newsweek magazine that actually caught my eye. The cover was all black and had the words, "The Decline and Fall of Christian America" in red text and in the shape of a cross. I decided it was blog post material and my Dad was proud I was going to read Newsweek.

The article reminded me of a similar article we read at the beginning of the semester entitled "Pew In The Pews," by Alan Wolfe. However, this article focused on Albert Mohler Jr. who is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. After Mohler read the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey he was shocked to see that Americans claiming no religious affiliation has doubled since 1990. Mohler went on to say that "a remarkable culture shift has taken place...the consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crises which threatens the very heart of our culture." A reason why the percentage of Christians in America are declining is that they are starting to understand the separation of church and state. My opinion is that Albert is jumping the gun a little too quickly. Just because the Christian numbers are declining does not mean that America is in a post-Christian state, just a less-Christian state.

The article went on to talk about the reasons why many conservative Christians are now entering a "post-Christian phase." This is because they have not won their battles against same-sex marriage, abortion, and prayer in schools and they feel as if their faith is going nowhere. In a Newsweek poll only 62 percent of Americans think the U.S is a "Christian Nation,"under Obama, while 69 percent did when George W. ran the country in 2008 which help show the fall of a Christian America. It's not that people are not spiritual anymore, in fact 30% of people would rather call themselves "spiritual" rather than "religious."

The article identified that Conservative Christians are the ones not ready to accept the way of life now compared to how it was many years ago. They need to realize that "the Christian God is not dead, but he's less of a force in U.S politics and culture than at any other time in memory." Conservatives do not need to abandon Christianity or their faith just accept the way religion is heading in today's world. A quote from the article that I think describes today's way of life is "American public life is neither wholly secular nor wholly religious but an ever-fluid mix of the two." Do you feel this way too? :)

Meacham, Jon. "The End Of Christian America." Newsweek. 13 Apr. 2009. 11 Apr. 2009

North Dakota.... Again?

2009-04-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if you all remember. A few weeks ago I posted an informal post about North Dakota making it illegal to have an abortion. Well, again North Dakota has taken a few steps backwards. As Vermont has moved forward with same-sex marriages something that may seem completely ridiculous to us has happened. A policy to end discrimination in housing, employment and credit based on sexual orientation was put forth to the North Dakota House losing 54-34. I think it is absolutely shameful. I don't see how any policy on any person to end discrimination could be rejected. We are supposed to be an equal nation yet we say it's okay to discriminate people if we're not comfortable with their sexual orientation.

I would like to see a policy put forth federally to end discrimination against sexual orientation. If we are truly a free nation we need to protect everyone.

April 7th, 2009, A day to remember

2009-04-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

Today, April 7th, 2009, Gay marriage was legalizied in Vermont. As the fourth state to recognized gay marriage. This was a big deal for a Vermont, because once the first vote passed 95-42, Governer Jim Douglas made a big commotion when he publicly stated that he would veto the bill if it ends up on his desk. And well when it did, he picked up his pen and vetoed the bill. However, with a 25-3 override vote in the senate, and a 100-49 vote in the house, April 7th is a memorable day for gay couples. A day to remember, when they are given more rights, and able to legally get married. According to the Burlington free press article, Jim Douglas was expecting to happen. So what if he was expecting this, was the point in vetoing the bill to begin with when there are other things that need to still be figured out? Watch the video to see his reaction. It's the third movie down.

So what does this mean now for gay couples? Even though the positive things that come out of the law, it means that they can file taxes together. Well, at least only in Vermont. It is only aloud to file state taxes. Federal taxes still need to be files separately. With the pass of this new law, there were some changes to it before it was passed through the house and. Some of the changes that happened. "Before, the Bill stated that religious communities do not have to perform or recognize a same-sex marriage ceremony, the House decided to take it one step further.'A religious hall, they will also have the same exemption. They do not have to offer that under the public accommodations law,' Campbell said" (Kennedy). This was a big step for the house to decided to pass the law. Click here to see the whole article from Fox 44 News.

This related to our class because we have been talking about how religion effects our everyday lives. This bill wouldn't have passed without any religious beliefs taking place. Obviously the downfall to that is that if a gay couple wants to marry in a Church, they need to make sure that the Church allows it first. But that is a minor bump in the road compared to everything that has happened up until this point.

Kennedy, Ben. "Same-Sex Bill Breakdown." Fox 44 News. 7 Apr. 2009. 7 Apr. 2009

Solitude and the Chaotic Life

2009-04-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

Personally, I text message at least 75 times a day. This is a recent development in my life actually. When I first signed for my cell phone plan, I only had a plan for 300 text messages thinking that I would never go over that. And I didn't for a while. But as I began to make more friends and be more social, I found my bill becoming more expensive. The moment when I realized that my texting was becoming a bit outrageous was when I got the bill for $209, $140 of that being charges for going over my texting limit. I knew I had to make a choice. I chose to switch to an unlimited texting plan. To me, the extra $15 a month for the plan was a small price to pay for being able to stay connected to all my friends. In this clip from Family Guy, even in a crowded theater these friends need to communicate.

The End of Solitude is an article that describes how solitude is hard to come by currently. I agree. My life is very chaotic and I rarely have time to myself. This winter was probably the most hectic time in my life. Between school, work, coaching, and driving to and from all these different places, the last place I wanted to be was alone. When I did have time to be alone, I chose not to. I wanted to be with my friends having fun rather than sitting alone doing school work. If I feel like this, I'm sure many other students have this problem as well. Solitude is just not a priority in the lives of busy people. I do feel the toll that always being on the run and surrounded by people has had on me. My health, my spirituality, and my relationships are all affected. I'm sure I'm not the only one. With the declining number of people who are religious I'm sure that being to busy is a big factor in their decision as to whether they should go to church or watch TV with their friends and family.
Given the choice, after a long week of studying and working hard, would the students in the class rather sit alone by themselves or go have a good time with their friends?

Call of Duty Recruits

2009-04-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

I was listening to the radio this morning and the radio host was prank calling a 19 year old boy from Burlington. The host told told the boy that he was a recruiter from the US Marine Corps, and that the Marines had been monitoring the gameplay of Call of Duty 4 online. He told the boy that his stats from playing the game stood out substantially, and that the Marines wanted to recruit him. The boy was very excited to hear that he had been singled out and he showed interest in finding out exactly what he was being offered. The host continued to tell the boy that he was a perfect candidate to work in a special operations unit in the Marines. He explained that the boys would travel the world killing people for the good of his country. The boy wasn't discouraged by this, and he continued to ask specifically what weapons he would have access to to carry out the tasks before him. I turned the radio off before I was able to hear the conclusion to this conversation.

I found it very disturbing that a video game has been so influential on this boy. Influential enough that it had actually made him numb to the fact that he wanted to kill people without any motive. I find it even more disturbing to know that he is one of many people who emmerse themselves in video games, and he probably isn't the only one with such a readiness to murder.

I obviously don't believe that everyone who plays video games is affected by them like this boy was, but it scares me to think that there are people who completely lose their ability to separate a fictional game from reality. I think this is especially prevalent at Champlain College, and it only takes a brief walk around campus to see that some students think they're living in Middle Earth.

To many, video games have become a kind of a religion. People worship the games for hours each day, and they can even play in a community of people that enjoy the same games, much like a church congregation. Video games control the way many people live their lives. They affect the exercise people get, the friends they make, the sleep they get (or don't get), and many other aspects of daily life. Muslims pray five times a day, and many people play video games five times a day. It's not a stretch to see the similarities that video games hold to religion, and the only thing we can do is hope that our current Champlain College students will design good, moral games for future generations to play. My fingers are crossed.

What is religion?

2009-04-02T19:38:00.000-07:00

What is religion really? Is it the belief in a god or multiple gods? Is it the belief in certain values and beliefs, or is it a mix of all of these. I looked up the definition on line and only one of the entries did not use religion in the definition and really spelled out what I believe religion is on a very basic sense. I went to Merriam-Webster Dictionaries site and looked up religion. The fourth definition is ": a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith". To me this says that religion is a belief toward a set of beliefs, values and a system to believe and have faith in. Sometimes people just need to know someones there or know they are apart of something bigger. Also, having a community there with beliefs to follow, can help guide us through life. Through this course this question has come up a lot and of course there are many different views of what people think religion really is. There is no one definite answer to the question.

The other day I was watching one of my favorite shows, Family Guy, and it was the episode where Peter Griffin starts his own religion. He decides to build the church of the Fonz and people come. People partake in the service worshiping the beliefs of the Fonz and are all apart of the community. They have beliefs, values, and community to follow after. It is very simple but it is by the definition I go by, a religion on a basic sense.

I could not find the entire clip so The rest of it will just have to be discussed. Peter has conversations with his father who is strongly Catholic and who believes its a scam and a disc-grace to religion. In the end he realizes what Peter has done and that it really is a religion, and secretly worships the Fonz. This goes to show that some may not believe it at first but when you really look deep down and look at the simple facts, religion is about community, values, and beliefs; not about Gods, prayer and organ music.

"religion." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009.
Merriam-Webster Online. 2 April 2009

Feeling Religulous?

2009-04-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

For months I had wanted to see the recently talked about film “Religulous” starring Bill Maher. The film goes on a journey throughout the United States and other countries to examine and satirize religion. Bill Maher does not necessarily refute religion, he just questions it. Maher believes that since he does not know if there is a God or an afterlife, he wants to hear from people who believe they do. He wants to see if there is someone out there that knows something he does not. Through these interviews, he attempts to prove his point that since we do not know what happens in the end and there is no possible way anyone else could. On the Jimmy Kimmel Show, Maher discusses that he wants to apply to the people who just claim, “I do not know”. He questions the turmoil religion creates. He claims that since each religion hypothesizes the end of the world or Armageddon, the followers of these beliefs are in reality going to cause this end because they are not in touch with reality. Since he is human along with the followers of these religions, if he lacks these examples, then so do they.

Although he uses the interviews to prove his point, he uses nearly lunatics of certain faiths to interview. One reverend that he interviewed told Maher that he was a pimp of the faith and that God wanted him to decorate himself with gold jewelry. He barely uses people who were devout, but did not push extremist ideas on others. My favorite interview that he did was with an Italian priest in front of the Vatican. It had to be in front because Maher had gotten kicked out. The man was about 80 years old and I could tell that Bill for once throughout the entire movie somewhat respected his beliefs. Instead of answering as many others did by saying his religion was right and Bill was wrong, all the man said was, “We live and die with our own stupid beliefs. Who are we to say they are correct?” This idea resonated with me and followed a somewhat similar belief. I have belief in something that watches over me, but I have no idea what it is. I can really follow Maher’s idea that since we do not know for sure, how can we fight and push for our beliefs to be in the forefront? Also, how can religion be so influential in government especially concerning large issues such as abortion and gay marriage?

An aspect that I disliked about the film was its reference to the Islamic faith being violent. Maher’s view of this religion was extremely Americanized. He used only examples of terrorist groups who followed Islam and completely dismissed the Muslim woman he interviewed. The woman attempted to talk about a similar theme that we have seen in The Secular and the Sacred. The idea that there are many different views and interpretations in each religion and the only part that is exemplified in American culture of Islam is terrorism.

Human nature

2009-03-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

We chose three categories to put our quotations of human nature in. We saw a pattern between a lot of the categories. Some were optimistic toward human nature and some where pessimistic in our view. We decided to categorize these quotes by 'what human nature should be' and 'what human nature should not be'. Some of these quotes were not seen in either category. To categorize these we had a separate pile we called 'what human nature is' or 'actually is'. This pile had the quotes that specified something that was a statement instead of a view or opinion.
We then started applying views of Government and Gods to these categories. They seemed to be pretty defiant. Most were views of government or how much of an impact god has on us. Some examples for 'what human nature is' are "imminent god" and "democracy". Both of these are statements and true, there are imminent gods and we have a democracy. In an example for pessimistic views are "mob rule" and "there is/are no God(s)". Both of these state a view someone has toward the subject of human nature. Also, mob rule is not the actual state of human nature so it falls under negative views. Lastly some optimistic views are "god is our watchmaker" and "God is all-loving and all-forgiving". These views are optimistic toward the state of nature and views on God.

How Far Would You Go?

2009-03-23T18:16:00.000-07:00

In the recent news, Bernie Madoff is being charged with 11 felony counts of fraud. Federal prosecutors estimated clients losses to be around $65 billion dollars, including fabricated gains. Madoff was convicted of running a Ponzi scheme which is an operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from any actual profit earned. Madoff made billions of money by cheating his clients of their money and even had $1 billion of his money in assets that were overseas such as a house in France that was worth $1 million dollars and had around $900,000 worth of furniture and paintings. Many of Madoff's clients went to his court trial to testify about their investments, watch a small clip of an interview with one of his clients here.

Not only did Madoff get in trouble but so did his accountant, and that raises the question of is fraud contagious? An article titled "Is Fraud Contagious" talks about the Madoff scandal and why people cheat. People that cheat and don't cheat both weigh the benefits and costs that can come from fraud but honest people see that the costs out-weigh the benefits. Personally, I don't believe I could ever cheat or commit fraud because the chances of getting caught are huge. Madoff starting scamming his clients in the 1990's and didn't get caught until now, but did he think that he could get away with stealing around $50 billion dollars from people? As an accounting major ethics play a huge role in my life because my clients need to be able to trust me with their finances and assume I will do the right thing. Embezzlement is a huge problem in my profession because of the amount of money that one person can handle and work with. My accounting teacher told us that her old job made everyone take a week off every two months or so, so that they wouldn't be able to steal money. That's a smart idea even though in a perfect society we shouldn't have to think that our employees would steal from us.
I believe that morals and ethics play a huge role in ones decision whether to cheat or be honest in their everyday lives. Would you be willing to cheat people of their money or would your ethics and morals overpower your urge to this horrible crime? How far would you go?

Children See Children Do

2009-03-23T18:15:00.000-07:00

Last week in class we were discussing how children should be raised. Does it matter if a child is raised by a mother and a father, or by a mother and a mother, father and a father? We came to the consensus that it really did not matter the sexual orientation of the parents, it is how the child is raised. When I was looking on CNN I came across this article. In the article by Jack Cafferty he is saying that there is no such thing as a perfect family. There is always going to be a level of dysfunction, and there will always be negative character traits. Also, in the article he talks about how parenting skills have been one of the reasons to why the school dropout rate is higher. Parents are lacking the skills of teaching their children manners which makes it hard for them to do well in school. In my opinion, it is how the parents raise their child. It does not matter what the parents sexual orientation is, it is how they decide to raise their child. Marriage today, does bring together a mother and a father, but it should also bring same sex couples together. In Mark Lilla's book The Stillborn God, he discussed that his book is about "how we perceive God and how it affects government." He goes on to talk about how religion has had such a huge impact on the government. Sometimes religion having an impact on the government can have a negative impact, there should be a limit to when religion should not be thought about. In this case, religion should be excluded to what marriage should be, if there is such a huge deal that marriage should only be of a man and a women then there should be another term for same sex marriage even though it would mean the same thing. If the couple are compatible and are functional enough to raise a child that is what is important. People get married because they feel that they are right for each other, then they have kids and feel that they still have to stay together because they do not want to hurt the child. When in fact it is hurting the child. The divorce rate today in America is high, it makes me wonder how many children are involved with the divorce. For me personally my parents are divorced and because I was at a older age when it happened I was able to understand the situation. But I wonder how other children take it and how it hurts them emotionally.

Eastwood, Matt. "What Children See Children Do." 6 Dec. 2006. Youtube.

In the video it shows how children see what their parents do and they copy. I have always looked up to my mother, and always watched how she responded to situations and how she carried herself. But I myself can say that I do have negative qualities, some I picked up from school, and others I have picked up from my living condition. Do you feel that the way you were raised has a bigger impact on your life? Or is it through your own life experiences?

Octomom

2009-03-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

If you don't know who the "Octomom" is you will now. She is the woman who previously had six children, all through in vitro fertilization and then just had another eight using the same method. So now she has 14 children. Besides that craziness she has no job, no money, and I personally think she is so annoying. The reason I decided to blog about her is that we were talking in class on Friday about adoption and how people do not want to adopt American children due to legal issues and the fact that kids growing up in foster homes are not the easiest to deal with. This is a prime example of healthy kids who should be put up for adoption, but will live in the media spotlight with 13 other brother and sisters in their house since their mother is the Octomom.

Nadya Suleman, that is the Octomom's real name, has not really been taking care of any of her new eight babies since she is too busy being on the Dr. Phil show, going to amusement parks with some of her other children, and spending over a thousand dollars at a MAC cosmetics store. Since she has no job and was previously providing for her family using food stamps, she is getting her income from marketing a tape of her eight newborn babies birth reportedly for seven figures. She seems like an unfit mother and I feel bad for her previous children and her eight new babies that have been in the media spotlight since even before their birth.

I think that these healthy babies would make any family looking to adopt happy and that they would have a better life not living with the paparazzi and their Octomom. Since she is not a good mother and people are watching her every move if she were to have her children taken away they would probably be the ones with issues and anger problems in the foster homes because of how they were raised. Here is a video of her parenting skills when one of her sons is making friends and playing with the paparazzi. It takes her a minute to realize, but when she does she just laughs it off. Who wouldn't laugh when your one of 14 children is playing with creepy strangers who want to capture your life on camera?

To see more of her crazy life go to this website.

Civil Religion

2009-03-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

For our in class assignment we decided that we would divide the quotes into three categories. The first was that Human Nature is Good. We decided that in this group God is all-loving and all forgiving. God is our overseer and also a transcendent God. We also felt that a democracy was a good way to have a government.

The second category was that Human Nature is impressionable. We felt that God has a plan for all of us and that he is the rule maker, but we also felt that he was a Transcendent God. We felt the best type of government would be communism.

The third category was that Human Nature is bad. We felt that the government was an Anarchy and that God is angry and spiteful. He is a remote God and that he doesn't control our destiny.

Gay Marriage in Vermont

2009-03-17T06:01:00.000-07:00

This week in class we focused on Mark Lilla’s The StillBorn God. Lilla talks about this tension between government and religion. They seem to overlap making it very hard to keep politics out of religion and religion out of politics. We are having this issue right now in Vermont with legalizing same sex marriage. Many people are outraged at this proposal, supporting pins that say marriage = 1 man and 1 woman. One couple interviewed said “marriage is between a man and a woman that’s the way Gog designed us”. How do they know what God designed? Why is their religion right and others not? I am honestly outraged that people are involving themselves in matters that have no effect on their everyday life. While this may go against their religion, we live in a world where you are free to choose your own religion and should not force your religion on anyone. They should have no say over another’s happiness. This bill will give same sex couples more legal rights and the “pride” that comes with saying you are married. They are having a meeting tonight that is open for people to talk about the issue in Montpelier. This seems to be a problem for older adults who cannot accept a totally new idea that was banned during their era. I feel it is time for this change because it creates happiness for more people with little to no negative effect on others lives.
Click here to watch video
Here government is trying to pass a bill they believe will create marriage equality. If this bill is passed we will be the fourth state to legalize same sex marriage falling behind California, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Will this bill be able to pass and not let religious beliefs stop it?

GOVERNMENT

2009-03-16T11:55:00.000-07:00

I was really intrigued by the historical scale that was developed by Polybius. In today's government we see three prominent types of government working together to create our nation, we are not solely a democracy. Our democracy stems from the Legislative branch in which we have the good rule of many whom we elect. The President can be seen as a Monarch but again we elect him but we don't give him all the power. The Aristocracy can be seen in the Judiciary branch of government. They all work together to function as best it can without developing an oligarchy, tyrant or mob.

I was researching trying to find a children or young adult game that brings any one of the government forms into play. I came across a very interesting game called Civilization IV. "Indeed, while Civ IV deserves praise for integrating non-material elements like religion and culture into the game play, in the end these pieces suffer the same fate as the rest of the game's components. Civ IV, ultimately, is less about the development of civilization than it is about the expansion of imperial tyranny,"(Ballor). I think that games like this are educational but it's also rated E for everyone. I don't think that little kids should be playing games like this, they tend to have the disadvantage of having the power go to their head. I remember growing up my little brother started playing a karate video game and then started running around the house kicking everyone for about a week until my mom finally took the game away.

The idea of manipulating a society by means of religion, culture, money and economy sounds fascinating. It would be really cool if you could choose and manipulate the types of government played in the game. Having one ruler makes the game controller be either a tyrant or a monarch, I think that they would inevitably become a tyrant since the game is all about war and conquering land.

Ballor, Jordan J. "Power and Tyranny in Civilization IV." Home @ Blogcritics.org. 07 July 2008. .

Vermont's Lack of Religion

2009-03-16T08:28:00.000-07:00

This past couple of weeks in class, we have been talking about the importance of religion and politics as we are starting to read The Stillborn God by Mark Lilla. A few days before starting to read this book, I found an article in the Burlington Free Press that talked about how Vermont is the least religious state. I read the article and my first thought was that there was a mistake made. As the article continued on, I was amazed and realized how true it was. I knew right then I wanted to blog about it. So I went to find the article and it was no where to be found. However, the article I found was from USA Today, which also talks about the change in religion from state to state. In the other article talked about how in Vermont, most people who are protestant and just not acknowledging themselves as religious. This is also happening with the Catholic religion. My thoughts about this, is not surprising to me. As a protestant, I know that I do not need religion on a daily basis. It is more of traditions and holidays when religion in my family is important. Whereas, according to this article from USA Today says that Mississippi is the most religious state. I think this is accurate because I know that the farther south you go, the more that religion is important. I just found this article to be fascinating knowing that I live in the least religious state but that I have contributed to part of the reason that we are that low.

Islamophobia

2009-03-10T06:47:00.000-07:00

I find it fascinating how many people associate the terms “Islam” and “Muslim” with terrorist. There is no doubt that there are Islamic Extremist sects such as al-Qaida that fund and orchestrate terrorist attacks, but why has the entire faith of Islam been branded? After the attacks of September 11th, 2001 President Bush made it clear that the men who committed the acts were perverting Islam and that neither Islam nor mainstream Muslims were responsible for the attacks. We are in a “War on Terror” not on Muslims so why do so many associate the two? There are radical fringe groups in every society such as White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis, both of whom frequently align themselves with Christianity to support their cause. Even the term terrorism conjures up almost exclusively images of Arabs in turbans screaming “Islamic Jihad” yet if we look at the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995, the most recent major attack in the United States’ memory before September 11, we see that Timothy McVeigh was an Irish Catholic. So why then are Muslims the ubiquitous American image of terrorism? Is it simply an effect of media propaganda and fear of a largely unknown culture or is there more to it? When Professor Gary Scudder came to speak to us he said that Islam is a religious, social and political system. Could this somehow make Christian terrorists appear different than Muslim terrorists to Americans? Reel Bad Arabs suggested that maybe we have been brought up since childhood to believe Arabs to be violent and barbaric. Maybe it is not a big stretch for Americans to accept that all Muslims are Arabs and they must act the same way.

Recently we have been looking at the depiction of Muslims and Islam in the media and in film over the past decades as well as constitutional issues of freedom of speech. I think it is valuable to place the two side by side and ask where we should draw the line. To what extent (if at all) should Anti-Islamic or even Anti-religious media propaganda be regulated? American Fear is slowly subsiding now, almost eight years after September 11, yet many Americans still fear Islam and are largely ignorant to what it really is.

How then can we ensure that we preserve our civil liberties in the face of ignorance and fear? Should constitutional rights be flexible to ensure public safety or should safety be compromised to protect individual rights?

Social Stereotypes

2009-03-09T20:46:00.000-07:00

Look deep down and try and remember where social stereotypes started. Personally I cannot think that far back. It could be the very dummied down versions of Disney films or it could be that it was a long time ago i started watching other films. Either way its a social reality that today's society has brought about terrible stereotypes that you and I have both in one way or another impersonated or used as fact just because it is what we have been brought up with.

This past week we watch two movies both of which I believe portrayed the same message, "Reel Bad Arabs" and "Crossing Boarders," however used different ways. These different ways also show two different realities. One reality is that in today's society we live and abide by stereotypes. The other is that stereotypes are far from the truth and that we just have no idea and never will unless we go find out for ourselves.
Although these movies both use different methods of portraying the point, I found a video that summerises a lot of what these movies are getting at.

Here we see that the short video points out what Islam is straight up. Crossing Boarders did a good job at showing this, however it was not as blatant they did it in a more interactive way. I like how this movie points out over and over again how that stereotypical character we see over and over cannot be the real Islamic character that exists in reality. This is similar to what the guy in "Reel Bad Arabs" does, he just does it on a case by case basis with Hollywood Media. In an indirect way "Crossing Boarders" shows a lot of these characteristics, it just does it through situational cultural comparison between kids our age interacting in certain situations.

I have personally done a one week trip where i worked with homeless and lived with another church group from Rhode Island, and its amazing how you can see a huge difference. In this case the huge difference was how even just day to day i could form and hold conversation with homeless and connect with them on extremely similar levels. This is another stereotype people make and when you really get to know their story and interact with them you automatically think there intoxicated druggies who beg. Not to say there are not some but there are always some stereotype met characters in life. My point being, its a great experience to meet and interact with other cultures and people of different situations before letting a stereotype take over the image because usually its wrong or not speaking to that group of people but a separate group of people all together.

There are some efforts trying to be done about this subject and here is a link to the efforts if you want to get more information. This site gives some great information in picking out stereotypes. Where they come from and why they might be rendered. It also gives some pretty good information on the many types of stereotypes. Hopefully this site can give you some info on stereotypes and help be more aware of them so when one comes up its not the image we see when we think of a certain group, but really see them for who they are or find out who they are.

Umemployment Rates & Human Rights...

2009-02-25T11:37:00.000-08:00

This week we watched a documentary film on the interaction between Moroccan and American students. At the very beginning, before watching this film, my perception of Morocco is that it's a peaceful, beautiful vacation spot. Watching this film didn't change my perception at all but learning more about the current issues, such as high unemployment rates, certainly did. I did a little research and came across that although unemployment is at 11 percent, it is said that in urban areas for youths, it is as high as 33 percent. Because of the high unemployment rates, Moroccan residents are trying to get out.

On the contrary, African migrants, from Western Zahara, are trying to get into Morocco for opportunities of employment. However, there is a huge issue in Morocco regarding dumping hundreds and hundreds of migrants in a remote part of its southern desert. Click here to view desert exiles video (embedding was disabled.)

Watching the documentary of Morocco made it seem like it was a very nice place but there are these underlying issues that make it seem not so nice anymore. The rules of Morocco that govern with absolute power seem like they're not interested in sharing or having non-Arabs to sit with them. Exiling people to the desert is such a gross violation of human rights.

Stereotyping Religion

2009-02-23T20:12:00.000-08:00

After watching Reel Bad Arabs in class, I began to think about the stereotypes that dominate my life. I encounter stereotypes everyday. When I tell people I'm going to college, they act very surprised because I'm a waitress. Waitresses can't be intelligent? When I tell people I'm majoring in accounting, they make a painful face. Accounting can't be enjoyable? Why do people have to make assumptions so quickly?
I was raised to not be quick to judge. My mother hates being stereotyped, especially about religion. Around the holidays when my mother goes out and about, everywhere she goes there are people saying "Merry Christmas" to her. She hates it. Just to prove a point she will go out of her way to reply "I'm Jewish" even though we're not at all. However embarrassing this may be to me, she has a point. Why does everyone assume that Christmas is being celebrated in every house? The assumption that people believe in a higher power is evident in everyday life. Even the common reply to a sneeze is God bless you. In this video clip, Dane Cook finds himself in an awkward situation similar to that that the cashiers encounter with my mother. Warning: this video contains vulgar language.

Religion is not something to be taken lightly to some people, so why must other people insist on bringing it into everyday life. Or should these people not be so sensitive to these common sayings and greetings? I'm torn between these two extremely different opinions and I hope that through this course I can come to terms with my spiritual identity as well as others.

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-23T16:34:00.000-08:00

When I was watching the Oscars on Sunday night I noticed that the movie Slumdog Millionaire kept winning for every category it was nominated in. I kept seeing more and more clips and it made me want to re watch the movie. In doing so I noticed that for one of the multiple choice questions that Jamal, the slumdog millionaire, had to answer was about depictions of God Rama. Then the movie went on to show a group of people violently killing those who lived in the slum, which ended up being the cause of death for Jamal's mother. Upon viewing this movie the first time it didn't click that this riot was due to the fact that the people living in Jamal's slum were all Muslim's and that they were being attacked. One of the attackers even yells "get them, they are Muslim's" before violently beating and igniting the people of the slum. So I kept re watching that scene in the movie to find out who was doing the attacking and who God Rama was in the hopes to write a blog post in relation.

After some research I found out that it was a group of Hindu's that came after the slum and that Muslim's have always been targeted by Hindu's. While doing my research I also came across the fact that such riots really happen in India and that some were directed under state sponsorship. That fact is also shown in the movie when Jamal and his brother run up to the police station and try to get them to intervene but the officers seem more interested in their card game then the mass killings happening around them. Since we have been talking about the different religions in class I wanted to know more about the Hindu - Muslim conflict and who God Rama was since it was a figure shown in the movie clearly associated with the riot.

In Davies book Europe he describes the Islam religion as "meaning submission, it was a universal religion from the start." However, now Hinduism makes up 80% of India, leaving a small percentage left for Islam and any other religion. He goes on to say, "one of the most basic perceptions is that all Muslim's are brothers and sisters." This gave me the impression that they are peaceful people. After researching online I found out that the conflict of these two religions is because of a caste system, the various castes of Hindu's being at the top and Muslim's at the bottom. The tension comes from the fact that Muslim's find it hard to accept Hindu's and Hinduism as being superior to Islam and they think that since Muslim's once ruled India for many decades that they should remain superior.

As for God Rama I learned that he is a commonly adored God to the Hindu culture. He always holds a bow and arrow symbolizing that he is always ready to destroy evils. During the riot scene in the movie Jamal and his brother come across a child dressed as God Rama. However, in response to this Hindu's have come forward and said that the movie depicts one of their God's in a bad light. Many have come forward to justify that Lord Ram, also known as God Rama, has nothing to do with killing Muslim's and that part in the movie should be censored or banned in India. They said that the director, Danny Boyle, used the years of 1992-1993 when there was genocide against Muslim's and that the movie gives a false impression of what their religion is about.

I was not able to find that particular clip to show you but I have put the movies trailer below, which quickly shows the riot and the child dressed as God Rama. It's a really good movie, you should go and see it!

Outlawing Abortion

2009-02-18T09:15:00.000-08:00

I was reading some headlines today and I came across one that really stuck out. A few weeks ago we were talking about abortion and what the qualifications are to abort a fetus. Whether or not abortion is morally and ethically right or wrong has been a controversial issue for quite some time. Here's an article that I hope everyone finds interesting:

"North Dakota's House of Representatives has passed a bill effectively outlawing abortion. The House voted 51-41 this afternoon to declare that a fertilized egg has all the rights of any person. That means a fetus could not be legally aborted without the procedure being considered murder. Minot Republican Dan Ruby has sponsored other bills banning abortion in previous legislative sessions - all of which failed. He also sponsored today's bill and says it is compatible with Roe versus Wade - the Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion. (Rep. Dan Ruby, -R- Minot) "This is the exact language that's required by Roe vs. Wade. It stipulated that before a challenge can be made, we have to identify when life begins, and that's what this does." VO CONTINUES But Minot Democrat Kari Conrad says the bill will land North Dakota in court, trying to defend the constitutionality of a law that goes against the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. (Rep. Kari Conrad, -D- Minot) "People who presented this bill, were very clear that they intended to challenge Roe versus Wade. So they intend to put the state of North Dakota into court defending Roe vs. Wade"."

I think this is a very important matter that fits directly into our discussion. Like it says in the article, they are declaring when life begins. I think this is outrageous and unconstitutional because it goes against the supreme court decision that has already legalized abortion.

You can view the news video here.

"ND House Passes Abortion Ban." Minot News, Weather, Sports and Entertainment. 17 Feb. 2009. KXTV. .

Bueller, Bueller, Bueller

2009-02-17T07:04:00.000-08:00

I found the controversy about Ben Stein speaking at UVM’s commencement very interesting. To me Ben Stein had always been nothing more than the teacher in Ferris Bueller’s day off

I was surprised to hear that he was very active in science (although many disagree), and he had even made his own documentary, Expelled, about intelligent design. After hearing about the controversy I thought I would watch the movie to see what had everyone so upset. Here’s a clip from the movie.

I like that Ben Stein is questioning the norms of society and presenting an argument to a topic that is anything but certain. Growing up I always believed evolution to be true because it was taught to me as if it was. In middle school and high school science classes my teachers taught evolution as if there were no doubts about it, and looking back I think that was wrong. I have no idea what should be taught in schools, but to me teaching evolution isn’t far from teaching religious views on creation. Evolution seems to work perfectly in a society that has a constant thirst for answers. How did we come to be? There was a big explosion out of nowhere and then we evolved from single celled organisms. Tada. That answer seems to be much more satisfying than responding with “no one knows.”

I had my quams with evolution before watching Expelled, and I don’t agree with everything Ben Stein says in the movie either, but it’s refreshing to see people questioning the way things are instead of being content with the theory of evolution.

Understanding Religion

2009-02-17T06:56:00.000-08:00

Last week, we started to get into exploring and understanding different religions. We had to read Karen Armstrong’s, A History of God. The chapter we read is the history of the Islam religion. The Arabs had experienced a time where wealth was prominent in their tribes. They no longer put the tribe first but had a deeper focus on the individual and success. They looked to the sayyid or chief to lead their people and had lost any religious beliefs that they had. They were at a loss facing many problems including constant competition and killings. Muhammad saved his people. He became the Moses, Abraham that the Arabs needed. His first experience tore him from his sleep. “He said that an angel had appeared to him and given him a curt command:” “Recite!” He refused this angel twice and after the third embrace he had the words of the new scriptures. It took years for Muhammad to believe he was indeed a messenger from God; “the Koran was revealed to Muhammad bit by bit, line by line and verse by verse over a period of twenty-three years” (139). This history doesn’t really dig into what their belief is. It says their Gods name is al-Lah and is the creator of heaven and earth and he provided them with food and water. At the end of the chapter it says that Muhammad’s religion is known as Islām and that Muslim was something different. This was confusing to me because I believed them to be the same religion. While this chapter answers how this religion began, it does not specify what they really believe in.
After reading this, I want to know more. I want to understand the basics of their beliefs so that I can compare different religions and really understand them. This is something that really interests me. I hope that in class we will be able to touch more in depth on these topics.
Now I’m going to switch gears a little bit. Last night I watched The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Yes, this may be lame to some people but I am obsessed with it. Anyways, this episode Grace the Christian gets birth control. Her mother fond condoms in her room so gave her birth control but she told Grace she doesn’t want her to have sex. Grace wants to wait to have sex and to her the pills symbolize this commitment and make her want to wait.

This tied really well with our altar projects. To Grace the pills have a hidden message that leads to religion. For most we wouldn't get this message because brith control and religion usually clash. This brings symbolism to life for me. For me though, I find that I get so much more out of religion then just faith. It had given me tradition and strong family ties. I would not give up my experiance growing up as a Catholic because it has made me who I am today.

I was wondering for those who do not have a religion, how are traditions started in your families? Do they originate from some religious form?

Musically Deceptive: The Faith Behind the Words

2009-02-16T21:14:00.000-08:00

I've always been interested in religion, but it hasn't been until recently that I've started noticing the subtle hints of it more main stream culture. While flipping through my music list, I happen to come across certain bands listed as Christian Rock that previously, I had believed to be completely without religious connotation.

A band called Demon Hunter, which I had originally thought was of the metalcore genre, is actually classified as Gospel music. The members themselves are Christian by faith and if you listen closely, you can hear them express. At first, I didn't believe it. I thought it was a misinterpretation by crazed evangelists trying to rationalize lyrics, especially since the instrumental portion was influenced by Machine Head and Living Sacrifice, both well established metal bands.

I listened more closely and realized that these weren't such stretched theories. In their song "Through the Black" much of what they're singing about is religiously affiliated.

In the lines "I follow the downside, I'm waiting for something else. I know that you'll be here and I'll be waiting," it can be inferred that the wait for contact from God, or the rise to heaven is what is being sun about. The entire song goes on in this manner, addressing the belief that God is always watching us, and that we'll be redeemed when he finally comes again.

Another band that threw me for a spin genre wise, was Blindside. Although they have a very alternative/metal feel, Blindside is classified as Christian Metal. In their album "About a Burning Fire," their spiritual side can be clearly seen through their lyrics. One of their songs, "Shekina," is actually the Jewish and Christian name for the outer presence of God's glory.

I also looked into their lyrics more deeply and realized that once again, religion had snuck it's way into my play list. The most notable song was the first song on "About a Burning Fire," called "Eye of the Storm."

This entire song is an allegory to religious growth and experience. The chorus reads "Please come closed, 'cause I don't even touch you anymore. Please see I'm walking into the eye of the storm, and I'll still come out loving you even more." To someone not looking, this may just seem like a love song, and in a way it is. On a deeper level it's about the experience of moving away from the your comfort zone, and still feeling him in your life.

These are only two examples, but there are many other bands that also have more secretive Christian roots. Anberlin, which was originally called Servants after God's own heart when it was only the bassist and singer, have Christian Punk roots that show in many of their lyrics. Skillet, which also has a rough sound bordering more on the Alternative/Industrial rock side, is also a Christian Rock band.

Some would think that with the name of Christian rock behind them, these bands would sell less because of their religious connotation, but in fact they are some of the top selling and most popular bands. As McDannell states in Material Christianity, "The commercial fascination with the material culture of Catholicism is currently widespread in the U.S." Religion has become fashionable, and even though we may not realize it, we're sporting it more now than ever. It's become an accessory, a genre, a culture outside of it's original contexts.

This Love

2009-02-16T20:05:00.000-08:00

After Friday, I have been thinking about what each person chose to do his or her altar on. For me, what I am majoring in is not what I believe in the most. Although I wish it were something important to me, I could not picture the media as something that I want to feel extremely a part of. For me, it is my friends and family that mean the most. They shape who I am and who I want to be above all things. With them, I am apart of something bigger than myself. I cannot just stick within my own bubble; I give back and receive comfort in the fact that I can find something tangible in the belief of the people that surround me. I realized that I am not the only person that has this “abstract religion” in the presentation of the altars. While sitting and listening to each person present, they explained a large variety of things that they held on a pedestal such as accounting, snowboarding, and certain aspects of culture. These beliefs may be classified into material things such as material goods that are spoken of in Colleen McDannell's, Material Christianity. Someone could possibly find belief in an icon or a piece of jewelry that may make them feel closer to a loved one. These certain pieces of their lives, they turned to as what they found belief in. People even did actual religion as what they felt the most apart of, which is interesting to me because it is not the first thing I turn to.

What we traditionally see as religion is the set beliefs within Catholicism or Judaism where the followers must go by certain written beliefs and rituals. How can we define religion in today’s society? In such an obscure and new time period, can we redefine religion as set beliefs within what we hold the most true.

Seeing what people did for their altars sparked a conversation between a friend from home and I. He is extremely inspired by music and expresses to me how music is his outlet and almost a religion to him. Him and my other friend are coming out with a new album and their newest song is a song attributed to music’s uplifting motion in their lives. He told me that when his mom and sister first heard it they thought it was about a new girl in his life because it brings forth so much passion for one aspect of his life. In the song titled “This Love”, he talks about his love affair and learning for this thing that brought life to him during the hardships. His hip-hop and art was this thing. It accompanied him through tough times almost similar to what spirituality or an actual person could do.

As my friend and I continued our discussion, we talked about how people can look to what their passionate about as their belief system and their religion. What creates purpose for us in this life is almost what gives us our spirituality. Our belief in one thing, makes this life real and worth living.

On a related topic to last semesters Scientific Revolutions class, I found an article on Darwin the other day on the New York Times website called "Darwin, Ahead of His Time, Is Still Influential". The article summarized that although Darwin may not be necessarily looked at as correct, biologists are reexamining his studies. In their reexamination, they see what an amazing man he really was. What they were most amazed by how deep and broad his ideas were. He went from animal breeding to continuity between humans and animals. My point of bringing up Darwin is not necessarily bringing up the scientific aspect, but the dedication to his passion.

This dedication brought upon new ideas that had never been looked at or understood even today. Darwin's science was his religion. In this world where our passion is our religion, could religion and science not constantly be debated? Would a shift ever be made from traditional religion to this abstract? Could religion ever become modernized and simplified?

Religious Uncertainty

2009-02-09T20:11:00.000-08:00

Coming from a person who is not spiritual, or even religious, this class has been an interesting experience thus far. In last week’s class my mind was able to reflect on what the meaning of religion is. Before coming into this class I thought that people turned to religion because it was a chance to be a part of something, and to be in a place of comfort and peace. Also, I saw religion being used by my family during a time of death, and a time for a family get together. But I learned that there may be more reasons to why people turn to religion. It may not be because people want to belong to a community that shares common beliefs, it may be because our society has made it so that religion is part of our everyday lives.

As McDannell had said in Material Christianity, “one of the reasons why the material dimension of American religious life is not taken seriously is because of how we describe the nature of religion.” I think that one of the reasons that I am not very spiritual is because I fall into number of Americans who don’t take religious life seriously. I was not pushed by my parents to go to church, or to learn the bible. My mom did not have me baptized because she wanted me to have the choice of picking the denomination of what I want to be a part of. One of the reasons I have yet to be baptized is because there are a lot of religions, and within these different religions there are different beliefs, and norms. I do believe in a higher power, but because there are a lot of religions and it is hard to find something that shares my personal views. Sometimes I wonder how many people are in my shoes, and do not have a religion to conform to because they cannot relate to their religion.

Hannah and Her Sisters. Dir. Woody Allen. Perf. Woody Allen. Youtube. 5 Feb. 2007.

I am at a point in my life where I can make my own decisions. However, I have yet to find a religious group that I fit into. I have the chance to question what religion means to me, and what it will do for me. Today, in America I feel that people do not have this opportunity because many people either are not raised with any kind of faith, or they are and have difficulty casting aside the faith their parents gave them. I feel lucky because my mom told me she wanted me to have the chance to choose my religious beliefs. As in the video above Woody Allen’s character is trying to convince his parents that he wants to follow Christianity but they have a hard time understanding his explorations because they were raised Jewish and did not ever worry about anything else. It is obvious that Woody Alan’s character wants to know more about life than what his current religion is offering.

If given the chance, would you choose to erase your religious background and start exploring faith anew?

Different Meanings of Religion

2009-02-08T10:58:00.000-08:00

Last week our class talked about the question "what does religion mean" and some people said it can be a sense of belonging, while others said it can mean being part of a larger community. My family turns to religion for hope and answers to why things happen. My step-dad Dave was just diagnosed with ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) about 2 months ago, this disease will stop his muscles from working and lead to his death. When Dave learned the diagnosis he turned to religion to help him deal with the pain. He now reads the Bible every night before bed, my mom and Dave go to church every Sunday, and we say Grace before dinner on Sunday nights. My mom also has become very religious when she found out that Dave has ALS. She prays to God that maybe Dave will have the strength to hold on for many years to come. Through this experience in my life, I also look up to God and ask him why things happen to good people. I believe that God has a reason for why things happen, and even when they don't always go as planned we need to make the best of life. Many people have different reason why they turn to religion in tough times or why they feel that religion has a huge part in their lives. In my family we turn to religion for answers that no one else can provide.

Now I'm moving to the topic of religion in songs. I was sitting in the car last Saturday and heard the song "God Love Her" by Toby Keith. I knew the song has religious meaning but I never listened to it so closely until then. It describes a boy who falls for a very religious girl. The girl decides to run off with the boy and her parents are very angry at her. Her dad is a preacher who does not like his little girl dating a non-religious "bad boy". Watch the video here.

As you can see there are many material objects in the church that represent the faith. The Bible was shown in the video the most. She came walking out of the church with it in her arms and then when she made up her decision that she wants to be with the boy, she dropped the Bible showing that she wanted to be free from the rules of her religion.

In Material Christianity Colleen McDannell talks about how "material culture specialists derive meanings from objects themselves by paying attention to the form, distribution, function, and changing character of the objects and their environments" (pg. 2). If we would have listened to the song without any words we could have came to the conclusion that the girl was very religious because she came out holding the Bible and the song started with Toby Keith singing outside of a church. Objects such as a church, the Bible or even the Cross can tell us that they are of the Catholic religion. Although my house does not have many objects representing our faith, the hope in our hearts and the spirits of courage are enough to make us believe. We do not need material objects to remind us of God.

P.S- Thanks for listening to the country song, as I know most of you do not enjoy country!!

Marvelous Malia and Sweet Sasha

2009-02-03T05:04:00.000-08:00

I find it interesting that it hasn’t even been a month since the Obama’s have been in office and the major corporations are already trying to make bank off of their historic achievement. Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia are dolls created by Ty, the makers of beanie babies. They came out right before the inauguration. The company has denied that they are actually based off of the children of President Barack Obama. Alan Duke wrote an article for CNN, Ty denies Obama girls inspired Sweet Sasha, Marvelous Malia. The press secretary for Michelle Obama, Katie McCormick Lelyveld said, “"We feel it is inappropriate to use young private citizens for marketing purposes,” (Duke).

I feel like this coincides with our discussion in class last week on sacred and profane objects. The dolls have gone from being seemingly meaningless dolls to important historic and attention oriented dolls. If the Obama’s weren’t in office we would not have even heard of these dolls. It is just too much of a coincidence that the two dolls, the only African American dolls in their collection for 30, would have the same names as the President’s daughters. The company is making profit off of the innocence of two young children who have been thrown into the spotlight.

If it was a contest that had won a few lucky kids the opportunity to have dolls created for them this would be a totally different story. Michelle Obama may have even signed off a consent form to have the dolls made if Ty had asked. In many cases this could have been a kind of flattery for the family but Ty never consulted with the White House and has consistently denied that the dolls were inspired by Sasha and Malia Obama."Information concerning the development of our products and how we come up with names, how we select them, how we trademark -- that's considered as proprietary. I can't go any further with that question. Sasha and Malia are beautiful names" that "worked very well with the dolls we were making," said Senior Vice President of Sales for Ty, Tania Lundeen (Duke).

Duke, Alan. "Ty denies Obama girls inspired Sweet Sasha, Marvelous Malia - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. 23 Jan. 2009.
.

Symbolism.

2009-02-02T22:18:00.000-08:00

This past week, we have been discussing a lot about symbols; ones that are important to us versus ones that are important to our major. As we outline our altar projects, we explore the significance of them. Symbols in general are used very frequently in our society, whether it be some association, group, league, organization or club. They are used to represent something other than what they appear to be. They represent events, places, people, groups and ideologies.

We use symbols very often, more than we actually realize... like metaphors! A metaphor expresses something unfamiliar in terms of something familiar. For example, "having a broken heart." You wouldn't think that just because a person's heart isn't literally broken in two that they're not experiencing any emotional pain. The untrue assumption that if an image isn't factually true, then the idea it represents must also be false. Likewise, from our reading in Material Christianity by Colleen McDannel, the author proposes that in Christian faith there are ideas that have been represented by all means of fictitious imagery. Some of it is for sure metaphorical; and some of it is reprehensibly literal. But the question of whether these images are just simply metaphors or literal descriptions of fantastical facts is a question completely separate from whether the ideas that the images represent are true.

Something important to me AND my major would be my degree. A degree, to me, symbolizes an education, career-orientation, focus, drive, motivation, and ambition. It also symbolizes an advantage. It's important to me because when my future employer looks at my resume and sees that I have a degree, I am for sure going to be getting the job over the other guy who doesn’t have a degree. Having a degree symbolizes the extra million dollar that I will be making versus not having one.

"According to the Census Bureau, over an adult's working life, high school graduates earn an average of $1.2 million; associate's degree holders earn about $1.6 million; and bachelor's degree holders earn about $2.1 million (Day and Newburger, 2002). A number of studies have shown a high correlation between higher education and cultural and family values, and economic growth. According to Elchanan Cohn and Terry Geske (1992), there is the tendency for more highly educated women to spend more time with their children; these women tend to use this time to better prepare their children for the future. Cohn and Geske (1992) report that "college graduates appear to have a more optimistic view of their past and future personal progress." Public benefits of attending college include increased tax revenues, greater workplace productivity, increased consumption, increased workforce flexibility, and decreased reliance on government financial support (Institute for Higher Education Policy, 1998)." (http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-3/value.htm)

...So does that mean that our failing economy may be symbolizing that we're not doing something right??

Do we really care?

2009-02-02T13:55:00.000-08:00

After this past class, we have been talking about how we care about or relate to our major. For me personally and well three other people in the class also, my major means a lot to me. However, I feel like other things that I really care about stick out more. Whether it be from animal cruelty, poverty, or even the environment, we all care about something and even in the smallest way we try to that we care. I personally care about how the love in a family sticks together through the toughest of times. From births to deaths, from marriages to divorce, families are always strong. In the following clip Margaret Wheatley talks about how people act responsible when they care about something.

I think that this will help us with our secular altars because all we have to remember is that if we care about something then we know that we can do something about it. We feel responsible enough to care. I think that as the semester continues on we will care about more things that what we already know of. As we dig deeper down, we will find the little things that we care about and unconsciously and consciously act upon. Also I feel that the readings will help us find what we really care about and will help us to understand them better.

Religion in Washington

2009-01-27T06:19:00.000-08:00

These last weeks we have focused primarily on the inauguration and the secular and sacred symbolism therein. From Rev. Rick Warren’s invocation to Lincoln’s bible, the Christian symbols and components of the inauguration were clear and present. We know that the United States is a nation founded on Christian ideals, but how can we situate these images in an ever diversifying population? There is no doubt that religion plays a significant role in America today and is therefore a driving political influence, but what role does religion have in Government? No doubt many Christian Americans were thrilled to hear Rev. Rick Warren proclaim Jesus Christ his personal Lord and Savior during his invocation. At the same time no doubt many non-Christians were squirming in their seats. Herein lays the inherent problem with religion in government. There are too many beliefs, too many faiths, and too many ideals to make everyone happy all the time. The First Amendment to the Constitution gives us the idea of separation of church and state by mandating that no law can be passed to respect an established religion nor to prohibit the free exercise of religion. The Constitution never specifies the role religion could or could not play in Washington beyond that.

I personally feel that the significance of the Christian presence at the inauguration comes directly from President Obama’s personal Christian beliefs. Every President of the United States so far has been Christian so there is a tradition of swearing on a Bible. Because of the overwhelming political influence held by Christian voters across the nation, it is unlikely that a non-Christian will be elected any time soon. When it does happen however, it only seems appropriate that religious symbols relevant and sacred to that President will used.

Many moderate Americans may not even have noticed the Christian presence at the inauguration, or at least glazed right over it. As Colleen McDannell describes in Material Christianity, there is a scrambling of the sacred and the profane. Traditionally sacred objects are becoming utilitarian. The Bible, a sacred Christian text, has become the book people swear on. From witnesses in a court room to the president of the United States, when you swear something you do it on a bible. Why? Well, because that is what they always do in the movies. As with any tradition, sacred or secular, the longer its history, the more likely people are to forget why it is done at all.

The voting populace is also a source of religious strife. With radical non-believers screaming “God is a lie!” and radical Christians screaming “Convert the heathens!” we find ourselves in a deadlock with little room for progress. Each side is convinced that it is right and that its way of knowing is the only way. Before his election, Barack Obama spoke about the role of religion in America as well as expressing a need for faiths to coexist and even work together. Below is this clip –I apologize for the poor quality.

In this short piece, I feel like President Obama very accurately describes the role that religion must play in politics. There is no doubt that religion shapes political views, but when creating policy we must, as Obama says, persuade based on a common reality. We must accept that different people hold different beliefs and different ideals, but we are fundamentally all human first. In this way we can come together to establish an effective government.

Week of January 27, symbolism

2009-01-26T17:08:00.000-08:00

    The week prior to the week of January 27 we all saw the inauguration as a class on Tuesday, and discussed the many forms of symbolism that we found throughout the ceremony. we found there were multiple views on the symbolism behind Lincolns bible. Some feel that it is strictly religious and it was due to that the bible is Obama's holy book. Others say that the symbolism is behind the ownership of the bible itself. Being that it is Lincoln's bible makes it special or sacred, even if not in a religious way,because Lincoln was president at the time of the United States Civil war. He is also the president that passed the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all the slaves in the US and started the movement to even greater equality in our Nation. The fact that really makes our forty fourth president of the USA special is that he is the first African American president. This is where the connection between the bible belonging to Lincoln and Obama as president such a strong symbol.Personally I believe that the fact that it was Lincolns bible that was used did have a significant impact and sacred meaning to it, however I can also believe the other side to a certain degree.

    Below is a Video clip found on NTVKenya's YouTube.com page that shows some of the reactions of people feeling optimistic and hopeful now that we have an African American president in office now. It touches on the link between Obama as the first African American president and how it the bible of the man who began the movement to free the slaves many years ago. This would have never seemed possible and now as specified in the clip, "its a dream come true". If I was Obama at that moment he was being sworn into office I would have been attributing my accomplishment to many different people but thinking of Martin Luther King additionally.



    Other forms of symbolism that is not depicted as much in the video include how diverse things were on that day and are almost foreshadowed for the future. The cameras going over the crowd showed a wide range of nationalities as well as the special musical performance was performed by the best of each musical instrument class coincidentally all of a different nationality. Diversity I can see becoming more accepted and promoted in America now that we can see it is in effect already.

    We did a reading that links to the irony that we use Lincoln's bible and Obama is being sworn in as the first African American president. This reading was found in "Material Christianity" by Colleen McDannell. In Chapter one there is a section on material culture. The simple definition of material culture is something that tells about someone in someway or adds a certain feeling to an environment. This links to Lincoln's bible being used to inaugurate president Obama into office. I believe many people think more strongly about the idea behind the situation than about the inauguration itself. Change is good and to finally have an African American president as president will be a change from our prior forty three presidents of the United States of America.

    One thing that we can use to transition to the reading we have done for this class is to think about this quote in regards to the importance of Lincolns bible as a symbol and recurring theme last week. "Material Christianity" we see "In spite of the difficulty of defining "religion," scholars and theologians frequently accept a simple division between the sacred and the profane. They also see an evolutionary, modernizing trend that has caused Western societies to become increasingly secular."(4). It then goes on to talk about how material Christianity how Americans don't see the scrambling change but it is occurring.
    Are we as Americans really taking the sacred from material Christianity or are we leaving it as sacred? If we are maybe the fact that it was Lincoln's bible is more significant than it seems.

Kingdom Coming

2009-01-26T09:13:00.001-08:00

I recently came across a book that, upon review, seemed to fit into the subject matter of the Secular and the Sacred. It is called Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg. A good summary of the book I found is:
"A cautionary account of growing religious radicalism in America warns of the potential dangers of a doctrine through which Christians believe they have a right to rule non-Christians, identifying political practices that aggressively promote conservative agendas."
On Amazon.com there are 86 reviews of this book, clearly a popular and controversial book. A great review I found from Publishers WeeklyStarred Review said:

"In an impressive piece of lucid journalism, Salon.com reporter Goldberg dives into the religious right and sorts out the history and networks of what to most liberals is an inscrutable parallel universe. She deconstructs "dominion theology," the prevalent evangelical assertion that Christians have a "responsibility to take over every aspect of society." Goldberg makes no attempt to hide her own partisanship, calling herself a "secular Jew and ardent urbanite" who wrote the book because she "was terrified by America's increasing hostility to... cosmopolitan values." This carefully researched and riveting treatise will hardly allay its audience's fears, however; secular liberals and mainstream believers alike will find Goldberg's descriptions of today's culture wars deeply disturbing. She traces the deep financial and ideological ties between fundamentalist Christians and the Republican Party, and discloses the dangers she believes are inherent to the Bush administration's faith-based social services initiative. Other chapters follow inflammatory political tactics on wedge issues like gay rights, evolution and sex education. Significantly, her conclusions do not come off as hysterical or shrill. Even while pointing to stark parallels between fascism and the language of the religious right, Goldberg's vision of America's future is measured and realistic. Her book is a potent wake up call to pluralists in the coming showdown with Christian nationalists." (May 15) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I'm going to read this book and write my own review of it and how it relates to our class for my formal blog post.

Is gay the new black?

2009-01-21T12:26:00.000-08:00

After watching Geoff's Keith Olbermann's post and reflecting on yesterday's inauguration (including invocation by Rick Warren), I thought perhaps it was worth revisiting this question. It seemed to circulate particularly vigorously after last November's election (especially in regards to the vote on California's Proposition 8 which essentially overturned legal gay marriage by amending the State Constitution to prohibit it). I recommend This story, by Michael Joseph Gross, which ran in The Advocate on November 16th. It explains some interesting similarities and differences between the civil rights fight of African Americans and gay people.

But once we start talking about marriage (straight, gay or otherwise), we venture in the territory of the secular and the sacred in numerous ways. How do we define and explain the institution of marriage in contemporary American culture? Is it a social contract, a spiritual contract, a personally defined contract, or something else? Why can the same Scripture be applied to these questions, yet result in such divergent answers? As we explore questions such as these during the semester, I suggest we all read this piece entitled "Our Mutual Joy" by Lisa Miller, which appeared in the December 15, 2008 issue of Newsweek. Meanwhile, I encourage you to think about and comment on your views regarding marriage today--and how you see the face of marriage in the future . . .

Throughout the Semester

2009-01-20T12:38:00.000-08:00

Throughout the semester this course, The Secular and the Sacred, will be examining how religion in western civilization has shaped things such as politics, culture and social institutions. This course seems like it will go into what religion influences and what is influenced by secular or non religious aspects. This relationship should be an interesting exploration.

Looking through the assignments it seems as though we will be relating different things we learn about religions and traditions and relate them to our own ideas and come up with our own with the conceptual knowledge we gain.

Who needs God?

2009-01-20T06:57:00.000-08:00

I find it interesting how people my age, especially in the northeastern United States, view religion. A large majority of the people I know from both high school and college, call themselves liberals. They proudly denounce the existence of God or apathetically call themselves agnostic. Is this really a “progressive” movement? Many would argue that it is. Many argue that organized religions are backward and manipulative institutions. Although I strongly disagree with this argument, there are a number of faiths that even I would not defend against these criticisms. Religion has a distinct role and provides a distinct service to society; not everyone who can write a book or speak articulately can provide that service.

In a growing world sorely lacking spiritual guidance, I cannot help but wonder where we will end up. Where are children learning morals, in public schools? My mother, a preschool teacher, comes home horrified that these children know more four letter words than she does and have no concept of respect. Clearly something is not working.

The Secular and the Sacred

2009-01-20T06:51:00.000-08:00

I am interested in what direction this class will go this semester. It seems like the two core classes this semester are designed to teach us why we should become atheist socialists. At first glance I expect that the Secular and the Sacred is not going to give us a well rounded view of religion throughout the world. Instead we'll get the Richard Dawkins' delusion. I think it is important to be familiar with all the aspects of religion and I hope we aren't going to be spoon fed the brilliance of atheism while criticizing every other belief system.

In God's Name

2009-01-20T06:42:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, I think that something important about religion is that it makes people more secure in life and death. It also gives them something to look up to, something to believe in. The article "In God's Name" states that religion has a very powerful influence in economics and politics. Religion has and can be used to manipulate and control others; it's an effective politcal and commercial tool as evidenced by the historic records of religious wars. But when religious leaders of the world are engaged in preaching hate and intolerance against other religious belief systems, isn't it obvious that people would question the purpose of God? I mean, I thought religion was just a concept that makes people believe in other positive secular things.

Thinking About Peoples Rights

2009-01-19T20:15:00.000-08:00

In the article "In Gods name" it asked if it was liberal to stop a British Airways worker from wearing a crucifix, and the more I thought about this question the more I realized that the answer is "no" but in some countries the answer would be "yes". The issue of religion will always be controversial because so many people have different opinions. I hope that one day everyone will be able to accept other peoples thoughts and ideas. As an accounting major, religion does not play a huge role but if a co-worker has a different religion it is important to respect them.

Informal Blog

2009-01-19T19:23:00.000-08:00

This class will be very interesting and a new learning experience for me. I am not very religious, and my family never pushed the idea's of religion. We only go to Sunday church once every year. Also, for me I am not part of a denomination, my mother wanted me to chose the religion I wanted to practice. Hopefully, this class will give me a better understanding of religion and how it has affected the Western society. I would like to look deeper into the meaning of Secular, since I feel that it may be interesting.

Jesus "The Raptor" Christ

2009-01-19T18:48:00.000-08:00

Every religion, or any system of beliefs for that matter, has it's symbols and icons. The star of David for Judaism, the Lotus for Buddhists, the Omkar for Hinduism. Whatever you identify with, there's some kind of symbol used to represent qualities and values that go along with said beliefs. For myself, I'm a reformed Christian. I say reformed because I still believe in a lot of the basic values taught-- be lawful and kind, respect your peers and elders, etcetera --but I don't agree with a lot of other teaches and the general way things were run. I guess I predisposed myself to this at a young age, when it became apparent that I asked too many questions.

"Why did they kill Jesus? Why do we burn palm branches? What does 'adultery' mean?"

Too many questions, and not enough answers. Most of my questions revolved around why. I wanted to know why everything happened, why things were the way they are. One of my biggest questions was why use the cross as the Christian symbol? Of course, this was met with the typical Catholic School Teacher response: "Because he died for our sins. Now write your ten commandments."

I settled for that as an answer, but knew that there had to be more. It didn't make sense to just pick the cross as the overall symbol out of all the other things in the bible, like the fish and wine or the ark. Why wasn't our calling card a picture of Jesus himself?

I didn't find out the reason until very recently; not even two hours ago in fact. The Cross was first seen as a symbol of power by Constantine I, who is sometimes called the 13th Apostle. It's told that he saw the image of the cross in the sky with the words "In Hoc Signo Vinces," which translates to "In this sign conquer." He posted the symbol on all the shields of his men and sure enough, he won the battle of Milvian Bridge right outside of Rome. This, naturally, led to other victories and his eventual Emperorship.

I was astonished to find out that the big icon of our religion wasn't carefully thought out, but really just a cloud in the sky that someone interpreted as a cross. This brought up a whole other series of questions, of course. What would have happened if he fell asleep and never seen the cloud? What would happen if he had seen a dinosaur instead? Would we be worshiping Jesus "The Raptor" Christ today? Would our rosary beads be topped off at the bottom with a tiny T-rex? Of course, those questions would never be answered back in grammar school. They would be gasped at, seen as sacrilege. I would be cast out like the lepers. Ultimately though, that's the reason. Some guy saw it in the sky, used it as a good luck charm, and by chance (or holy luck) won a battle. When you hear little side stories like this, away from the big picture of the death and creation, it makes you wonder how much of religion is sent from the higher being and how much is just clouds in the sky.

Informal Blog Post

2009-01-19T16:41:00.000-08:00

I was really intrigued by our conversations that was brought on by today's Capitalism and Democracy class. Although it was based on diversity, this theme brought us into race and ethnicity along many other factors. One point that tied into the Secular and the Sacred class was how religion affected many peoples daily lives and how it tied into our professions. For example, in my field of mass communications, if I worked for an ad agency, my ad may not be published because someone in the agency may disagree due to their religion. The ad also may be interpreted by people of certain religions in the wrong light.

Further Understanding of Religion

2009-01-19T12:14:00.000-08:00

Upon reading "Stop in the name", I found myself wanting to know more. I have grown up in a religious family who usually attends church every Sunday. In saying this, I don't know a lot about my religion and should probably know more. This article left me wondering what do certain religions stand for with the issues in our society. My religion is Catholic and I know that we are for pro-life. In church, our priest wanted to pray that the new president and congressmen would vote for pro-life. When he said this is brought me back to the article and made me want to know more. I just found it ironic that what we read was brought to my attention while I was at church.

Formal Blog Post Instructions

2009-01-19T09:25:00.001-08:00

For your formal blog posts, you will be responsible for writing about the two specific weeks that you signed up for, plus a third week of your choosing. To do this, reflect on the week’s discussions and readings and think about what interests you or matters to you most. Then, create a post that will lead the class into a related conversation. In some respects, this assignment is pretty open. You have a lot of freedom to write about what you like. Feel free to bring in ideas from Core 240, last year’s Core courses, your professional studies, etc. What I do expect is that you show me well-explained complex connections that reveal how you see content presented in this class connecting to other people, events, and ideas.

Because this is both a blog post and an academic exercise, the following elements are REQUIRED and will be ASSESSED:

1. You must specifically spell out your own thinking about the course content and its connections to your post in clear language that can be understood by a public audience
2. You must refer to and cite course readings in your post, using at minimum the author’s last name.
3. You must include a link to the Course Readings post in our class blog so that outside readers can access the full citations in MLA format.
4. You must find and include link(s) to external web-based content (articles, web pages, blogs, videos, music, etc.) that illustrates and/or illuminates your ideas and fuels further conversation. In my experience, some of the best conversation starters come in the form of an embedded YouTube video.
5. You must provide a citation/description of your linked outside content and clearly explain how it connects to your ideas from class.
6. The writing in your post should be free from spelling and grammatical errors.

Informal Blog

2009-01-19T08:02:00.000-08:00

After reading the two articles, I realized that this class will be a real eye opener for me. I found that I am not really religious besides that I go to midnight mass on Christmas. I think that there will be many things that I didn't know about other religions just from reading the articles. I was never forced to go to church besides on the specific days that meant the most to my Grandmother, so I never got the experience of going every sunday. I want to get a lot of out this class because I feel that it will bring a new view of things to light for me and that I will understand the concepts of new religions.

Would you want to be Catholic?

2009-01-18T18:36:00.000-08:00

When I read the articles "In Gods Name" and "Stop In The Name" I thought of religion in a different way. I was not raised in a religious family and never attended church. I went with friends when I stayed the night at their houses but never of my own free will. When I got old enough, I wanted to look into religion a little more and research some to see if I connected with any of them. I ended up finding a good fit for me, but my research into Catholicism put me off to that idea.
They do not make it that easy to convert and plus they have a lot of rules! For a high school kid just looking for something bigger to believe in, it really wasn't the most welcoming religion. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who feels this way or not but just from all the rules I knew that it wasn't for me.
If anyone else has felt this way about religion in general, please share!

Informal Post

2009-01-18T14:22:00.000-08:00

Since I am not a very religious person I think this class will mostly be a learning experience. Even after reading the two packets from The Economist it was interesting to see how different countries and religions respond to different ideas. The secular part of the class should be interesting as well. I was unsure what the meaning of the word secular was before attending the first class but now I know it tends to deal more with tradition and less with religion. I think that will be a good discussion on what is secular without being sacred and the other way around. I hope to learn all about sacred traditions in this country and in others along with secular traditions and how they interact. Overall I think this class will be interesting and I will learn a lot.

President in Church

2009-01-16T14:08:00.000-08:00

I was reading this article "Presidential church choice sends political, spiritual messages" and talked about how all or most of the presidents attended churches during their presidency, and i was wondering, should Barack Obama attend church every day Sunday? According to the article, most American want churchgoer in the oval office. To read this article click here.

Madonna Pepsi Commercial

2009-01-16T08:17:00.000-08:00

In 1989, Pepsi unveiled this advertisement, but only showed it once in the United States because Madonna's MTV video version was too controversial. Watching this led to some interesting discussion about the sacred and the secular in marketing decisions.

Labels

2009-01-15T08:18:00.000-08:00

For the purposes of this class, it is critical and required that you use the "labels" feature to identify each post as your own. This will help the instructor quickly find your posts for assessment purposes. To do this, after typing in the post itself, add YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME to the labels box that appears just below the text box.

You should also use labels to add key words which will help other readers find your post if it relates to a topic they are interested in. Separate each label with a comma. When finished, go ahead and publish your post, but be sure to view your published work to be sure your full name appears in the right location on the blog. Notice that when viewing the blog, you can see a list of labels in alphabetical order on the right side of the screen. You can click on any label item (which might be an individual author's name) to pull up all the posts that have been so tagged.

Here is an example of what to type in the label box: Cyndi Brandenburg, instructions, labels, key words

Check out this post's labels to see how it looks.

Course Texts

2009-01-12T12:55:00.000-08:00

Armstrong, Karen. A History of God. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994.

Brooks, Michael. "Born believers: How Your Brain creates God." New Scientist. February 4, 2009.

Davies, Norman. Europe: A History. New York: HarperPerennial, 1998.

Deresiewicz, William. "The End of Solitude." The Chronicle Review. January 30, 2009.

Fischer, David Hackett. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Herbert, Wray. "Is Fraud Contagious?" Newseek Web Exclusive. March 12, 2009.

"In God's Name." The Economist. London: November 3, 2007.

Lewis, Anthony. "A New National Scripture." The New York Times. January 18, 2009.

Lilla, Mark. The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West. New York: Vintage Books, 2008.

Linden, David J. The Accidental Mind. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2007.

Mahler, Jonathan. "The Soul of the New Exurb." The New York Times. March 17, 2005.

McDannell, Colleen. Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Media Education Foundation. Reel Bad Arabs. Featuring Dr. Jack Shaheen. 2007. DVD

Miller, Lisa. "Our Mutual Joy." Newsweek. December 15, 2008.

"Stop in the Name . . ." The Economist. London: Novermber 3, 2007.

The Western World Philosophy. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2008.

Wolfe, Alan. "Pew in the Pews." The Chronicle of Higher Education. Washington: March 21, 2008.

Wolfe, Alan. The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith. New York: Free Press, 2003.

Quick Help Links

2009-01-12T12:46:00.000-08:00

If you need help posting, blogger can offer plenty of assistance. The general help page is found here. Information on how to post is located here. You can also find details on adding links or videos, and even directions on how to post a video from YouTube.

Welcome to the 2009 class blog for COR 230-01

2009-01-12T12:44:00.000-08:00

Throughout this semester, our class studying the Secular and the Sacred will create blog posts that elaborate upon course content and connect to other materials through links to outside sources such as articles and videos. We will use these posts weekly as a launching point for in class discussions, so it is important that you create posts that you think are interesting and relevant.

Your blogging contribution will consist of a minimum of 3 formal posts (each worth 5%of your total class grade). You will sign up in class to post for two specific weeks during the semester. Your third post will occur whenever you decide, as long as it is completed prior to course week 13. Detailed instructions and requirements for the formal blog posts can be found here. Of course, you are welcome and encouraged to blog more frequently if you wish!

You will also be graded on your blog participation--this means the frequency and thoughtfulness with which you respond to other students' posts (using the comments feature) as well as completion of occasional informal assigned posts (such as your introduction post, which was due on Tuesday, January 20th). Your active participation in the blog is worth an additional 5% of your total class grade.

Although it is a required course component, I hope you will approach this blog as an opportunity to show your unique perspective on the material we read and discuss, to be creative, and to personalize what we are doing in class in a way that interests and excites you. Have fun, and remember, you are literally writing for the whole world to read!