Miss California

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

Human nature

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.

Symbolism.

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??

In God's Name

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.