Call of Duty Recruits

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?

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?

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

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?

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

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

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.