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In response to Caryn - full post here

I've also encountered this a few times, I find it slightly humorous and slightly bothersome. I mean, as you pointed out, we ought to be skeptical of our own religions, or lack thereof. And as Matt pointed out, people tend to think that one must believe the stories and metaphors to be literal. This, too, I think, is strange because in my opinion, the stories in Genesis and all the miracle stories are not more believable than the stories of the Greek gods. The belief in the stories of the Greek gods is mostly lost in time, but there is reason to think that the same thing may happen to Christianity.

Blog 8 Times A Week? Please, That's Child's play

Today in class we mentioned the story wherein Muhammad pleaded to Allah that he require only 5 prayers per day, rather than fifty. Professor Silliman mentioned in class that this story is intended to show that 5 prayers per day is not very much compared fifty prayers per day. It demonstrates the power of putting things into a different perspective.

I, personally, know full well how this sort of thing can work. We are drawing close to the end of our semester and the number of blog posts that I have done shows it. Last semester I had only one class that I had to blog for and I only had to blog around two times a week, though I blogged closer to three times each week. At that time I thought that completing three substantial blog posts per week was highly impressive, as it required what seemed like a great amount time and work. At the end of last semester, I had complete 33 blog posts. This semester, however, I blog for four classes, three of which require 4 blog posts for an A (16 posts per week). By the end of this week I will have completed at least 216 blog posts (6 times the work of last semester not including my other two classes, or the additional reading for each class). Never again will I think that four or even eight blog posts per week is a lot of work.

Don't Do This, But Seriously, Do This.

One of my cousins posted this online: "Don't waste your time on revenge, those who hurt you will eventually face their own karma." I thought that this was an interesting attitude to take up, as I think that it does not fit into the beliefs of religions that deal with karma, nor does it fit in with my cousins self-identified religion of Christianity. The message of that post is essential "Don't act in revenge, but hope for it because people who hurt you deserve it." I think most religions that hold value to karma would likely say that we should not waste time on revenge or worry about karma and revenge - all we can do is behave well for ourselves. Additionally, I think that Christianity (not based on the historical Jesus), which my cousin follows, would still offer a different message - "Don't waste your time on revenge. We all deserve to punished for all of eternity; but even those who hurt you can be forgiven and will go to heaven and enjoy paradise and happiness." I think that Christianity based on the historical Jesus would say "Don't waste your time on revenge, forgive even those who hurt you."

Sweeping Generalizations

In response to Alex - full post here

I really like this meme and I've been laughing for quite sometime while looking at this website. I've always found it in bad taste, and rightly so, I think, to make sweeping generalizations about one group based off of a select few individuals. I've thought of comparing it to saying that all Christians picket soldier's funerals because the Westboro Baptist Church does. Or you could say that all Christian women have to wear black and cover their heads because Catholic nuns do.

Having more knowledge about the prophet Muhammad has helped me to strengthen the idea that Muslims are individuals too; they are different from each other. I mean, the knowledge from the book has done little in the way of changing my view of Muslims, it has however, given me more tools that I can to defend the religion against those who unfairly attribute to the many the characteristics and mindsets of the few

Thank the Good Lord

Jesus, as we have mentioned in class, was not 5 foot 7 inches, and he wasn't Caucasian, literate, or clean. In fact, he was short, stinky, and was middle eastern meaning that his skin was darker. By god, if Jesus came to our country today, we would pat him down in the airport. Then when he started to profess his radical ideas of freedom, equality, and change, we would write him off as a terrorist who threatens American freedom and liberty. We would likely put him in a detainment center wherein we would torture him for information on Al-Qaeda. Americans (especially those who lived near Jesus) would finally be able to sleep at night knowing that the streets are safe from middle-eastern men who threaten the American government by talking about such scary things as equality, and power and economic reform. Thank the god lord that we are so accepting and tolerant, and thank goodness that we have the ability to think for ourselves and realize when someone is offering something good/better than what we have now.

Welcome Jesus Into Our House

Many people confess that they love and support Jesus Christ. Though, conversely, they also support our current socio-economic system and the power dynamics of politics and home. Some of these people also claim that America was founded on what they would like to call Christian principles. I don't actually believe that is the case given that Jesus would not likely have agreed with the principles of America then or now. I doubt that Jesus would support capitalism and the individualistic motivation that excludes and disadvantages women and people of a different skin colour. Would these Americans let Jesus into their home? A man preaching about how the current economic and government systems are lousy and that we ought to replace them with a more socialist or communist system. Would they really humble themselves as Jesus suggests and help out a gay man, or a women with darker skin? I doubt it.

Also, here is a (somewhat related) picture: 

Biological Repression

One member of the MCLA class of 2015 has been posting on various social networking sites that he is fasting from food for entire days. He has also been posting that he is an ex-bisexual (which is awkward because sexual orientation is not a choice, and he is making it appear as though it is), which seems strange given that most of his posts are about sex, which leads many to think that he is constantly thinking about sex. He is also, apparently, neglecting education, he has said a few times that he could care less about education over God.  At any rate, he thinks that fasting/abstaining/neglecting from these things will help him to grow spiritually. I disagree with him, and instead agree with the Buddha. I think that you can only work on spirituality when you are not repressing your basic biological needs. The sexual repression, it seems, is especially leading to interference with spirituality with him. Given that at least 80% of his posts are about sex, and not about god, it's apparent that repressed sexuality is hogging up most of his thoughts. There is also the fact that sexual repression and fasting can have severely negative affects on a person's health. I hope that, if there is indeed a god, he is not the kind of god who supports sexual repression, starvation, and depriving oneself of knowledge just for him.