Title

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.

Paths Don't Pave Themselves

In response to Rachel - Full post here

While I certainly think that it is up to you to make your own choices, I would advise you to be cautious about this idea of path. Paths do not pave themselves. You, and only you, pave the path. You are always paving a path, even when you try not to pave the path, you are paving it by trying not to. What I mean is that inaction is a type of action. Your actively choosing to not pursue your education license, is paving another path which may or may not have worse affects on you. I think that the main point behind this meditation is that you should be okay with the choices that you make, not that you give up on something because something has changed. A Buddhist would probably tell you to do what feels right, and I would agree. Continuing briefly, and I'm not sure why, or to what end, I think that a Buddhist would say that striving for your teaching license despite the change in requirements can be the proper path just as much as graduating regardless of the status of your teaching license. Remember that the best path may not be the easiest path

You cannot know, beyond a shred of doubt, what the future is; therefore you cannot know, beyond a shred of doubt, what your path in life is. Choosing to pursue your teaching license may make you incredibly happy in the future, or it could turn out to be completely useless and a waste of time. Likewise, giving up on the teaching license could make you incredibly happy, or it could end with you being unhappy. The choice is yours to make, you cannot know if somebody has already chosen a path, so you must make a choice of your own. Simply, accept your choice and be willing to go with the flow.

Consumption is Justification

In response to Jess - full post here

I agree with the main point of your essay; there is essentially no difference between sacrificing animals and slaughtering them for consumption. I find it amazing that people could be so offended by animal sacrifice, but not blink an eye at the slaughterhouses in America. I suppose the problem with animal sacrifice is largely its association with barbaric tribal practices of the past; people who practice sarcophagy, it seems, are offended when people don't use animals explicitly for consumption. Modern Western society seems to justify meat consumption at the expense of severe animal cruelty.

I do disagree, however, with the view that we cannot get rid of slaughterhouses. Society is made up of individuals. The slaughterhouses will all fail if the majority, and preferably all of humanity, agrees that vegetarianism is preferable to the consumption of meat. You did miss a key point in that whole section about animals consuming other animals: not all animals consume other animals. As omnivores, we don't actually have to consume animal flesh; actually, humans are more biologically similar to herbivores than most other omnivores. As such, slaughterhouses are not necessary, but are, rather, a luxury of sorts.

I think that if a person is against animal abuse, they should become vegetarian. If a person finds that kicking a dog is unacceptable, they should be appropriately moved to find the slaughter of the more intelligent pigs to be equally, or perhaps more, unacceptable.

Life and Death and Coins

Response to Jess - full post here

Yes, that would be quite the loophole. While I love that game with all of my tiny heart, I think that the analogy is limited to shadow and light, I do not think it would be relevant to life and death conversations. Shadow is the absence of light - death is the cessation of life. You can have things which are neither live or dead (rocks for example).

Right now I agree that immortality is not within our reach. However, I think that it's not so incredibly far away actually. I don't agree that what begins must end, I think that in the not-so-distant future we will be able to see immortality. I'm not saying that everyone will choose it. I think it would be necessary to give people the choice to die when they want to. So in that sense there will be death; but any given individual could choose to live forever, or at least until the universe collapses on itself. Though actually, even then, if the multi-verse theory has any weight, even that won't be able to kill people permanently.

Pre-Marital Sex

This is less relevant to Buddhism than I would have liked but I was thinking about the whole abstaining from sex until marriage thing. The opinion that everyone should abstain from sex until they are married is still around; many Christians still think that this is relevant advice for our contemporary society. I was thinking about it and decided that society has changed heavily since the onset of that guideline. That guideline/rule was put into place many years ago (around 2000 at the least); at that time the life expectancy was much less for any given individual. As such, when people were biologically  ready to produce children, they got married. They, on whole, seldom had to repress their sexuality. In this society, people live to be much older and, as such, tend to get married later in life. These individuals who choose to abstain from sex, assuming that they actually have an inclination towards sex, are only bottling up their sexual energy. I think that  this may not be the best idea, and probably isn't precisely what the Christian God would want. He may want people to have sex only after they are married, but his rules would have to be altered slightly to apply today.

Buddhism and Self-Defense

Chapter 26 Verses 389, 391, 405, and 406 of the Dhammapada, all feature the same message: Do not harm others, even if they harm you; do not use weapons, words, or thoughts to harm them, etc.

While I was reading through this chapter I was thinking about possible scenarios where this sort of philosophy would provide a disadvantage. Given that I follow this philosophy myself, it was something seriously worth considering. I wondered about what a Buddhist would do if someone came up and attacked them, intending to seriously wound them (put them  in critical condition), or kill them. I realized then that I had already come up with a solution which is the style of martial arts that I am learning; aikido, I think, would be an excellent style of martial arts for those who take this part of the teaching seriously and strictly. It's philosophy is basically that if someone is an attacker, something about them is wrong or off-balance so it is the job of the person being attacked to defend themselves and to protect the attacker from injury. I can imagine that aikido appeals greatly to many practising Buddhists. The philosophies seem to blend so perfectly.

Meditation and YOU MUST BELIEVE IN REINCARNATION

People seem to equate various practices with beliefs. I was once meditating in my room when my father entered and saw me there. Now, I had only recently informed him that I no longer wanted to practice Catholicism. In response to seeing me meditating he informed me that it was absolutely crazy to believe in reincarnation. At that time I had not known that the rebirth that Buddhism speaks of is not a literal transferring of souls. I was, however, meditating for more practical reasons, so I found it slightly far-fetched to see that he had equated mediations so hastily to believing in reincarnation. I don't particularly believe or disbelieve in reincarnation and I was only meditating to relax. People do often tend to assume that partaking in certain activities must necessarily have been caused by some ideological opinion change.

Meditation and Hearing

I practised meditation for two reasons that I can remember. The first was to relax after some sort of strong emotional distress. The second was to to focus on my hearing ability. I would sit in quiet-ish areas and try to focus on one noise that was distinctly more quiet than other noises, the hum of an electronic device is a good example. I would work on concentrating on that until it was easy to pick that thing out from others. Then I started to try focusing on more than one thing. I would find a recording of a simple drum beat and then I would concentrate on both the hum and the beat. After that, I started to try to count the drum beats and concentrate on the hum again. I continued with this sort of thing, until I was able to focus on three things with proficiency. After that, I tried to concentrate on things that were more distant from me. This worked fairly well, and at one point in time, I could sit in crowded rooms and listen in to one conversation over others.

Meditation to Relax

Response to Ryan - full post here

I practised meditation for a while. I was not doing so in search of spiritual experience so I never really had one related to meditations. It was, however, useful in relaxing and controlling breath. It helped to sort out problems that mattered from problems that didn't, and it helped to determine solutions to those that did matter. I used it countless (not really though) times in order to calm myself down after any sort of large emotional distress.

Proper Noun Church

In response to Lauren's post - full post found here

When you think of lip balm, adhesive strips, tissues, slow cookers, and cotton swabs, you likely think of, respectively, chapstick, band-aids, kleenex, crockpot, and Q-tips. These companies who own the brand names that we associate with products are incredibly talented and maybe slightly lucky. My point here is that sometimes it is the work of organisations to replace a general product with a brand name. The catholic church, actually, is one of those organisations. They do not object to the association of the word church with Catholicism. In fact, they often do it themselves; I would not doubt if this were completely intentionally done. You can look at the Catechism on the Vatican website and see examples of that all over the place . This part, here (http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P29.HTM), mentions the Church often.

Crossan and Catholic and History

I do wonder why people chose to identify with one denomination of Christianity over another. Mostly I am concerned with Dominic Crossan's denominational choice. I wonder why he decided to call himself a Catholic. Surely there are other denominations which more closely follow or resemble his view on Jesus. The Catholic take the gospels more literally than most other denominations of Christianity, and they back their claims up with a history that is non-existent, or lean a history in their favour when clearly it was not meant in that manner.

Surely Crossan does not support having only male authorities because Jesus chose men as his followers (Catechism 1577 - Part(p) 2 Section(s)2 Chapter(c) 3 Article(a) 6). Surely he doesn't agree with the Catholics when they say that "it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained" (Catechism 816 - p1s2c3a9 Paragraph3). Jesus did not, after all, think that one could only reach the Kingdom of God through a single establishment/building. Does Crossan agree that those who deliberately do not attend Sunday mass commit a grave sin (Catechism 2180-2181 p3s2c1a3) and thereby a mortal sin (catechism 1857 p3s1c1a8)? If not, then why does he call himself a Catholic? If you believe all of those things, then feel free to honestly call yourself a Catholic. If you do not honestly believe all of those things it would likely be best, to avoid confusion, if you correctly identified yourself under the correct denomination.


Most of the ideas that Crossan supports and believes about the historical Jesus, I also support. Most of these ideas however, do not line up with the catholic church's beliefs

Life and Death - Two sides of the same coin?

Is death necessary for life? In class today someone said that death and life are part of the same thing; the only way you can have death is if you have life. But is it true that in order to have life, you must have death? Does the very nature of receiving life equate to receiving death? Many religions would have us think so; there is a common place belief that death must always accompany life. The Vatican, for instance, said that "disposing of death is, in reality, the most radical way of disposing of life" (Communion and Stewardship - Paragraph 93). In the same document they say that it would be radically immoral to extend human life through production or genetic engineering. Basically, they are saying that death is a part of life and that it would be wrong to change that. I disagree with that assertion and I do not think that death necessarily has to exist due to life. With transhumanism, it could be possible to extend human life to near immortality. Though presumably with this technology it would be possible to kill yourself if you were bored. Maybe everyone would get bored with that sort of life span, making death an inevitable part of life still.

Beliefs That Override Truth?

In response to Lauren - full post here

If there is lack of evidence in favour of something and lack of evidence against something, it is fair to believe one over the other. However, if there is conclusive or overwhelming evidence in favour of one of the option, it would be most inadvisable to accept the other option. So, if there is no evidence in favour of or against the hypothesis that Jesus had a relationship with Mary, you can choose to believe either way, just don't assert it as truth.

Beliefs, I'm afraid have little power over the truth. You cannot determine truth with beliefs. This is evidenced by the fact that beliefs can run completely contrary to truth. If, for instance, I chose to believe that I could draw a triangular square, I would be severely disappointed, for the truth is no such thing can exist. If I chose to believe that I could jump from a building and then rewind time before I hit the bottom, I would be disappointed to find out that my belief did not effect reality. At one point in time people thought the world was flat, they had no evidence either way, so they could have believed what they wanted, but their beliefs did not change the fact that the world is an oblate spheroid. Beliefs can ignore truth, but they can never 'override' the truth.

Evidence has to play a pivotal part in society's thought process because without it we would not have made here as a species. Without evidence we could not invent things; we cannot build wheels out of things that we believe exist though those things do not. Without evidence we could throw ourselves from bridge because we believed that a magical net would save us. Without evidence we could, during the Salem Witch Trials, hang 19 people for being witches, though no such things exist; they simply believed that witches existed thought they had no evidence to support their beliefs. Due to having believed that belief was better than truth, the people of Salem in 1692 decided to kill those innocent people anyway.

I hope you can see the negative consequences of thinking that belief can override truth; basing society on truth and evidence has gotten us much further than basing society on just beliefs. Beliefs are strengthened with truth; justified and true beliefs constitute knowledge.

Ex-Believer

What do you call someone who used to follow the ethics of vegetarianism but no longer does? You call them an ex-vegetarian or someone who eats (present tense) meat.

What do you call someone who used to believe that in compatibilism but longer does,? You call them an ex-compatibilist or an incompatibilist (what they currently are).

What do you call someone who used to believe in the existence of deities but no longer does? You can them an ex-theist or an atheist (what they currently are).

What do you call someone who used to practice dentistry but has since forgotten the procedures and hasn't been inside of a dentist office for years? You call them a ex-dentist saying that they used to be a dentist but no longer practice dentistry (what they currently are).

What do you call someone who used to follow and believe the Catholic catechism but no longer does? You call them (and they call themselves (sometimes)) a Catholic.

** I don't mean to imply that this only happens with Catholicism, simply I have seen this more frequently with the Catholics; I don't frequently hear those who no longer believe in the fundamentals Buddhism call themselves Buddhists**

It seems like something has gone wrong here. We are associating what someone used to be with something that they are now. If, in the past, someone followed the ethics of vegetarianism but no longer does, we do not call them a vegetarian. They could still believe in a part of the foundation of vegetarian ethics (that animals feel pain), but that doesn't mean that we call them vegetarians still, if they indeed eat meat.

The title of Catholic seems to be akin to the sort of tag of identification that we have with race/ethnicity. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic is the mentality here. This, I think, is largely on purpose. The Catholics baptize the new members at a very young age and raise them to believe that they are Catholics even if they are vehemently opposed to the Catechism. If someone does not believe in literal transubstantiation, they are told that they are still Catholics, when in reality, the Lutheran Church would be much more to their liking (given that the the lack of belief in the literal transubstantiation, is the significant distinguishing characteristic of the two). 

Even if someone begins to actively practice Islam, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Paganism, or any other religion, the Catholic Leaders (and often the people themselves) still consider them Catholics; again, it's almost as though Catholicism is an ethnicity. In fact, you are not considered an ex-catholic until your formally defect from the church. So, my question is why is this so?

Coincidental Favourable Results

In response to Rachel - full post found here

I think it is important to remember that the mere result of an event that happened to be positive does not necessarily equate to a reason to believe that god exists. Similarly, bad results of an event is not necessarily a reason to believe that god does not exist. This is basically tautological but I'll say it anyway; things either will happen or they will not happen.

The universe is so largely complex that any event is far beyond the reach of a single cause. There is certainly no way of knowing that the event occurring in someone's favor or against their favor could have been caused by a single thing. Say I prayed to a transcendent milk that it rain on Tuesay. Whether it does, and I am made happy, or it doesn't, and I am made sad, has no clear correlation with an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god. If it does rain, there is no way of knowing if I could have received the same result had I prayed to a transcendent tea kettle. Similarly with negative results, had it not rained, there is no way of knowing that praying to something else could have made a difference. In these sort of situations, who you pray to seems almost coincidentally related to the result; though maybe there is an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being beyond our understanding. I do not know.

Creating Cults and Sects

In response to Ryan - full post here

I think that we can probably say that Jesus started a new religion. He didn't create it, per se, at least not intentionally, but he was the cause of this new religion. So, presumably, you could amass a large number of followers and create stories about your divinity; assuming people believe it, and they very well may, you could be the center of some religion. You could certainly start a cult of your own, like Marshall Applewhite, or not, he was a bit crazy. You could also do fairly well in creating a sect of a religion of your choice. Good luck to you, Dios.

Umbrellas and Sub-Groups

Christianity is like an umbrella, it covers many denominations. Christianity is to Catholicism as animal is to bird. Christianity is the larger group which contains the smaller group. Therefore we should not attribute any of the characteristics of the smaller group to all of the larger group; we would not, for instance, say that on the basis that birds fly, all other animals can; similarly, it is not appropriate to talk about birds as if they were the only animals, saying "animals like to fly." Additionally, it is inappropriate to assume that characteristics of one group cannot apply to another or all of the subgroups; this is akin to saying "because I am a human, I require oxygen." We should note that all living things need oxygen to survive.

As of recently, I have been encountering a large number of people who say things akin to "Christians listen to the Pope," or "as a Catholic, I believe in the Abrahamic god." I think that people should make an honest effort to clear this matter up for themselves, because otherwise they risk make sweeping generalizations or being too specific which leads to confusing and offending many other people.

I'll Pray For You Nanomites

Amongst some religious folk, there is an inclination to end a disagreement with a curt "I'll pray for you." This is not the proper way to argue. An argument should stand on its own merit; an argument can even be largely emotion, but it still stands on its own merit. When we break this ending statement down, we see a petition to a deity, hoping that the deity will proceed to intervene and make the opposition find the argument more agreeable. Most people, I think, can see that this is certainly a problem if we are attempting to argue rationally. I think that even those whom are initially convinced that this sort of argument holds would find themselves offended if it were used against them. Imagine discussing slavery with someone, where you are pro-abolition and they are pro-slavery. If the opposition throws, in your face, a mist of nanomites which rewire your brain to find their stance more agreeable, that does not actually lend merit to their argument. The point is that slavery is still wrong even if, by some miracle, you thought otherwise due to nanomites having had rewired your brain.

In response to Lauren on Dania's post - found here

Hmm... I am not sure that Jesus would view anyone as a true Catholic, because I don't think he would make that distinction between Christians. He seems not to make judgement claims, he simply openly accepts everybody; so there is no sense in calling someone a "good (enter specific denomination of specific religion here)." I think Jesus would probably recognize her as a 'good and highly motivated person.' Additionally, Jesus didn't know anything about the Catholics as he was a good practicing Jew, and didn't seek to start Catholicism. Even if he did know about the Catholics, I do not think that Jesus would find most of the Catechism, or the actions of the church (given the power structure of the ROMAN Catholic church) agreeable, though he would probably still accept them. I don't know, it seems a bit unjustified to suggest that Jesus would qualify someone's good actions like that.

Jesus Obeys the Old Testament

In response to Julia's post - found here

Actually, my last Q & A was related to how Jesus viewed the Old Testament.

In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus says, or at least is made out to have said, that he has not come to destroy the law (of the Old Testament) and advises that we not break the commandments. However, I can see Jesus disagreeing with one of the laws in Exodus; Exodus 20:12 features the fifth commandment which states that you should honor your mother and father; Jesus seemed to be very vehemently against this commandment given his saying something akin to hate your mother and father.

Debt and Contracts

I think that parents bring obligation of taking care of children unto themselves. They would surely be awful people and parents if they forced an obligation upon themselves and then chose not to take care of that obligation. Parents have children most often of their own volition. The child has their own life thrust upon them, and by the time they are aware of the fact that they had no choice in their creation, they can't do anything about it. Well, they could, but it would likely involve a large amount of pain and cause severe amounts of emotional trauma to those who know them, including their parents whom forced the child to begin living.

Even if a child does enjoy their life because their parent fulfilled the obligations that they gave themselves, children do not owe any debt to the parents for abiding by the parent's self constructed contract. This is not to say that individuals cannot choose to pay them back, but simply that doing so would be going well beyond what is necessary; which is to say, doing nothing at all. Debt is only incurred when both people initiated an agreement at the onset of a contract.

Debt to Parents

Children do not owe their parents a single thing. Parents have children completely of their own volition, they usually enjoy the acts that creates the child. The child has their own life thrust upon them, and by the time they are aware of the fact that they had no choice in their creation, they can't do anything about it. Well, they can, but it would likely involve a large amount of pain and cause severe amounts of emotional trauma to those who know them. They are pressured into thinking that they have a gift, even if they don't want it, and that ending that would be a terrible thing to do - some even invoke religion, suggesting that God will send them to eternal punishment if they try to get rid of their 'gift.' I don't think anyone should be expected to repay someone for a gift that was forced upon them since before they were remotely conscious.

Imagine it this way - imagine that Person A are the Parents, and that person B is the child

A, because he wanted to, put a book in your house, unbeknownst to you. When you finally discover the book, you start to read it. The book is, in general, uneventful (kind of monotonous), though some parts in it made you laugh, other parts make you cry out of sadness, and some parts, yet, fill you with rage or disappointment. Person A, then, demands, not only that you keep the book which he wanted to give to you, but also that you pay him back for having given you the book in the first place. Though you enjoyed a few passages from it, or even if you enjoyed all of it, why should you have to pay him for slipping a book, that you didn't ask for, into your house?

Response to Lauren - full post here

Well, as we were saying in class, many of the ideas behind Christianity are indeed heavily related to Greco-Roman and Hebraic histories and cultures. Many of the stories in Christianity can be found be in other religions which predate it. I would recommend that you look into the similarities between the Zoroaster and Jesus. In fact, I would recommend you look up many other son of god - death and resurrection god-men, like Osiris, Dionysus, Attis, Tammuz, and so on. Stories of deities becoming flesh, dying, passing through hell, and being resurrected are a religious commonplace. Which is fine, given that these are often metaphors; often times, however, religious people claim that their religion is unique and more correct than others.

Hidden Openness

In response to Lauren - full post here


I agree, the Westboro Baptist Church is really outlandish. I think it is a terrible thing when a group is so incredibly openly hateful towards everybody. On the other hand, it's also a good thing that they are so openly hateful. Due to the open method they practice most people have grown to understand that the members of the WBC are unreasonable; Few people support the WBC's endeavors; in fact, I wouldn't doubt if it brought more people to the cause for gay-rights.

Sometimes an even worse thing can be hiding your discrimination from the world, while you continue to try to indoctrinate people into thinking that this discrimination is warranted. Imagine if the WBC had an enormous wealth and the ability to lobby the government, because it provides aid to those in need, to prevent gay marriage. The Catholic Church, for instance, decided to try to lobby the government in Washington D.C. When the Catholics found out about the new legislature with potential to allow gay marriage they threatened to discontinue providing services for 68,000 people in need; they threatened to cease providing shelter for the homeless, offering food to the hungry, and helping cure the ill. This is probably largely due to the fact that equality for homosexuals is against the catechism (Part 3, Section 2, Chapter 2, Article 6, lines 2357-2359).

Apples, Oranges, and What You Don't Know

I do not think that you should be disappointed with coming to a new conclusion. It could always make you happier. Imagine that you were communicating through speech but found out that you could convey your exact feelings through telepathy, if you chose. Or what if you were satisfied with eating your favourite food but there was another food that you would like more if you tried it.
It's as though apples were your favourite food (Christianity, your religion) but you would like oranges (Deism) more if you tried them. Keeping your faith far from the class is like actively choosing to avoid oranges. If you try the orange and you don't like it, you can keep eating apples. Or, better still, you could combine the two!!

It could very well be worth giving up your favourite food for something you enjoy even more. You do not, of course, need to change your beliefs of course but it could be very beneficial to do more than say 'oh that's nice for other people, but not for me; I was raised into Christian Orthodoxy."

Trees of Knowledge

In response to Caryn: Full post here
Caryn noted that trees often appear in many stories and they always represent knowledge.

I wonder how much of that comes from the fact that trees have incredible life spans. When you mentioned Legend of Zelda, I instantly became more interested. The Great Deku tree in that games was one of the first living organisms created, and as such, has obtained a vast amount of knowledge. If I remember correctly, the great deku tree was based off of Jomon Sugi, a tree whose age is estimated to be between two and seven thousand years old. Additionally, there are many other tree's that have incredible ages, like the Methuselah tree in California (named after Methuselah from the bible). There is also a clonal colony of Aspens which has been  determined to be part of the same organism. OECD estimates that it's roots are upwards of 75,000 years old. With age comes knowledge, I suppose.

Also, it's pretty strange that religions like Christianity and Zoroastrianism deal out punishment for becoming knowledgeable. From the very beginning, it appears, these religions don't want anybody to know anything.

Teaching Independence - Hold My Hand

What does it mean to teach? What does it mean to learn? When I've learned something, or learned how to do something, it means that independent of other people. I suppose, by that definition, to teach means to guide someone so that they can eventually do something for themselves. To teach is to teach independence. I can imagine then, that the best scenario is that the teacher promotes independence, and the student seeks it. The worst would be that neither promotes or seeks independence. I was reflecting on this earlier this week while observing a teacher whom I would not consider good, trying to teach a student whom I would not consider good. Later I was told that the teacher was teaching well, I disagreed. The teacher was essentially leading a blindfolded child, by the hand, across a street and congratulating him for having succeeded in crossing it. The student, essentially the blindfolded child smiled because he had accomplished something even though he didn't know what he did or how he did it.

This happens often in Christianity, I think; though I don't know much about the frequency of such in other religions, I can imagine it's fairly frequent. They claim the lord has taught them something but then continue to pray for guidance in the same situation, they are convinced that god has helped them/will help them, so they rush blindly into a situation. If the situation works out favorably, they get happy and proud. They need to be lead by the hand and told how to live. After all, without god and government, who will tell us what to do?

To help people understand why children don't owe anything to their parents, I have drafted this scenario/example.


A - is the parents
You - are the child
book - is the 'gift of life'


A, because he wanted to, put a book in your house, unbeknownst to you. When you finally discover the book, you start to read it. The book is, in general, uneventful (kind of monotonous), though some parts in it made you laugh, other parts make you cry out of sadness, and some parts, yet, fill you with rage or disappointment. Person A, then, demands, not only that you keep the book which he wanted to give to you, but also that you pay him back for having given you the book in the first place. Though you enjoyed a few passages from it, or even if you enjoyed all of it, why should you have to pay him for slipping a book, that you didn't ask for, into your house?

Crawling Back to the Cave

In the allegory of the cave people are entertained by shadows on the back wall of a cave. They have to desire to see things that are real on the outside of the cave. When they are told to let loose their chains and to see the real world, they sometimes choose not to, or have a really difficult time in deciding to abandon their unjustified beliefs. It occurred to me that going into the cave is much easier than exiting it, You can spend you entire life enjoying reality and not being mindlessly entertained with fiction or things that are unknowable, some people, however, will find their way back to the cave to die. When faced with death, yearning for more life, or for some great sense of comfort and so on, many people crawl back to their cave and become content with and enjoy the storytelling of the shadows of religion.

Response: 'Abandonment' and Burden Shift

In response to Julia - Full comments here - http://juliamcla4.blogspot.com/2012/01/search-for-self-at-all-costs.html

I suppose I should agree that leaving the family is not selfless, though I think that it isn't selfish either. I promote the idea of equality for men and women. I think that men and women should have equal economic, social, civil, human rights, and so on. Meaning I think that any opportunity a man has, a woman should have to. The difference is, I am mostly concerned with the Human rights as it is the antecedent to all other rights. By definition I think that woman already have all of those rights. They have equal rights to take opportunities and responsibilities. They should be able to leave their families, if they want, but they should also be willing to take up the same responsibilities that they expect from others.

1.) That's irrelevant because a person could die at any moment anyhow. You don't need to be elderly to pass away, and when you do pass away, you leave your family with no more than you would have if became a Sannyasin. Additionally, most of these families have many generations, meaning that, it would probably fall on a variety of people even the males of the next generation.

2.) An elderly person or an ill person, who expects to die soon, should not choose to become a Sannyasin, I think. If they are ill or incredibly old they cannot successfully walk miles and miles and only survive off of bare minimum food intake. They would likely die on the side of the road somewhere. Additionally, the choice to become a Sannyasin is a choice to embark on a spiritual journey - it takes time. There is little point to embarking on a journey which could take a decade, if you only expect to live for ten months. I am uncertain if one could suggest that women are unable to 'abandon' their own 'obligations.' Women do, after all, have the same human rights as men - if they wanted to they could just as easily walk away from their 'obligations' and, in fact, some do. As Avery mentioned; It's not largely men who are ABLE to become Sannyasin, women are perfectly able to, some simply CHOOSE not to. To view this otherwise seems possibly sexist to me - when the women choose to become Sannyasini, they too are 'abandoning' their families, leaving only the man responsible. In any given family, men and women alike all have equal opportunity to become a member of the Sannyasa.

3.) We'll agree that leaving is not selfless; though it does not necessarily have to be selfish either, I think. Regarding the 'abandonment' of a loved one, he is going to die anyhow. Not letting him leave is only putting off the inevitable consequences and probably causing more suffering, given that with death, it is abrupt and you know he is dead, whereas with becoming a Sannyasin he leaves gradually and in good health. Your argument continues to state that women would pick up a heavy burden if the man left, this implies that it is already the man alone who is carrying this heavy burden, bearing the largest obligation in the family. It's also unfair for this to happen, but it seems like women have no particular objection to men taking on the entire burden. It is only when faced with having to do what men already do, actually being equal, that they begin to object and imply that men are somehow selfish in choosing not to continue carrying such a heavy burden

I also figured I should add that Women do indeed have a place in Indian society, they are fairly progressed in that sense. In some ways they are even further along than we are. Indira Gandhi was the second female head of modern government in the world and she also is the second longest serving Prime Minister (15 years). Also, Pratibha Patil is the current President of India and won the election receiving more than 2/3 of the vote (more than twice as many votes as the other candidate. She also took office at the age of 73, older than our oldest elected president.

Response: Leaving Family - Selfish, Selfless, or Something Else

Response to Julia: Go here for full comments - http://juliamcla4.blogspot.com/2012/01/search-for-self-at-all-costs.html#comment-form

I do agree with a good majority of the things that Avery has said. Avery addressed the possibility that leaving, even if it's not necessarily selfless, is not necessarily a bad thing either. I am going to talk about how leaving could actually be selfless, even taking the family into account.

For those who are reading this on just my blog - A Sannyasin is a person who has given up the material world possessions and connections with other people.

1.) There is no discernible legal difference between dying and becoming a Sannyasin. Thus, becoming a Sannyasin, legally dying, would result in all of the Sannyasin's property and wealth going to his family. This essentially eliminates of the problem of the family's dependency on him.

2.) Furthermore, leaving your family, if they are dependent on you, could be viewed as selfless. Such that, leaving a dependent family would force them to gain their own independence, which, mind you, they would have to do regardless - when he actually dies. Though, not only would they have to gain their own independence after the individual's death, they would also be left to mourn over his death, which would be an additional burden which could prevent them from becoming independent in a timely fashion.

3.) The family can also be selfish. As with we saw in the movie, the family had no actual objections other than "but who will care for us" (even though he stated that they would be supported). They didn't say they loved him and didn't want him to go; they only thought of themselves. It could very well be selfless to lead by example and, by leaving and giving up all of his possessions and wealth to them, teach them to be selfless.

4.) As I mentioned before, the individual seeking to become a Sannyasin is going to die eventually. Imagine how the family would feel if, after his death, they realized that it was only them that prevented him from becoming a Sannyasin; only they prevented him from becoming spiritually enlightened. I can imagine they they would experience heavy negative feelings (from guilt to sorrow) about this. It could then be considered selfless to prevent them from having this severe emotional distress.

Also, I would, related to family duty, recommend reading Edith Wharton's "Ethan Frome." All the suffering that Ethan goes through is a result of his acting on the 'familial duty' to support his mother. His choice to give up his own desires creates suffering for not just himself, but everyone he loves and many people whom he does not.
Supplementary - I would also recommend Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" as an example of how feeding your family's dependence on you can, and does, turn them into the selfish, greedy kind of person that nobody likes.

On Selflessness, Selfishness, Self, and Family

I do agree with a good majority of the things that Avery has said. Avery addressed the possibility that leaving, even if it's not necessarily selfless, is not necessarily a bad thing either. I am going to talk about how leaving could actually be selfless, even taking the family into account.

For those who are reading this on just my blog - A Sannyasin is a person who has given up the material world possessions and connections with other people.

1.)  There is no discernible legal difference between dying and becoming a Sannyasin. Thus, becoming a Sannyasin, legally dying, would result in all of the Sannyasin's property and wealth going to his family. This essentially eliminates of the problem of the family's dependency on him.

2.) Furthermore, leaving your family, if they are dependent on you, could be viewed as selfless. Such that, leaving a dependent family would force them to gain their own independence, which, mind you, they would have to do regardless - when he actually dies. Though, not only would they have to gain their own independence after the individual's death, they would also be left to mourn over his death, which would be an additional burden which could prevent them from becoming independent in a timely fashion.

3.) The family can also be selfish. As with we saw in the movie, the family had no actual objections other than "but who will care for us" (even though he stated that they would be supported). They didn't say they loved him and didn't want him to go; they only thought of themselves. It could very well be selfless to lead by example and, by leaving and giving up all of his possessions and wealth to them, teach them to be selfless.

4.) As I mentioned before, the individual seeking to become a Sannyasin is going to die eventually. Imagine how the family would feel if, after his death, they realized that it was only them that prevented him from becoming a Sannyasin; only they prevented him from becoming spiritually enlightened. I can imagine they they would experience heavy negative feelings (from guilt to sorrow) about this. It could then be considered selfless to prevent them from having this severe emotional distress.

Also, I would, related to family duty, recommend reading Edith Wharton's "Ethan Frome." All the suffering that Ethan goes through is a result of his acting on the 'familial duty' to support his mother. His choice to give up his own desires creates suffering for not just himself, but everyone he loves and many people whom he does not.
Supplementary - I would also recommend Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis" as an example of how feeding your family's dependence on you can, and does, turn them into the selfish, greedy kind of person that nobody likes.

Desensitization: Video Games v. Religion

--The availability of video games has led to many youth being desensitized to death.

--Video games glorify death and destruction. By playing these video games, they are becoming desensitized to death.

You can hear arguments like this all of the time. Any time there is any act of violence committed by I teenager, I can almost assure you that you will encounter this opinion somewhere along the line. Now, I had thought about this before, and it was precisely the sort of thing that I eventually wanted to blog about. So, here it is.

In short, there are deeper societal (religious) causes of desensitization which should be considered long before violence in the media. I am not suggesting that violent media makes no contributions;.I just feel that it is important to recognize that video games are not the sole contributors towards desensitization, and I would also argue that it's not even the largest factor. Simply, most people don't confuse Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty with the real world (unless they are desensitized into the army), while a good portion of people do actively think that there is some brand of special deity waiting to hand out an eternal life filled with all the happiness anyone could ever want. Thus, religion is posing a real world view which could desensitize youth and adults alike.

Firstly, nationalism glorifies death when it's for the 'right' cause. Countries, especially the sorts like America, are constantly using the media to suggest that we have to kill all of these people, or we have killed all of these people in the past, because we are 'better than they.' Through-out the public, however, there tends to be very little note of this. It seems like one murder, possibly due to one video game, is more problematic than 'training' people in the army to mercilessly slaughter hundreds of people.

Continuing, religions also contribute a heavy part to the desensitization to death. Most religions tell the followers that this life is somehow followed by another life, either in heaven or through reincarnation and so on. It suggests that the value of this life is very little, which could cause some to conclude that the loss of one life isn't important because they will just be born again or they will be sent straight to heaven. To reference this to our class, in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says the following: "Nor will there be a time when we will cease to exist . . . So too at the time of death [we] attain a new body." He uses this quote to suggest that Arjuna not be afraid to kill every opposing person, because after all, they will have a new life soon. Christianity, too, has it's part. The primary reward for being a christian is to receive another, even better, eternal life in heaven. If someone held the strong opinion that a Christian would go straight to heaven, they wouldn't need to think twice about killing them because they would go to a better place.

S.C.T.M. -- Semi-Condensed Textual Me

Hello, my name is Brandon Gerard Gaudet, or at least that's what people call me as a result of my parents having named me so (anyhow, I'll have another post about this later). I am a freshman at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, abbreviated MCLA, which I like to call Muh-klah. I am majoring in philosophy - and I have found myself among only a few others doing the same. All this information here and information similar to it, such as the location from which I hail and my age, are completely unimportant. I don't know why precisely, however, I apparently felt especially inclined to include what I did while leaving out the rest.


 I am a vegetarian primarily for biological and ethical reasons, though environmental reasons are also important to me (additionally, there are micro and macroeconomic reasons that can contribute towards vegetarianism, though I do not particularly care about those). I am an agnostic or something of that sort, in that I recognize that we cannot 'know' that a deity does not exist with any more certainty than we can 'know' that one does. Practically speaking, I live as though no deity exists but from time to time I enjoy reading various religious text, namely the bible (my favourite part is Leviticus 26:14-46 (alternately Deuteronomy 28:15-68), READ IT!!!). I have an apparently innate pacificism (different from pacifism), which I find pretty cool.


My taste in music is fairly expansive Some of the artists that I listen to are - Ben Folds, The Beatles, Nightwish, Rise Against, Beethoven, Koji Kondo (composer of Legend of Zelda music) and other video game music composers. Wow, this is incredibly convenient. Look at this here; by pure coincidence, the perfect segue. This is a true miracle to behold. I was just type-typing away, and lo, my post happened to mention Legend of Zelda - what an amazing happenstance. I happen to have a minor obsession with The Legend of Zelda. This explains why I chose the names and URLs for my 3 blogs. The URLs are the names of the Golden Goddesses from Zelda, the first letters of various things associated with those goddesses, and philoso-(name of the element (and thereby color) associated with them). The blog titles are the aforementioned associations.


That's me :-) in a semi-condensed textual form.