Excellent Article out of the web-o-sphere

An interesting article looking at the relationship between college students declared majors and their religious tendencies.

You can read it here.

Upsetting...Christian Kidnap

This is really odd. No one said, "Hey, this might look like kidnapping?!"

Also, Tomorrow, meet at the bottom of Baker to go to the Hannah House to eat dinner with the homeless. 5:30. Be there. Yo.

Spring Quarter

Hello!

So, I will be getting back on here with firm things of firmness, such as dates and times and names, etc., but not until Saturday, when we're meeting to decide just what those firm things are.

Things in the works include:

A week devoted to exploring issues surrounding intelligent design, possibly getting a speaker and a panel for a forum together, with a movie that highlights the theme of intelligent design.

A week devoted to examining poverty. This includes a movie focusing on poverty, a panel-led discussion on religious outlooks on Appalachian poverty, and a group of us volunteering at the Hannah House, Athens' homeless transition home, to make dinner on a Friday.

This is what I have! Movie nights will continue, as will Passport events. More to come in the following weeks!

I'm so sorry, I had to. Camels.

Pope Uses Google as Scapegoat

This story is...amazing. I can just see all of the Pope's PR people sitting around a giant wooden table going, "Well, damn. The Pope lifted the excommunication on a Nazi-crazed Holocaust-denier. That doesn't look too good. It's bad. Very bad. How can we fix it? Who can we blame!?"

The little dude in the back who never speaks: "Google!"

Vatican encourages excommunication

This is a really upsetting story about how the Vatican is encouraging and supporting the excommunication of a 9 year-old, her mother, and her doctors, after the little girl received an abortion after being raped. The little girl was pregnant with twins. First of all, how do 9 year-olds get pregnant? Second, there's a loud four letter word I would like to say, but will refrain from, at the Vatican's inability to accept gray areas. Thanks to Em for the article.

Water Buffalo

Because I just couldn't avoid it. I swear I will put up things with substance soon. :D

Bologna

This is so horrendously disgusting, I have to share it with all of you.

Possible ingredients in bologna:

• chicken feet
• tripe (cow stomach lining)
• sweetbreads (cow pancreas)
• frog's still-beating heart
• snake blood
• cow's lung
• turkey and chicken butts
• cabeza (cow's head with eyes)
• rabbit kidneys
• menudo (cow stomach lining soup)
• kangaroo organs
• rat and duck embryos
• cow lips
• chicken necks
• offal (mixed internal organs such as heart, liver, or intestines)
• haslet (pig offal meatloaf)
• haggis (a cow stomach filled with its offal)

MESSAGE: NEVER EAT BOLOGNA.

Whoa. I love lickle organisms.

District ban employees joining student-led prayer

I don't quite understand how this can happen. How is it possibly legitimate to ban prayer? I understand disallowing an employee to force students to pray, but to ban it for the employee entirely? Just because it makes people uncomfortable? I don't know. I wouldn't do it for Judaism, or Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, or Druidism; so why for Christianity? It's upsetting.

I've heard a lot of stories about people getting unnecessarily accosted by some of the campus crusade people on campus. I understand why that it isn't right, why it's uncomfortable, and why you would like to see more restrictions on what they're allowed to do. However, I think it is a basic right of any faithful person to be able to pray - does this right need to be curtailed in the public sphere? This is something I simply am not equipped to answer at the moment. What do you think?

Vatican can be sued for abuse

The Vatican is considered a sovereign nation, which has pretty much made it immune to judicial review in the past. This is an interesting caveat to a long and bitter story. Thanks, once again, to Emily, for providing me with the things I am far too sleepy to procure myself in the morning. :)

Events, Role of Religion in the Military

Hello!

So, this week, we're going to be having a nice, sit-down-type chat with our fellow Islamic students and community members to discuss their lives in relation to their faith. It's going to be somewhat informal, circle-style, where we will start off by asking some really broad questions about how they feel their faith is expressed and challenged in their day-to-day lives, and then we'll open it up to free discussion. This is a really good chance to see from the eyes of someone who has a unique and interesting perspective on life that you may not have thought about before. It is being held on Wednesday, March 4th (this Wednesday) from 7-9 PM in Bentley 129. I'll be moderating, so, I mean, technically you could just come to see my lovely face. But really, you'll get so much more out of it, that I'm just like, candy. On the side. Which actually, there will be. Because every good discussion is fueled by food. Nom.

(P.S. To everyone who takes this blog uber-seriously. Iz okay. I was like that once too. Then I found lolcats.)

Also! Ya scurvy pups. Leesten oop. My dearest friend Emily gave me this nifty article from the New York Times that you should take a look at. It's all about the role of religion in the armed forces - an age-old debate, and something that is most definitely a difficult dialogue. Check it out, me laddehs. Oh, and is it just me, or does that man look rully, rully angry? Whew.

Secular Bible Study

This is really interesting - an article about a Methodist church joining forces with an Atheist group to promote a bible study. Here's the link to the article.

Extremism or Free-Speech?

This is an article on CNN today. Interesting question - what shoul take precedence in this situation? Should he be allowed to show his anti-Islam movie, or should free-speech be forsaken for a desire to curb extremist, violent, or racist thoughts? Then again, who defines "extremist," "violent" or "racist?"

"Back off, man. I'm a scientist."

Everyone should realize - this is true life. Just, please, don't trouble yourselves by questioning science. No, really. Your brains cannot handle it. *photonprotonphotonproton*

The Ruler of the Land

I think two things hold imminent power in this world - love, and fear. I was just reading this passage from a book on the funding of research in science (don't we all have some misgivings where this is concerned), which started with this quote from 1 Timothy 6:10,

"For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some have coveted after they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

And the passage went on to say that the love of money leads to the loss of values that sort of run through us inherently. As in, the love of money makes us less human. I see this as a dualistic relationship of money and fear, however, embodied in both our love of money, indeed, but also in our fear of losing it, coupled with our fear of life without it. People often talk about, "What is the opposite of love?" I believe the opposite of love is fear, just like the opposite of war isn't necessarily peace, but creation (Rent, anyone? :) Just some thoughts for the day.

Modernity and Islam in Postcolonial West Africa

Check out this Event tomorrow night! Modernity and Islam in Postcolonial West Africa Times: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM Feb 24, 2009

The Global Awareness Program presents the second event in the Winter 2009 series "The Many Faces of Islam". The topic: Modernity and Islam in Postcolonial West Africa. Speaker: Dr. Ousman Kobo, Assistant Professor of History, Ohio State University. This lecture will focus on West African Muslims' aspirations for Islamic customs and practices that conformed to modern notions of human progress. Our discussion will demonstrate the diversity of Muslim religious and cultural landscape throughout West Africa. Campus: Athens Location: CSC 121B(Across from Bentley)

Events!!

Hello!

So, this week.

Tomorrow night, Tuesday, from 7-9, in Bentley 110 we'll be watching "A Price Above Rubies." The movie is about an orthodox Jewish woman.

Friday, from 1-2, we'll be visiting the Muslim Student Association, which is behind Gam Hall on east green. There will be a question and answer session afterward. Come! You'll see something or learn something you didn't know before!

And the conversation goes...somewhere?

Nancy Pelosi will be meeting with her hometown's archbishop to discuss abortion later this week. Now, this blog is for a group called Difficult Dialogues. And these dialogues are "difficult" for a reason. There is so much riding on both of these people to respond one way to the other, however, that I just don't know if I see the discussion going somewhere. Number one rule of all discussion - make the atmosphere welcoming and comfortable and un-pressured. Oh wait, number one rule OF ALL COMMUNICATION. Sorry. That's Habermas sneaking out again. Anywho, here's the article if y'all be interested.

Anti-Semitism on the Rise in Europe

An interesting report. If you're still interested, you might want to look up the similar video about the Bishop who was recently denounced, then reinstated, then denounced and once again excommunicated as a result of "denying the Holocaust."

"Meet the Christians Among Us"

Forum this Wednesday, the 18th!

From 7-9 in Bentley 132. Be there, or I will fry your eggs. Especially the existentialist ones. :D

Jurgen Habermas, Towards a Rational Society

I absolutely love Jurgen Habermas, a German philosopher-socialist upstart, especially for the things he has to say about technological influences on a communication-based and oriented society. I am fascinated by the role science plays in society, and frustrated with how little skill the institution of science has in communicating with the public. This quote from Aldous Huxley, featured in some Habermas I was reading, from his treatise, "Literature and Science" was so beautiful and succinct I had to write it down somewhere.

"The world in which literature deals is the world in which human beings are born and live and finally die; the world in which they love and hate, in which they experience triumph and humiliation, hope and despair; the world of sufferings and enjoyments, of madness and common sense, of silliness, cunning and wisdom; the world of social pressures and individual impulses, of reason against passion, of instincts and conventions, of shared language and unsharable feelings and sensations...

...As a professional chemist, say, a professional physicist or physiologist, the scientist is the inhabitant of a radically different universe - not the universe of given appearances, but the world of inferred fine structures, not the experienced world of unique events and diverse qualities, but the world of quantified regularities."

A little bit further on:

"Knowledge is power and, by seeming paradox, it is through knowledge of what happens in this inexperienced world of abstractions and inferences that scientists have acquired their enormous and growing power to control, direct, and modify the world of manifold appearances in which human beings are privileged and condemned to live."

An Interesting Look at Religiosity from the Gallup Polls

Thought this might spark some of you who are curious about religiosity in the U.S.

Some Good News for Iranian Women

This article was in the New York Times this morning. Some hopeful prospects for Iranian women who are standing up for their rights. Thanks to my friend Emily for recommending the article.

Singing Darwin

The reason for the season. I found it. *hehe* Happy Birthday Darwin!!

Beckoning for Bibliophiles

Also, on a slightly more positive and definitely cooler note, this was also in the New York Times today. I think it prompts the interesting question, what do books represent to us? To people? To the institution of knowledge? To a tradition, especially one of faith?

What, exactly does $789 billion look like?

And that is the question of the day. You can read the New York Times' writeup on the proposed stimulus bill that's going up in the capitol today, here. The bill proposes a stimulus of $789 billion to pull the country out of its slump. Let's put that number into a little perspective.

This is 1,000 pennies.

This is 1,000,000 pennies. The box is roughly the size of a full-grown man, about 6'2".

This is how roughly 1,000,000,000 pennies would look compared to an average human:



And this is how roughly 100,000,000,000 pennies would look:


Now, multiply that football field by roughly seven and three quarters, and that's the amount of money we're looking at. It isn't real, of course, but it's no less insane. Wow.

Where is Matt?

Some of you might have seen this before, but I found it again today, and I fell in love with it again. Watch it in High Quality. :)

"Praise Darwin" Billboards

I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, they are certainly free to do this, just like the fundamentalist group is free to put up billboards about the ten commandments, but it all just seems ridiculously inflamatory to me. This billboard says a couple of things, but most notably it is an attack of someone for their beliefs on the grounds that those beliefs are insubstantial, not "proven" by science. I have a huge problem with that. Who is to say that a person of faith didn't sincerely evaluate why they believe what they do, that he or she didn't go through incredible personal stress and turmoil to reach a conclusion on their purpose? And then again, who has the power to dictate what is a "good legitimation?" Why isn't personal-seeking credible enough? I'm upset at the finger pointing, and I don't understand the desire to incite anger. But that's just me. What do you think?

How Many Countries Can You Name in Five Minutes?

This was a little bit of a depressing moment for me, when I realized just how little I can recall about the world when put on the spot.

Go Here.

Next Week's Events

So, next week, two things.

First off, there is going to be a "Meet the Christians Among Us" forum next Wednesday, from 7-9 PM, in Bentley 132. The first hour of the forum will be devoted to having our panel of local Christians explain who they are and why they believe what they believe, answering questions such as how they feel their faith is manifested in their day-to-day lives, etc. The second hour will hopefully be devoted to student questions. If you have something you'd like to ask, please feel free to come and speak. This is meant to be an open and inviting atmosphere where discussion can take place, but we are trying to avoid criticism, so please, ask tough questions, but do it with thought for a dialogue, not a debate. There are five panelists - three students, a bishop, and a professor.

Secondly, on Sunday of next week, in conjunction with the "Meet the Christians" forum, we will be hosting a group of students who might be interested in a attending a Christian worship service to go to Christ Lutheran Church in Athens. We'll be meeting at the top of Morton hill around 10:30 AM to walk over, and the service starts at 11:00. It's a student-led service with a brunch and question-answering session (for us) to follow. Please come! It's a new experience, and you might find something interesting in it you didn't expect.

That's it for next week! Hope to see you all there!

I love the whole world

I just kind of love the Discovery Channel, and this video. And technically it features Tibetan monks at one point!

Ted Haggard

I'm going to remain neutral on this and simply ask what you-all think. I just caught this interview from my pastor's blog, and thought I'd share it here.

Dates!

We may be few, but we are strong! Hehe. I'm just trying to keep it all together. Here's the most recent slew of dates from Difficult Dialogues:

February 18th, "Meet the Christians Among Us"
February 20th, Passport, Muslim Student Association
February 22nd, Passport, Christ Lutheran Church
February 25th, "Meet the Muslims Among Us"
February 27, Passport, Muslim Student Association
March 4th, "Meet the Jews Among Us"
March 6th, Passport, Hillel Service

If you'd like more information on any of these, just ask!! Or, pray to the Almighty Hamster. And then dance to this.

Diwali

I found this on accident. Diwali is a huge holiday for Hinduism, Janism, Sikhism, and Buddhism. It is the "Festival of Lights."

Here's a little blurb from Wiki:

"In Hinduism, across many parts of India and Nepal, it is the homecoming of Lord Ram of Ayodhya, after a 14-year exile in the forest and his victory over the evil demon-king Ravana.^[6]

In the legend, the people of Ayodhya (the capital of his kingdom) welcomed Ram by lighting rows (avali) of lamps (deepa), thus its name: Deepavali. Over time, this word transformed into Diwali in Hindi and Dipawali in Nepali, but still retained its original form in South and East Indian Languages.

In Jainism, Diwali marks the attainment of nirvana by Lord Mahavira on 15 October, 527 BC.

Diwali has been significant in Sikhism since the illumination of the town of AmritsarJahangir. After freeing the other prisoners, he went to the Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) in the holy city of Amritsar, where he was welcomed happily by the people who lit candles and divas to greet the Guru, but tragically this caused the holy city to burn down. Because of this, Sikhs often refer to Diwali also as Bandi Chhorh Divas - "the day of release of detainees." commemorating the return of Guru Har Gobind Ji (1595-1644), the sixth Guru of Sikhism, who was imprisoned along with 53 other Hindu Kings at Fort Gwalior by Emperor

The festival is also celebrated by Buddhists in Nepal, a majority-Hindu country, particularly the Newar Buddhists.

In India and Nepal, Diwali is now considered to be a national festival, and the aesthetic aspect of the festival is enjoyed by most Indians and Nepalese regardless of faith.^[7]"

^{Here's the video:}