10/31/11

Today is Halloween, so again I am going to bring up the topic of Christians and their conflict with Halloween. In an article in the Huffington Post, Jesus Likes Halloween a Little Bit, Doesn't He? This article goes on to talk about how Halloween is like the Devil's birthday according to some Christians. The article also talks about how there are many Christians who are big fans of shows like the Walking Dead or Zombie like books. To me this all seems a little rediculous if Christian parents don't like or let their kids participate in Halloween, or maybe they just disagree with it but let their kids participate anyways. But not letting you kid participate in a national American holiday to dress up, have fun and get candy is mean. But they may have a point or a reasonable point to not liking Halloween, I just haven't seen it yet.

10/26/11

An article on the website Christian Telegraph called Study: Gas can Change Sexual Orientation, was talking about a study they did with 61 people and over seven years 23% of them reported that they changed sexual orientation. "The longitudinal study followed 61 subjects for between six and seven years and found that 23 percent of them reported successful conversion to heterosexual orientation and function and another 30 percent reported stable behavioral chastity with a significant dis-identification with gay orientation. Twenty percent of the subjects had given up and embraced a gay identity." This quote talks about in details the results of the study. I find this absolute ridiculous that this is news and people did studies on this. Maybe the people were faking just to give the researches what they wanted, but that this is proven and consider a real study is unbelievable. This is a shocking news article and yes it was found in a Christian website. So it seems they are trying to plant ideas in peoples mind that isn't true or proven in any other sort of way. It is interesting the things and news items you find on Christian websites.

10/25/11

I found an article about sex ed in New York City's public schools. Although this isn't specifically about Christians, it can relate. This article, Mandatory Sex Ed Details May Be Too Racy for Parents, talked about the sex ed that was going to be taught in the middle school. Parents were concerned because they thought it was too much. Parents were told about the program, 'When given details of the new programs, one Manhattan mom -- who has a child in middle-school -- was surprised."I didn't know how much detail they would get," she said.' I think it is good that they have lots of detail in sex ed. I know a belief in some Christians is that teaching about abstinence is the best way for teens to not have sex, but it is shown that abstinence is actually very ineffective and often there are more teens having unsafe sex and ending up in bad situations such as pregnant or with an STI. At my high school we had a free health center that had free pretty much anything you can think of related to sex or physical or mental health.  Free condoms, free birth control, free morning after pills, free HIV testing. My school is 3,400 and in my four years I have only seen 2 pregnancy people at our school. I think it is a much better idea to teach everything you can about sex so teen are more prepared and understand what is going on. It is proven to work.

10/24/11

I found an article that talked about occupy Wall Street and they talked about it in a new way I haven't thought of or seen before. They brought Jesus into occupy Wall Street. The title of the article was Would Jesus Side with the Wall Street Protesters? That is a good question for Christians to ask. The article talked about how Jesus would side with the Wall Street protesters because it was helping the poor. I think that what is happening on Wall Street should have happened along time ago and I'm glad people are finally realizing what our government and big corporations are doing to us. I cannot see Jesus siding with them because they are doing corrupt and wrong things. They are stealing money and hurting a lot of people. Although I am not Christian I think that Jesus would be siding with the Wall Street protesters because Christians help people who are in trouble or need of help. "Now, Rev. Wallis has spoken out about the Occupy Wall Street protesters, saying that they are siding with Jesus on behalf of the poor." Is a quote from the article talking about Jesus wanting to help the poor.

10/19/11

Today in class we watched the movie Jesus Camp. I thought it was interesting and also a bit disturbing. They seemed really intense and a bit too much for me. I think it is okay to be religious but it is a bit extreme when it is like how the movie portrayed it. I was sitting next to my friend in class and after class she said she was really angry about how they portrayed Christians. She was saying that all Christians aren't like that and that this movie portrayed them badly. Like they were pushing and crazy. Seeing this movie was shocking to me because it is so crazy in my mind that people are so strongly against evolution and won't let their kids read stuff like Harry Potter because wizards are the devils work. I know it is religion and people strongly believe in it, but it is just so crazy to me. It seems unreal that these people are pushing these idea's on their children and the children seem to be the strongest believers. To me this was all very sad, but that is how some other people are.

10/18/11

There is dispute about a huge cross in San Diego that was put up in 1954 to honor veterans of the Korean War. Some people want the cross removed because it is unconstitutional, while others want it to stay because it is part of the community and has been there already for so long. It is a religious symbol and it is on public land. I agree that it shouldn't really be there. We are the United States and have separation of church and state. I think that it is important to keep that. I think that some church or some religious group could buy it and put it up somewhere else that isn't public land. This article was in the news of CBN. There was also a new report and people were interviewed. They showed people on the side of wanting to keep it there, but they didn't represent the other side. I think that is upsetting, I would like to hear what both sides have to say about this issue.

10/17/11

I read an article in the Hufffington Post about Christians and Halloween. It brought up the fact that some parents didn't like the idea of their children dressing up as the devil and such. "It's a question that comes up every year for Christians who get 'spooked' by the idea of their children dressing up as devils, downing candy and visiting haunted houses with witches, axe-murderers and spirits flying through the sky." I never really have thought of this before, Christians not liking the idea of Halloween. I feel that it shouldn't really be a big deal, it is a day for children to have fun. There shouldn't really be question of deeper meaning behind it. I hope not too many of children's parents are making a big deal of it and are just letting the kids enjoy the holiday.

10/12/11

I found an article online, Small Church Asks Supreme Court a Bit Question: Can Churches Worship in Public Schools? And my initial reaction to just reading the headline is no way. The United States is built off separation of church and state. What would make you think that you could worship in public schools. Where have you been since America adopted this law. And why now all of a sudden want to try to worship in public schools. Then I started reading the article and it talks about worship services being held in public schools not so much with the students. They give the schools a small sum of money to have these services there. The issue here was that New York's rent is so high it is hard for churches to gather the money to get a house of worship. "Schools should be open to any religion," Hall told CP. "If you're going to rent out a school, don't single out a religion," is a quote from the article. If that is the case where any and everyone was renting out schools for services that would be okay in my mind. As long as they didn't keep things of their religion permanently in the school, they were just there for the cermemoy. As long as it wasn't during school hours and people who didn't want to be there from the school didn't have to be. As long as this was totally separate from the actual school and they were just using the school as a building, I think it would be okay. As long as it wasn't biased to any religion.

10/11/11

In Egypt there was protesting. There ended up being deaths. I'm not quite sure why they were protesting in Egypt but it was Christian protesters. The article talks about Islamic groups throwing rocks and beating protesters. I guess there seems to be conflict between Islamic groups and Christian groups in Egypt right now. It is so sad to see religious groups fighting. I feel like in each of these religions peace and doing good for others is a big thing. But when it comes to others beliefs they hate on the other and it turns into a battle. Religions should just not be concerned with other religions. People in one religious group should just stick to their beliefs and not worry about other people. In this world people have many different beliefs and thoughts. Not everyone is going to think in the same way as you and you can't expect them to. Respect others for their beliefs and if you don't agree with them then leave them alone. Don't fight over it.

10/10/11

Professor Valeta showed us this article in the beginning of class so I decided to write in my blog about it. It is interesting how the article talks about women actually being important and being needed in roles in the church. But there are so many places in the Bible where women are considered unimportant and are looked down upon. I think that there are more bad roles for women then good. We live in a Patriarchal society and of course men are always looked upon as more important, better or smarter then women will ever be. This article didn't really give too many really good examples. The article states, "Yet while Luke and Acts call attention to these significant women, they do not fulfill roles of authorized leadership in the movement" I agree with that. They talk about the women but they are not doing much of anything significant.

10/5/11

I found an article in the Christian Post about the National Cathedral. There was an earthquake and the cathedral was damaged and closed. To repair the National Cathedral it cost around $25 million dollars. From the picture of the cathedral in the article, it is beautiful, I think the cost of repair is ridiculous. It is a shame how money is used around here. $25 million dollars are going to repair a cathedral, and yes it is the National Cathedral, still all that money could be going to some helping cause. The earthquake sounded scary. "Three of the four spires of the gothic cathedral’s central tower were damaged in the quake’s wrath. In addition to the spires, there were major cracks in the building’s structure and the intricate stonework was shaken loose. Small pieces of mortar fell from the 100-foot high ceiling, as a result of the earthquake." This quote tells us the damages done. I hope no one was in the cathedral when this happened. It took a many decades to finish this cathedral in the first place and I hope they finish it with as little cost as they can.

10/4/11

For the homework we had to read a bunch of sections from the New Testament. I feel like a lot of the New Testament is very contradicting and when I was reading it things seemed weird. A lot of things in the Bible seem so unreal. It was one of my first times reading the New Testament so I was confused by it. I can't wait to learn more about Christianity and all that the religion includes. Christianity is a branch of Judaism, but why do people who are Christian have so much hate and anger against Judaism and other religions? In the readings we did the Bible refers to the very first Christan's as Jews because that is what they were at first. Do Christan's deny that or how do they respond to the fact? Christianity is all very new to me.

10/3/11

Today was the test. It felt pretty good, but you never know. When you feel like you did great, sometimes you bomb it. But I really enjoyed the essay questions. I felt like I knew them well and had a lot to say about them. I especially like the topic about the political situation in Israel. Because I just went to Israel in the spring, I had a lot to say about the topic and hopefully explained myself well. This is a huge topic and the conflict has been going on for so long. Now the Judaism unit is over I will not be lucky enough to have first hand knowledge about the religion. I think that these three religions have such a big background and I wish we covered the over lap of them more. I know that Jerusalem is a huge place of conflict. When in Israel I found it very interesting that Jerusalem was an important place to all three religions. One religion said this event happened in a certain location in Jerusalem while another said a different event happened in that same location.  I think it the overlap is all very fascinating and I wish we went into that more in class.