In response to Jenny Beers' question, " Have you, or someone you know gone through an experience that has changed their religious views? This can be that they found religion or strayed away from it. Why do you think they decided to that?"

For me, I never had one experience that changed my religious views but rather a string of events that brought me to a conclusion about my beliefs. As a child, my mother brought me up Protestant. From the age of 2 to 15, I went to church every Sunday, participated in Sunday school, and became indoctrinated into the church. However, by the time I reached high school, I no longer believed in God. For the 13 years I attended Church, I never felt close to God. I was never convinced by the pastor's sermons, the Sunday school teachers' lessons, or even the passages from the Bible. In many ways, I felt isolated from the other church members. I remember thinking to myself that I could possibly be an atheist. Everything I learned in science, history, and even English classes pointed me in that direction. I guess in many respects, I was never a true Christian to begin with. Yet, I do think that if events in my life had gone differently, I may still be a member of the Protestant church.

Q: Why are the number of atheists on the rise. What does this say about the state of the world?

A Response to Rev. Jonathon Weyer's article "A Christian Stands Alone at the Creation Museum"

At the ending of reading Rev. Jonathon Weyer's article, I was a little disappointment over how the Rev. summed up his experience at the Creation Museum. In the beginning, I was surprised and actually glad when the Rev. dismissed the museum and spoke of how as a Christian who believed in evolution, he was stuck by how much of the museum was built to attack the faithful who also had scientific leanings, not atheists. This perfectly illustrated the discussion we had on class Friday, when it was illustrated how some theists and atheists are "closed minded". This Rev., although a Christian, realized that this museum was not even scientific, and he also realized that the museum was only for very conservative Christians, not all Christians. In a way, it is funny to see the divided even in Christianity. The idea that atheists cannot even agree with one another lends not a lot of hope to the atheist v. theist debate.

What mad me upset about the end of the article was how the Rev, prayed to God after he realized he was acting to pompous towards both Christians and atheists. He writes, "My issue had become that my pride had taken over against both Christians and atheists. I had become perfectly treacherous to two groups of people and had grown to love the feeling. This had been the real part of my reluctance to attend the Creation Museum. I had been afraid that I would have to pick a side and lose my superior status". Now I do not mind that he recognized his shortcomings. I just was taken back when he said he was looking down at other atheists. By this part, the Rev. had changed from an open-minded theist back to just a theist. I think he was right in the beginning to shoot down the museum. I also think he should not have to forgive himself for believing in what he believes. If being "open-minded" makes him a bad Christian, it is better then being strictly Christian.

Q: Should creationism be taught alongside evolution in schools?

Here's the ariticle if anyone needs to reference it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jonathan-weyer/alone-at-the-creation-mus_b_840540.html

In response to Jenny's question: Are there certain pieces of music that can make you happier?

To answer this question simply, yes there are pieces of music that can make you happier. As for me, some songs that always put me in a good mood are "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles, "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey and "Always Be My Baby" by Mariah Carey. I guess it would depend on the individual as to what songs make them happy. Sometimes the songs that make you the happiest are connected with pleasant memories that are triggered every time you hear the song. Other times, the song itself is just extremely upbeat and fun to sing along to. I find that most Disney songs are like that. From my experience, most people appear happier after hearing a Disney song, especially if its a classic or its really well known. Its sort of hard to be in a bad mood after listening to "A Spoonful of Sugar" or "Be Our Guest" (excluding those times which I like to call "Its A Small World" incident when one is forced to listen to the same song over and over again against their will, often during long car rides with children under the age of 5). Songs like these are especially created to make the listener smile. So, while there are a lot of songs that are sad in nature, there are also ones that are seemingly happy.

Q: What is it about Disney songs that makes them timeless and enduring, especially in a culture where everybody is searching for the next best thing? Why do Disney songs stand the test of time?

Natural Disaster in Japan

After discussing altruism in class along with the controversial topic of charity, I found it ironic, as well as heartbreaking, that on Friday Japan experienced a horrific natural disaster. The irony in this incident is that almost immediately I saw relief efforts asking citizens to donate money to help the people of Japan. Now, I am not a cold hearted individual, and I know Japan is in dire straits; the images that have been shown on the news far exceeded those of Hurricane Katrina. Yet somehow I remain weary of handing over my money to people supposedly helping out the people of Japan. The discussion in class about charity fraud made me hyper aware of the simplicity of cheating others out of their money by posing as a charity. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, reports of charity abuse started to circulate, especially connected with the big name events held to raise money for relief. Apparently, the majority of the funds never actually reached those who were in need. That's why I am so hesitant to give my money over to some random source. I would rather take action and actually try to personally help the people, which poses a major problem in the case of the Japan disaster because I cannot go to Japan and help. So the question is:

Is it better to give money to a charity that could potentially be fraudulent or do nothing at all?

In response to Katie's question, "How has art affected you?"

Art is such an instrumental part of my life. On a daily basis, my emotions and state of mind are impacted by different forms of art, especially music. For me, music is the most influential art form in the world.

There are certain songs that I listen to that instantly make me feel a certain way. For instance, every time I listen to Canon in D Major by Pachabel or Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley I instantly start crying. The way the song is sung, in the case of Hallelujah, or how the music conveys an emotion, like with Canon, invokes a certain feeling within the listener that is overwhelmingly powerful and pure.

Music can also solidify memories and take one back to a certain place and time. When I was little, every Sunday morning, I would wake up to the smell of blueberry pancakes cooking in the kitchen and the voice of James Taylor playing on the record machine (yes as I child my parents had a record player). Still to this day, whenever I hear James Taylor, which happens to be a lot now that I live in the Bershires, I can instantly smell blueberry pancakes, and I get this feeling of nostalgia.

However, the greatest thing about music, in my opinion, is it can bring people together. Often, it becomes the voice of a generation. Songs like Imagine or Respect transcend time, and thus come to stand for so much more than just songs. They are calls for peace, for love, for action, for understanding and in some cases for help and compassion. In many respects, they come to take on a life of their own, because their message is immortal.

Q: Why does music generate or invoke certain emotions in the listener?

In response to Julia Ashton's question, "Do you believe everyone has a "soulmate"?"...

From what I have seen of love and from what I know to be true of love, I have a hard time believing in the idea of "soulmates". For me, the idea of soulmates invokes this fantastical notiom of love only found in romance novels and movie, and believe it or not, real life is rarely reflected in these sorts of media. This may be the reason why people, mostly women, love these kinds of romatic tales. They portray this alternate reality where everyone has a soulmate and love is eternal.

So as mentioned above, the idea of soulmates, in my opinion, is ludicrious. That does not mean however that I do not believe in love or the concept of strong lasting relationships. I just do not think that two people can be destined for one another. Two people can certainly be compatable and live their lives together, but that is not to say that there could be other people who could do the same. I believe with enough time and compassion, any two people can grow to love one another; love is not fated.

Q: Is is possible to love someone but to not be in love with them?

Sam Harris and "The Science of Good and Evil"

Written in October 2010, Sam Harris's essay, "The Science of Good and Evil" tries to reconcile the notion that science cannot be used to prove morals. As a renown athesist, Harris believes that science, not religion, has in it the ability to empirically prove the "good" or "evil" of certain actions. He writes that, 

Scientists generally believe that answers to questions of human value will fall perpetually beyond our reach—not because human subjectivity is too difficult to study, or the brain too complex, but because there is no intellectual justification for speaking about right and wrong, or good and evil, in universal terms. (Harris)

Harris, in order to counter this belief, brigns together the concepts of  morality and well-being. He says that morality is just another way to say well-being. For instance, if an action increases the well-being of a large group of people, that action must be morally good and vice-versa. he then goes to add that each moral question may have a variety of answers, some more or less equivalent. In this way, Harris is not saying that science will find the one true answer of morality but more that science can be used to find answers to moral questions.

Q: Do you think moral questions can be answered through science?

Here's a link to Harris' article, in case anyone wants to read it: http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-science-of-good-and-evil/