So What?

I know that today's class was a little bit frustrating so I wanted to take a moment to explain a bit more about "so what?" The idea that I was trying to drive home today is that I wanted to push you to keep asking that question until you really can't anymore, until you have pushed that question as far as it will go about whatever idea you are exploring. As you are thinking about your own essays and the ideas that they contain, trying asking "so what?" incessantly as a prewriting and planning technique; then work to include the relevant answers to that question in your essay. This will both help you with development and with sorting through your ideas. Thanks for sticking with it today.

Wall-E

Jon was having problems posting, so here is his comment:

In the 935 class we talked about choosing a social issue and how it relates to its environment in the context of a film as the basis of our next paper. Professor Berry told us to practice this on Wall-e and the conclusion i came to was: That Wall-e is a film in which the writer (i don't know his name) speaks about the social issue of obesity, especially through the lens of dialogue. That is probably what my rough thesis statement would be... i am wondering what other people thought when put to the same task.

On a completely separate note did anyone watch this movie and just flashback to their childhood. I turned off all the lights in my dorm and watched with a bag of mini doughnuts and just totally freaked out. It's funny because i loved it when i first saw it and i still really like it but i saw some flaws in the plot line. anyway this has been the best homework of the year so far.

Fahrenheit 451

Today in the 11:10 class I mentioned this play based on a wonderful Ray Bradbury novel by the same name about a society that has outlawed books and in which firemen start fires in places known to contain books rather than work to put fires out. I have not seen this play, but I have seen other productions at this theater and they have been very, very good.

 Here is the information from the Roundhouse Theater's website, especially notice the $10 and $15 tickets for under 30s:

“Round House Theatre has a well-deserved reputation both for being innovative and masters of their craft. On both counts, they have outdone themselves with Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.” -Gazette “The magic in live theater comes from all the elements — writing, directing, acting, sound, set, light and costume design - coming together like a well-rehearsed orchestra and chorus that send chills up your spine…Led by the brilliant conception of guest director Sharon Ott, and flawlessly executed courtesy of the technical staff from the Savannah College of Art and Design, Round House has taken all this and added a variety of 21st century multimedia technology in a way that brings out the full impact of Bradbury’s prescient writing…The media enhances and illuminates Bradbury’s script such that it is difficult to imagine the play without it.” – Gazette

“Jefferson A. Russell delivers a spellbinding performance and has the audience hanging on his every word - compliments of Bradbury’s skillful playwriting…There really are no ‘stars’ in this production. All the various production elements blend seamlessly together with the acting and carry us through the evening, challenging us to feel and think and come alive. The actors are but one piece of the sublimely crafted whole…Jean Harrison, as an elderly woman completely devoted to her library, tugs at our heartstrings…John Lescault as Clarisse’s grandfather, the elderly and cowardly scholar, is delightful and heart-wrenching in the same moment…The heart and soul of the show is overseen by Aurora Heimbach in the role of Clarisse and David Bonham as Morgan, the fireman turned scholar and lover of learning. They play their parts as close to perfection as one can get.” –Gazette “Somewhere during the evening, I heard someone say that whereas Bradbury’s voice in the 1950s was a canary in the coal mine, it is now an alarm bell ringing loudly. Fahrenheit 451is stunning in all its aspects, but it is also deeply disturbing. And perhaps we need to be disturbed sometime around now.” –Gazette Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury, based on his novel Directed by Sharon Ott Final 2 weeks - thru October 9 Round House Theatre Bethesda ,4545 East-West Highway Metro: Bethesda (1 block) Good seats available! Tickets: click or call 240.644.1100 $10 & $15 tix for age 30 & under ($10 Wed. - Fri., $15 Sat. & Sun.)- call 240.644.1100 Discounts for groups of 10+ - call 240.644.1387 or email. Recommended for age 13 & up Sponsored in part through generous support from Michael Beriss & Jean Carlson and The Dupler Family Sharon Ott is the 2011/12 Season Melissa Blake Rowny Visiting ArtistBanner photo of Jefferson A. Russell by Danisha Crosby

2001:

Space – 2001 incorporates all different kinds of vast, huge spaces in the film as if paralleling just how huge the topic of the universe and the relationship between human and technology is.

The Shot – 2001 incorporates many shots, some up close, some from farther away. It zooms in on the scene from all different angles usually to provide the audience with a certain way of viewing the situation such as when the apes are shown, it comes from an angle high above so we are looking down on the chimps as we are superior to them but when we see the planets in space they are so huge and close up showing how we the audience are so minor in comparison.

Slow Motion – 2001 has many slow motion scenes, mostly when they are in space. These scenes are used to emphasize how powerful the idea of man in space is.

Tone/coloring: No colors were too bright in 2001, rather they were all pretty dull adding a level of seriousness to the movie.

Focus: There were times in 2001 when we would just be staring at the eye of HAL, which took over the whole screen. That was for the audience to get in direct contact with HAL and realize, computer or not, it was very powerful.

Distance: The frames took turns being far away and close up. Far away shots that I remember clearly where those of space and were used to emphasize just how far we are from fully understanding what the universe has out there for us. Close-ups came on the face of the characters during serious moments so we could get in touch with their human reactions after having been surrounded by so much technology.

Length: As this was a complex movie and not a very fast paced moving one, the shots were generally longer so we could grasp what was going on in the situation.

Sound/Music: There were many sound effects that were made by the technology that were repetitive and somewhat unnerving to hear over and over again such as when HAL made a mistake and the alarm was going off. The music was all orchestral intense music that contributed to the serious tone.

Place/Settings: The significant place and settings in the movie were in the spaceship and in space. These were where most of the shots were taken except in the first Dawn of man chapter where the environment was on earth in nature.

Creation:

Space/Place/Setting: Creation too used all different types of spaces in the movie. Plenty of scenes were shot outside in nature and inside as well. Significant places included in his house, in his workshop, in nature, a few in the church, and a few powerful scenes while his daughter was going through recovery.

The Shot/Slow Motion: A specific shot that really moved me was when Darwin and his daughter were both in parallel scenes and going through the water tower rehabilitation. The shot was taken from far away and made his daughter and Darwin both look very inferior and powerless to the water that was crashing on them from above kind of drawing an allusion to how we are all insignificant creatures when it comes with dealing with the all-powerful God above. These shots also occurred in slow motion so that the situation was made all that more powerful while the audience sat there truly appreciating the process the two characters were going through.

Tone/Coloring: Some scenes were rather brighter than others and those generally happened during the time when the family was happy but all together the coloring of the movie was not to bright like 2001, illustrating a serious tone to the movie.

Focus/Distance: Most of the shots were taken from far away or whole body shots but a few times we would get a close up on the face, especially during a conflict between the characters so we could get a personal understanding of the emotions they were experiencing.

Length: There were many instances where the length of the shots were short to illustrate confusion and show that the story was moving on and something was happening quickly and rapidly such as when Darwin was having angry confrontations with his daughter while she was playing his voice of reason.

Sound/Music: As with 2001, the music was intense and moving orchestral music that really helped create the serious tone of the movie since there was a very serious conflict occurring between faith and reason.

Jupiter and Beyond

I wanted to post the Roger Ebert review of 2001 that I referenced in class, where he discusses the monoliths as signposts. If we think about the monolith that way, it helps to think about the themes we talked about-- violence & technology, how faith factors into the whole thing... In thinking about how something huge happened to the apes and humans after touching the monoloth, we also have to think about how Hal9000 prevented the humans on the mission to Jupiter from having the same "monolithic" moment, which was the basis for their mission. What kind of evolutionary moment wasn't realized because technology got in the way?

This is a crucial moment for us to think about how this theme relates to our own relationships with technology. If we make the analogy between Hal and Google, then it is entirely possible that Google is prevent us from experiencing an epic discovery. Is this the Google Bubble from the Ted video? Is it a big deal or is it something we just have to learn to live with? Couching this with the idea of faith is exactly what will put us into a critical thinking mode... and that's exactly where we want to be.

Thanks for a really intelligent discussion about 2001 today, y'all!!!

--tina

2001: A Space Odyssey

While viewing 2001: A Space Odyssey in its entirety certainly proved to be a mission, the film offers its viewers many talking points with regards to the environment, technology, and the relationships that humans have with both institutions.  

The film's first chapter, "The Dawn of Man," reminded me of a scene in Creation. The scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where a cheetah ferociously attacks an innocent chimpanzee, paralleled the scene in Creation where Darwin is in the forest with his children, observing the fox eating the rabbit. When viewing the first chapter in 2001, and after witnessing the cheetah brutally attack the poor chimpanzee, all that I that at that moment was "Why? That's not fair; why must the poor chimp get eaten in such a grotesque and inhumane fashion, especially when he didn't do anything to deserve such treatment?" I found myself in the shoes of Darwin's young daughter who, after witnessing the fox "grab his dinner," decried the actions of the fox, complaining that his murder of the innocent rabbit was "not fair." What do you all think of this? Is it fair that some animals need to kill others in order to survive or feed their young? Is the circle of life a vicious one? Can we, as human beings, rationally justify the seemingly unjust acts that occur in the animal kingdom every second of every day?

Another important theme from 2001 that relates to our in-class discussions is the relationship between humans and technology. It is amazing, yet disturbing, how dependent human beings have become on technology. The word dependent is defined as "the state of being determined, influenced, or controlled by something else." For a movie made in the late 1960s, 2001 does a great job with regards to addressing the troublesome human-technology relationship. In the film, we see the strained human-technology relationship manifest itself with Hal, the self-proclaimed infallible computer system. There is no doubt that the human-technology relationship seen in 2001 is a strained one. Additionally, the movie's message can be applied to today's society, as it emphasizes a universal message: do not become dependent on technology. However, something else in this movie stuck out to me. As a Catholic, I have grown up hearing that the only infallible being is God. Through the Catholic lens of looking at religion, God isn't infallible because he knows it all or because he is perfect for the sake of being perfect; God is infallible because he created the world, and thus he knows what is best for it.

How does your respective religion view infallibility with regards to God? If your religion views God in a certain light,  (i.e. infallible or fallible) how can you relate it to Hal from 2001?

Feel free to discuss anything else that caught your eye in the film! I am aware that this is a very narrow theme, but I am curious as to how your respective religions view the notion of infallibility with regards to a higher power.

The World Without Us/Deep Ecology

The excerpts we read from The World Without Us by Alain Weisman both posed and attempted to answer many deep philosophical questions about the environment as well as specific scientific ones. The prelude introduce a tribe living in Ecuador, in part of the Amazon. These people believed themselves to be close descendants of monkeys. The Zapara tribe used to thrive off nature years and years ago until the automobile began to be mass-produced. At that point in time, determined Europeans trampled through the land of the Zapara Indians, in search of materials needed for car-producing. They brutally destroyed the environment, murdered many Indians, and left. The Zapara were considered extinct. In 1999, some reappeared, who had escaped the genocide years ago. That was only one forest and one group of indigenous people used in the example, but this was happening all over the globe. Later in the book, Weisman discusses the Puszcza, which was once a huge landscape of lush trees and nature crosses over an extremely large space in parts of Europe. Because of human development, the Puszcza has been dramatically reduced. Humans are imposing new technology on the earth every day. Can mother nature handle our presence, and all that comes along with it?

Weisman poses many thoughtful questions: Is the earth better without humans residing on it?Is there anything we can do to turn around the negative effect our technology has had on nature? Even if the human race was wiped out tomorrow, could the world return to a place as healthy as the one it was in before humans evolved? What are your thoughts on these issues?

Then, Weisman introduces religion. This was the most interesting excerpt for me. Almost every religion has some type of afterlife or place to go other than this earth. When the world is over, destroyed, gone, many religious people tend to believe they will be somewhere else. How do you think religion and the destruction of our environment are intertwined?

The encyclopedia entry regarding Deep Ecology can be connected to the pieces we read from Alain Weisman. Would you make the argument that he was a deep ecologist or a shallow ecologist? How do you think deep ecology relates the religion and faith?

Silent Spring Interview

Lindsey: What did you guys think was the thesis of her book?

Danny: I don’t know.

Helen: I think basically the most important thing she was saying was that science is a great thing to have and it is a good thing to know about and if you use it properly it is a great thing. But the quotes in the beginning are all about how the human race is taking advantage of science and how we are using it to ruin the environment when we could use it to help the environment. And eventually humans are just going to basically ruin the earth, and I think that her main point was our responsibility to the Earth and to us to use science carefully and not use the technology to harm Mother Nature.

L: I definitely agree with that.

D: Yeah it’s like about the advance of human self-interest rather than the betterment of the environment. We have these resources that could be beneficial to a lot of things. We have the ability to create resources that could be beneficial, but instead we are making pesticides and what ever we want.

H: One of the points in the beginning says “Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would withstand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and treat it appreciative instead of skeptically and dictatorially.”

(click on link to read the rest of the interview)

Silent Spring Interview

Aparna: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is considered by many the genesis event of the modern environmental movement. Do you view it as a direct challenge to a long dominant view of science as a progressive force?

Philip: No, I see it as more of an improvement that has enhanced the world we live in today and radically shaped modern science.

Josh: Same, although many may have viewed it as a threat during the time, even today (like the pesticide companies, etc), the book has greatly brought environmental science/management on a whole new level.

Aparna: Who do you think Carson’s targeted audience is? The chemical companies, the average citizens, state agencies, government agencies?

Josh: I think she has intended to write this book mostly for the government agencies. Mostly it is an attack on their lax regulations and seemingly lackadaisical policies. They are the ones overseeing this mess and they are the ones who need to be fixing this.

Philip: Personally, I think this book is meant for the average citizen, because it is the average citizen who contributes to a concerted grassroots movement for environmental justice. It is the average citizen who must be conscious of the lucrative and deceiving policies affecting them. This book is intended to be an eye-opener for the general public.

Aparna: What did you think about the fable for tomorrow? Was it compelling, exaggerated, foreboding…?

Philip: Foreboding, definitely. It was a bit dramatic but honestly the future can and maybe already is looking like that if this is the rate at which we are moving.
Josh: Some aspects were exaggerated, but I agree it was foreboding and can very well be the future.

Aparna: What do you think based on the few pages we’ve read that the main theme of her text is?

Philip: That we are the cause and the solution of the environmental problems we’re in right now.

Josh: I agree. It has to do with the destruction of the delicate balance of nature and pesticide/pollutant contamination.

Aparna: What kinds of obstacles do you think Carson must’ve faced in publishing this or criticisms after publication?

Josh: The chemical/pesticide industry was probably really hyped up during the time because of such a maverick publication.

Philip: Definitely, and the fact that she was a woman probably decreased her credibility. You know the typical housewife stereotype must’ve been pervasive.

Aparna: Explain what you think about how Carson’s concerns addressed in the book may be termed “feminist” by critics.

Philip: Just the fact that she was a woman writing such a provocative, unconventional piece.

Josh: Or maybe they’re referring to how the ecological connection of renewal is linked to the feminist idea of reproduction.

Aparna: What are some of the most enduring legacies of this book?

Josh: She was really the first to take such an approachable stance on the issue of pesticides, chemicals, toxins, etc.

Philip: I agree and the fact that a book on cancer, toxins, and pesticides became so popular and initiated dozens of environmental policies shows how compelling her writing and research is.

Aparna: So do you think we are better or worse off today, environmentally?

Philip: I think the US is better off, maybe the other countries not so much, because they are polluting recklessly without the regulations we have. I think as a whole we are more conscious, but we are still polluting.

Josh: I agree with that last sentence, but I question the comparison of the US to the other countries. We consume one of the highest energy levels, per capita, and have so much politics and red tape involved that it’s hard to say we’re “better.”

Aparna: The passage brought up the idea that the citizens as part of the Bill of Rights should have the right to know what is happening environmentally- wise in the governmental politics involved. How do you feel about this?

Josh: I don’t know…

Aparna: Ok, so more specifically, should the USDA mark foods that are GMO and non-GMO, like they do for organics? What is the level of information that should be provided to the average citizen?

Philip: Personally, I wouldn’t care about the GMO-nonGMO, unless it’s dangerous. I don’t think the average citizen would either.

Josh: But of course the critics might contend that nonGMO causes all sorts of defects, cancer, etc. I really don’t know because you don’t want to swamp items with so many unfamiliar labels and you don’t want to hide information.

Aparna: Are citizens more qualified than experts to judge pesticide risk?

Philip: Maybe because they don’t have as much of a bias/political affiliation.

Josh: I don’t think so.

Silent Spring Interview Questions

Jackie: One of the things I found really interesting is that Carson used her first initial while publishing articles in The Sun, what did you think of this?

Amanda: Being that science was a very male thing, I think it was very smart of her. She definitely wanted to be taken seriously. As her name grew in familiarity it helped her with the popularity of her book, even if it was more controversial because she was a woman.

Diana: Initially in her first books it helped her. In Silent Spring it was definitely better that she was a women though because it was more provocative.

Jackie: Do you feel that the fact that Carson was a woman made her stance any less valued? Short term/long term?

Amanda: Short term: less seriously. Now, it doesn’t matter because of the modern view and women are valued in science just as equally as men.

Jackie: Do you feel that it was smart of Carson to include such a drastic change in the made up town that she talks about? Does this allow for harsher criticism of her piece?

Diana: It did allow for harsher criticism but it needed to be written that way. It set the scene that everyone thinks were living in a perfect little world meanwhile we really have no idea what is going on.

Amanda: I disagree slightly only because she is a scientist. If she was trying to write from the scientific point of view she was not successful. So by writing it like this it took away from scientific fact because she wasn’t basing it on everything real. It gave the scientific community something to criticize.

Diana: Yes but a town like this might exist if it weren’t for her not to mention that it fit into the style of her writing. She used really poetic imagery and language.

Jackie: Carson makes a good point about how the insecticides used by farmers causes overproduction and wastes billions of tax dollars. Should the US ban the use of all pesticides for farmers? Is that what Carson is saying?

Amanda: Yes I thin she wants the ban of pesticides completely although in my opinion she is shooting for an unrealistic goal. In today’s day of age it wouldn’t be applicable

Diana: She probably wanted to eliminate it all but to some extent she understood that was unrealistic and just aimed for the increasing knowledge of the public.

Amanda: It is possible she just wanted to inform the public.

Jackie: 500 new chemicals are produced each year to help continue the “war on nature”. Why does Carson suggest we call insecticides, biocides? Is this an exaggeration?

Amanda: She is trying to connect to the cold war era. This is not necessarily an exaggeration but she is trying to connect to her audience and the time period.

Diana: She has a good point. She related that it alters the genetics of the plants that are eaten by the animals that are eaten by us (humans) and eventually it affects our DNA.

Jackie: Do you agree with Carson that insects were meant to essentially fix the problems of overcrowding and overpopulation in poor areas?

Amanda: Yea, I don’t agree with that. She is too much into the nature part. You need to choose between progress and nature. Nature, to some extent, is the price we have to pay for progress. We chose to be progressive.

Jackie: On page five Carson questions “… Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances whoa re not quite enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?” This left me compelled to take action. What do you think the purpose of this is?

Diana: She is more concerned with the general public. What the public demands affects what scientists will do. If they demand organic pestiside free food that’s what they will get.

Amanda: Definitely, a call to the public. Designed to compel the consumer to take action because they do essentially have the power.

Jackie: Carson takes a strong yet controversial stand when she talks about our Forefathers. What did you think of this? Do you agree with her statement?

Diana: She is putting words in their mouths. They would agree with the agriculture point of view. They wanted the best for the country. They would side with progression. It kind of makes her sounds crazy.

Amanda: I think that was another attempt to appeal to the public because our country is so constitution based. Then again, it failed because it does make her sounds crazy that she’d suggest our forefathers would side with her.

Jackie: Do you think Carson’s battle to save the environment is still present in today society? How do you know?

Amanda: It is still present. There are people who are still very concerned… global warming is always in the news. The difference is that now science can back things up which makes it more real of a concern to the general public.

Diana: Everyone wants to save the world now. The EPA is regulating smoke stacks. Its moving away from pesticide control but it has a broader focus area.

Jackie: Do you think Carson’s suggestion to eliminate single crop farming would work? I feel that farmers would be outraged if they were limited to the number of plants they were allowed to plant per acreage.

Amanda: Were too big of a country. Were too reliant on this type of production. Its not practical. People come before the insects. Not everyone can afford to buy organic food.

Diana: We will not be able to fully eliminate this problem because even with what we have now people are still going hungry.

Amanda: Unless the hunger issue is fixed this problem can never truly be resolved.

Jackie: I agree with you guys in a lot of ways. I felt disappointed while reading her piece because I felt she took a stance that was almost too radical.

Amanda: Definitely, you can’t say insects should be allowed kill people without causing a debate or dispute of some sort.

A Little More on Place

I just wanted to give a little bit of meta-narrative about the project we worked on today in class with Tina. Remember that this class is called "Religion and Environment," environment meaning more than plants and rivers and trees, but encompassing what surrounds us. Today's exercise and reading was part of pushing how we normally think of environment...and so, for this class, how we think of environment and religion. I asked you to think about a place that has spiritual significance for you. And so I asked you to think about how, in your own life, environment and "religion" come together for you. I put religion in quotation marks, because not all of us are "religious" but still knew what it meant to think about and write about a place that had deep meaning for us, whether is was a black box theater, a pizzeria, our grandparents' house, a place of worship, the passenger seat of a car, or a natural environment. All of these places are also "environments" and they impact how each of us think about our own spirituality, much like we see Kathleen Norris coming to understand how Dakota points her to understand her own spirituality better. In further thinking of citing these places, we had to go deeper into thinking about how they help shape our spirituality, asking questions about who the "author" is, what the "title" is, what the"year of publication" is. On top of that it also gave us a moment to think more philosophically about citations themselves, why they are important and what information goes in them.

I didn't have time to explain all of this before we left class, but I wanted to make sure you got the context and significance about what we were up to today.

Kathleen Norris: Dakota A Spiritual Geography

Kathleen Norris in her writing explains why she has chosen to live and stay for so long in South Dakota when the majority of people would never wish to live there or even visit. Norris' reason for staying seems to be due to a spiritual, heritage and environmental connection she has made with the land. Her spiritual connection she describes as "I had to build on my own traditions, those of the Christian West" as she compares herself moving to Dakota to the monks that moved to the deserts of Egypt. Both very inhospitable places where they made a spiritual connection with the land and saw its beauty. Norris also uses heritage to explain her reasoning for living in South Dakota as this is where her family has made home as they are now living in their grandparents home. She also draws upon the beauty and vastness of the environment that is truly breath taking as she describes it as almost holy a place where angels live, however she does have great respect for the land as she understands the dangers it possesses. These connections Norris has made with the Dakotas is what enables her to write.

Even with her attempts to explain why she has chosen to live here she still can't fully explain as she doesn't truly know the answer. Which is why the quote from the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz seems so suitable for Norris "of course I cannot understand it, if your heads were stuffed with straw like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all, it is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains." My question is what is Norris trying to accomplish by writing this? Is she trying to get people to visit or move to the Dakotas since she was describing how the population is always declining which puts the Dakotas in harsh economic times. Or does she just want people to have a higher respect for the Dakotas and for those who live ther?

Dillard Chapters 5 and 6

At first when I read Dillard's work, I was really confused about what she was trying to say. She seems to jump around to seemingly random topics. However, as I read more I started to see patterns in her work. What patterns do you see? I found it helpful to read her book in sections instead of page by page. For example, I read "Birth" in chapters 5 and 6, then "Sand", and so on. It makes it easier to see patterns this way. One thing I noticed was that as the book goes on, Dillard seems to come to terms with the fact that she can doubt God but still believe in him. She writes, "Doubt and dedication often go hand and hand." Dillard seems to come to the conclusion that although she has all these questions, such as why evil exists, she won't ever be able to answer them, and that's okay. It does not mean that she has lost faith in religion. Do you guys have the same opinion? Is it possible to believe in something while still having significant doubts about it? Also, do you think Dillard's writing style helps the reader understand her doubts, or is it just confusing?

Dillard-- Chapters 1 and 2

For a large part of this reading, I was super confused. I didn’t see how it was relevant, and worse, I was not able to draw the connection between Dillard’s seemingly disjoint anecdotes. I got over this after the first twenty pages, and was able to grasp some general ideas. Both chapters spoke a lot about death, but also about how life may not life up to our expectations. On page 19, a dying hermit says, “I have acquired nothing from the world.” This seemed to be the opening to a theme of insufferable living.

An important part of the reading was the question of evil (Moses’ question). Why does God allow moral evil? The book brings up a lot of examples such as Stalin’s famine, Pol Pot’s tyranny, Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the Hutus genocide against the Tutsis. Dillard’s examples give people no reason to have faith in God, and proves her points through quasi sarcastic stories. There is a part in chapter two that I think sums up these observations well. Dillard asks to borrow a maul so she can hammer the sky, “crack it at one blow, split it at the next—and inquire, hollering at God the compassionate, the all-merciful, WHAT’S with the bird-headed dwarfs?” Essentially, she is wondering why I myself am not actively religious, so I wonder what connects people so strongly to their faith even when challenged by these questions. Besides a good after life, where do devout followers find solace in a storm of horrific human actions?

I related most to the words of Teilhard. On page 44, he says “If I should lose all faith in God I think that I should continue to believe invincibly in the world.” This reminds me of some of the discussion we had in class on Wednesday. Although I do not have faith in a god or in a specific ideology, I believe in the virtues and people of my experience—things that are tangible and empirical. Do you think that Dillard has given up on religion too quickly? Even though she says that there are not enough good things to weigh out the evil, do you think she is being unfair by not citing the beautiful and kind characteristics of human nature?

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams on Richard Dawkins

I mentioned this video clip in the 11:10 class because the Dawkins passage that Williams references reminds me a bit of the very end of On the Origin of the Species, which is quoted at the end of Creation. I think it also relates to the conversation about emotion and science from the 9:35 class.

Comment on Movie

I am also gald the film displayed Darwin's internal struggle about publishing his research findings because I think it goes well with our previous discussion on "what is truth?" After understanding his data, it seemed to Darwin that he was confronted with having two choose between two distinct "truths." Even his colleagues tried to convince him that making his research public was essentially "killing God," insinuating that accepting the scientific data meant rejecting the Christian religion, and accepting creationism mean denying the scientific evidence.
I admire Darwin for being able to keep his faith throughout his struggle because it goes to show that science and religion can not only coexist, but also strengthen each other. Both consist of certain undeniable evidence as well as room for faith.

Creation

The movie definitely conveyed the idea that science cannot understand religion, and science cannot demonstrate the truth of religion. Many followers of science therefore tend to discount religion and to belittle religion. Religion cannot express itself well using science. Many followers of religion therefore tend to distrust science and to discount science.

Why? Why does this antagonism exist? More importantly, how can followers of science come to recognize the truth of religion? How can followers of religion come to recognize the truth of science? How can we understand that perhaps neither could exist alone in a world where nobody believes in and recognizes the truth of the other? Paradoxically, Darwin wasn't saying “kill all religion,” he never said such a thing, but yet he is a totem for people. He seemed to be endlessly tortured by the conflict between religion and his thirst for science.

To our earliest ancestors, science and religion were one and the same. What happened two to three thousand years ago that caused religion and science to separate from each other in the first place? Can our understanding of religion and science now be reunified into one single model of the world such that people can clearly recognize the common origin of religion and science and the source and nature of their differences?

Darwin could not refute the creation/intelligent design hypothesis of creationism, but he insisted that biologists should proceed using the only viable approach, science, and attempting to falsify natural selection and descent with modification, which biologists have been attempting to do for 140 years. Every aspect of Darwin’s hypotheses has been demonstrated true repeatedly and natural selection has been fundamental to our understanding of genetic inheritance. Thus evolution represents a well-verified scientific explanation, a scientific truth. Since it can and will change, evolutionary theory is a conditional truth, as are all scientific statements.

Does scientific creationism belong in the educational systems? Personally I feel scientific creationism is religion, not science, and religion cannot be taught in public schools as literal truth. It could be appropriate to discuss the creationist movement and tenets in history or sociology classes, but creationism does not meet the criteria required for inclusion in the scientific curriculum.

Or going along the track of is evolution, just as much as creation, fundamentally based on faith in the philosophical backing of all science? Do evolutionary explanations amount to nothing more than "just stories" and therefore are no better or more truthful than creationist explanations? Can creationism be a science and evolution a religion? Could life have abruptly appeared on Earth? Do you consider evolution and religion as consistent or inconsistent (and if so, are evolutionists agnostic or atheistic?)