Sects-ting

I'm not very good at keeping this thing up to date.

I'll give you a short news update, and probably not return 'til summertime. That way, I might actually put forth some sort of effort in this whole blog thing.

Mason girls admits to 'sexting'

A 15-year-old girl has been charged with "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" in Warren County, Ohio. The girl admitted to sending a nude picture of herself to another minor. The picture was discovered after a boy's cell phone was confiscated for being used during class. The boy, a freshman (age undisclosed), is also being charged with the same offense.

"Honestly?" is the first thing that comes to my mind. First of all, it's disgusting that this girl was sending nude pictures of herself to boys at the age of 15. Second of all, it's disgusting that the school administration looked at the boys phone after confiscating it. Third of all, neither should be charged.

My reasoning: it is not for the courts or the school to decide on matters such as these. The text was private, albeit extremely stupid and open for more viewing from other people. But, the fact is that the charge itself is unsure. If a case comes up that seems to somewhat fit the charge, it is automatically put into the arena of said charge.

Also, I ask, where are the parents? Why is it that we have to have some sort of corporal punishment when these things take place? Let the parents take care of the situation. When the text is seen by others, or becomes any less private than it is at this time, then prosecuting might be the answer. But, honestly, this is no different than the girl getting nude for the boy in a face-to-face situation. The times are changing, and people don't know how to deal with these supposed "awkward" situations anymore. So, instead of showing him in person, she showed him via non-communicative text.

What this really conveys to me is the fact that people are becoming more text based in their communications. Even this blog is proof of that. Young people are getting younger when learning this, so we're bound to see a younger generation doing these types of things.

Also, why was the boy charged? It's not as if he took the picture himself. Of course, he probably asked for the photo, but that still seems diminished to the fact that it being done in a more private situation would have warded a different outcome.

Story taken from Cincinnati Enquirer online, March 13, 2009.

TTKGE III

Today's birthdays:

Charles Robert Darwin (1809)
Abraham Lincoln (1809)

Anyway, on to the real meat of the day...

Topic: The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and its Implications on the Idea of Ignorance

Disclaimer: I will be using the proper name "God," so every time "god" appears, it shall be capitalized. Also, any association to God (e.g. "He," "His," etc.) shall be capitalized.

"Ignorance is bliss" is a well regarded statement to the idea of being completely content with not knowing the truth of a certain matter. It can be used in everyday language, and it often is. It is natural idea that can attest to the times that we live in today, considering how much information is offered up for our amusement on any given situation. I know many would agree with me that I would much rather not know what the name of Obama's new White House pup.

But I digress.

We must first examine what God told Adam when he was first created in the Garden of Eden:

"The Lord God gave man this order: 'You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except for the tree of knowledge of good and bad. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die.'" (Gen 2.16-17)

Right away we see that God is banning man from eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Why? Why is is that God specifically bars this tree from man's reach? Man is allowed to eat from the tree of life so that he may live, but not from the tree of knowledge so that he may have knowledge of said life? It seems that we must look further into God's demands.

To do this, we'll look into another line in Genesis 2:

"The man and his wife [the suitable partner for man] were both naked, yet they felt no shame." (Gen 2.25)

This line may seem pointless, but I say that it's clearly tying the idea of knowledge with the idea of shame. To have knowledge is to have shame for being naked? This seems the reasonable assumption, considering the previous lines.

Does this mean that God has taken it upon himself to determine the underlying guilt we would feel for denying God based on our knowledge? No. Rather, those that wrote the original texts have established this thought. They realized early on that they must push the idea of ignorance into our minds to keep said minds from traveling outside the realm of God into a world I like to call "Logic."

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But, alas, I must stop here. I feel as if my thoughts are being controlled by some higher power... I will continue my discussion on this topic in a later post.

Thanks for reading.

You must check this out!!

I'll work on that Good and Evil post next week.

Cincinnati Religion Updates

Daniel Pilarczyk, a Cincinnati Archbishop of the Catholic Church, is openly criticizing the University of Cincinnati for allowing "Pizza and Porn" night.

As usual, it looks like another case of ignorance in the church. Instead of focusing on the realities of our time, Catholics are choosing to ignore all things related to sex. Rather than trying to teach their followers how to practice anything in a safe manner, they've decided that telling them certain acts are immoral is a good enough way to prohibit them. Surprisingly enough, this works about as well as the original Prohibition in America. Wake up, you god-fearing devotee of the Christian faith! Learn that it's about teaching, not turning a blind eye to such "atrocities" as these.

Personally, I give a standing O to the administration involved in allowing such activities.

Full story and others here.

Batman

I tried to post a short paper that I just wrote for one of my upper-level Religions classes, but it won't let me copy and paste from Word. So, instead of trying to rewrite it all, I'm just gonna give you a link to one of my favorite YouTube vlogger's website. Hopefully I'll have time tomorrow to write something more meaningful.

sXePhil