Last Blog Post

      As this school year comes to a close, so does this blog. I'd like to use this post to talk a little more about myself and what I'm about, to supplement those bits and pieces of myself I've revealed through my previous posts.

      When many people talk about life, they call it a journey or a path to self-discovery. For me, life is a playground. Learning to do novel things, acclimating to new circumstances, overcoming hardships--in my world, all of these challenges are approached with adrenaline-accompanied fervor, just as conquering the tallest slide in the playground is in the mind of a 5-year-old. Seeing life as a matter of play is positive and constructive, and most importantly, it makes a person open their mind to something they might never have tried and overcome their mental resistance.

       When I make a mistake, even a devastating one, I try to imagine myself as a child on a playground: if he or she falls, they might cry, but next day they're back on the swings again. When I compromise a situation, whether that be a grade or relationship, I take a brief moment to reflect and introspect about why and how it happened and come to peace with myself about it, but I don't stay checked out of my normal daily affairs for long. I learn, remember, and move on. If I could encapsulate this mindset in seven words, they would be: Sometimes you win, and sometimes you learn.
   
       Diverging from the idea of handling specific challenges in life, I also have certain all-encompassing ideas about how to treat people. Ultimately, respect is important, but so is approaching each and every individual with acceptance, openness, and love. This idea comes from a sermon I heard in a church a while ago about how we as Christians should love and embrace every human being, be it a cold killer or warm teacher, because all people are children of God and as such deserve a minimum level of respect and love. To be able to approach anybody with an embracing attitude is a skill that requires that we find something that intrigues us about a person or that we like or that we can learn from.

       Along with the idea that everyone deserves to be loved and appreciated, I believe that everyone also deserves to be cared for. The fact that while we are complaining about the water taking too long to turn hot, children in some godforsaken country are rummaging through piles of garbage for any marketable item is very troubling. I believe that as a privileged country we should not only devote governmental aid to such disadvantaged places but also engage the better part of the country in helping such places.

       For me, debating in classes about how the children whose parent's belong to the top 1% of the income bracket of the world (hint: our village) should be educated is superfluous when just around the corner, CPS has 50-something schools on the closing list. It is true that our education aims to prepare us for the work world and that our village can afford to ask how they can accomplish that goal even better, but my argument here represents my problem with society as a whole: when groups of people or towns or cities go down the gutter, the world doesn't necessarily say "we need to go in and bring everybody back up to our level of prosperity." I would much more willingly live in a world in which humanity functioned as a unit, a platoon, to ensure the survival and prosperity of most, if not all, people.

Guest Blog: Is Atheism a Religion?

Hello, my name is Jordan, and I was intrigued by the prospect of a blog which examines religion. Tina (in her infinite wisdom and beauty) graciously allowed me to contribute this post concerning Atheism, and whether it should be considered a religion.

Many in the media have claimed that Atheism is actually a religion, despite what many atheists may say (see Fox News, creation.com, Ceinkowsky, and many others). The people who claim that Atheism is, in fact, a religion, as doctrinal and faith-based as any religion, make compelling arguments. The people who claim that Atheism is a religion point to humanism, claiming that the Humanist Manifesto as setting up a value system for all Atheists to abide by, assert that evolution is the atheist creation story, and claim that atheists worship logic, rationality, and science in place of a god. So are they right? The short answer is no. These claims show a failure to understand Humanism, the Theory of Evolution, and science.

Atheism and humanism are NOT the same thing. Although many atheists choose to live a life that is ethical, not all atheists are humanists and not all humanists are atheists (types of Humanism). Before researching critiques of Atheism, I had never heard of Humanism, and I didn’t make any effort to memorize (or read) the list of beliefs I supposedly have. I believe that I am generally a “good” person, but I don’t believe that I require any sacred code of conduct to keep me in line. Like many atheists, I do not believe that I need the threat of eternal damnation to act morally. I treat my own moral decisions as very personal, and I don’t believe in a universal and absolute rights and wrongs.

The Theory of Evolution as proposed by Charles Darwin is admired by many atheists and religious people alike. Evolution is, to the best of current scientific understanding, the most likely explanation for one of the questions that creation stories try to answer, “How did we get here?” But Evolution is not a typical creation story. Evolution does not give purpose to our lives. Evolution does not say that humans are special, but that we are simply a member of the Animal Kingdom. The Theory of Evolution is constantly under review, and the On Origin of Species is not considered absolute truth. With the discovery of DNA, the previously unknown method by which evolution occurred was determined. Darwin is not considered a prophet. His book is not considered the word of a god. His book presented a new explanation for part of the answer to how things came to be the way they are (evolution through natural selection), evidence supporting the new explanation, and methods by which to test the explanation. And his ideas happened to be consistently supported by and expanded/adapted to fit new discoveries. Darwin unified the life sciences and he is rightfully admired in the scientific community. However, the modern evolutionary theory continues to develop with new discoveries, and happens to be backed by a ridiculous amount of concrete evidence, which makes the theory distinctly different from religion.

The definition of religion states that religion is either the service and worship of deity(ies) or the supernatural, an institutionalized system of attitudes, beliefs, and practices, or a system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith. Atheists do not worship a deity. There is no system of attitudes, beliefs, and practices adhered to by all atheists. And scientific theories are not held to with ardor and faith. In fact, as the example of General Relativity demonstrates, even the most basic-seeming theories (like Newtonian gravity) can be entirely rewritten when a better explanation for “Why things are the way they are” is offered, extensively tested, and supported. Yes, atheists who seem to “worship” science are skeptical to different ideas and explanations, but the most exciting and awe-inspiring thing about science is that science is not afraid to be wrong (read more), adjusts itself to new information. Religion, on the other hand, does not adjust itself and refuses to even consider the possibility that it may be wrong.

Atheism is simply the lack of a belief in god, and is NOT a unified group. The arguments of Humanism, the comparison of evolution to a religious creation myth, and the “worship” of science do not hold up under examination. For more on this topic, check out these fabulous articles by Richard Dawkins, Austin Cline, Jacob Fortin, and Bill Maher.

Feminism and Religious Faith: Are They Compatible?

     You might not think that feminists' religious convictions can be influenced by such intellectual pursuits as their own feminist ideologies. Or perhaps you'd like to believe that all feminists are equally deterred by most world religions, especially western religions, because they perceive them as inherently patriarchal. Surprisingly, a diverse spectrum of perspectives on organized religion are harbored by feminists. While some indeed do reject religion(s) because of their conviction that religions were created to reinforce male dominance, others, including "Christian feminists", subscribe to religion because they believe it to have overarching merit. Yet others characterize the relationship between their faith and feminism as having a different dynamic. Feminism at its core is a doctrine that seeks to advocate women's rights, and establish political, social, and economic equality between women and men; however, how this doctrine truly affects the personal lives of its advocates varies.

      The advocacy of equal rights between men and women leads some feminists to mostly or wholly reject religion. They do this on the condition that most religions have male gods and women often play a less central role in worship than men, and that religious societies often marginalize women, to the detriment of the women. Generally, this group of feminists views religion as a "patriarchal institution", as an informative web page about feminism explains.

This illustration represents either
a a headstrong feminist or perhaps
seeks to be cynical or comical in
its stereotypical depiction of feminists

      In an article for the Guardian, writer Cath Elliot expresses such a perspective in delving into how feminism and religion are antithetical. "Religion means one thing and one thing only for those women unfortunate enough to get caught up in it: oppression. It's the patriarchy made manifest, male-dominated, set up by men to protect and perpetuate their power." She later dubs religion as a mere mechanism for dealing with the hardships of life; for her own purposes, she would rather turn to a means of alleviating daily stress that doesn't involve the oppressive, liberty-denying sexism she believes is characteristic of religion. She in fact brings up a drug as her personal method for alleviation of emotional lows. "We probably all need something to help us get by in this life: I've chosen nicotine as my particular opiate, but whatever floats your boat." Later, she asserts that the oppression of women, which in certain places in the world leads to unequal educational opportunities and inadequate attention to women's health issues and epidemics blamed on women, has strong underpinnings in religion.

      Yet other feminists do subscribe to a certain faith, and some are fundamentalists. A Guardian article written by Julie Burchill briefly mentions that she considers herself a Christian Zionist, socialist, and feminist, later delving into how she came to be religious after harboring an atheist mindset until having to deal with the consecutive deaths of her parents as a young woman. When practiced correctly, she explains, religion allows a person to "transcend the self" rather than focus inwardly on oneself. In Burchill's case, Christianity has an overarching appeal to her--transcending her self--and among other reasons for her faith, this compels her to believe in the Bible and its teachings, irrespective of their arguable patriarchal nature.

A graphic depicting the symbol of
feminism surrounded by symbols
of the most common world religions

      While Burchill's religiosity may seem unconventional of a feminist, there also exist feminists who have become Christian fundamentalists. There was an interest in the reasons that any woman would join a religious fundamentalist movement among feminist writers after fundamentalism became a compelling topic for scholarly discussion in the 1970's. Some research studies since then have shown that some women feel a greater sense of security after undertaking traditional roles in a constantly changing world (as they would do after becoming fundamentalists); yet other studies demonstrated that some young married women, including feminists, latched on to the "pro-family ideology" of fundamentalist Christianity and saw it as a way to solve their marriage problems. An informative web page on feminism, however, explains that many of such young converts to fundamentalist Christianity "traded formal authority for their husbands' emotional expressiveness and involvement in family life." Thus, this group of women, some of which were feminists, slightly adjusted their applications of their fundamentalist Christianity to stress their religion's emphasis on family rather than exploiting the religion's arguable patriarchal teachings.

      Some feminists who are religious may practice "equal" religions, or overtly woman-centered religions. An example of an equalizing religion is the Bahá'i faith. In terms of woman-centered religions, many of those created by women themselves in hopes of escaping conventional religions rooted in their culture are small and not very well-coordinated. A women's spirituality movement also exists, and spirituality in itself is another religious outlet for many feminists.

      Overall, the degree to which a person's feminist doctrine primarily influences their religious preference seems to be a matter of priority--those for whom feminism is more important may adopt a religious preference (including agnosticism/atheism) that properly addresses that concern in their lives. However, the interplay between feminism and faith is so complex within individuals that it shouldn't be generalized.

What do you think about this topic? Would being a feminist in itself be sufficient to change your religious preference? Do you believe in any doctrines (like feminism) that influence your religious preference?

How Expressing Faith in Students Can Help Them Be More Open to Learning

     You may or may not realize that in order to be a successful learner, it's necessary to be vulnerable. Vulnerability within an academic context occurs when a student sees through his doubts and fears related to learning or school-related activities and opens himself up to learning or better understanding others or himself. Within the academic realm, a student's ability to make himself vulnerable directly correlates with his degree of self-confidence and some elements of his psychological state. While it is important that students allow themselves to become vulnerable in the pursuit of knowledge to ensure openness and greater absorption or internalization of information, it's equally noteworthy that teachers should be cognizant of students' self-imposed vulnerability, in fact encouraging it when possible. One method through which this can be accomplished is through teachers having faith in students, and continually reinforcing this faith in multiple ways.

      Though teachers can express faith in students, the degree to which this can improve a classroom environment, inspiring more openness, productivity, and critical thinking, has not been experimentally proven. This faith strategy also does not entail the expectation that all students, even students with weak, struggling self-confidence levels, will respond positively.

Some individuals believe that faith in students
involves allowing students greater freedom
but ensuring consistent feedback

      Nonetheless, many individuals do believe that demonstrating faith in students can be a method through which teachers can encourage students to make themselves more vulnerable, thus creating an atmosphere of openness and positivity that can be conducive to more yielding, critical discussions. A teacher at the Hult International Business School, for example, discusses in a recent article how teachers can allow themselves to believe in their students and how this can benefit the students. His tactic for asserting confidence in students is allowing them more space, independence, and freedom, which he believes will eventually inspire most students to be more creative and productive than they would have been in a normally structured learning environment.

      His approach also calls for honest, consistent teacher feedback related to how the students made use of the freedom they were given and the ideas they generated while working. This approach at first seems unreliable, as it anticipates that students will learn what they need to from decreased teacher intervention. Decreased direct intervention could prevent teachers from pinpointing and tackling the issues of struggling students, for example, instead placing most of that responsibility on the struggling students themselves. This general increased insistence on responsibility could facilitate increased maturity among more confident, independent students, but could also be a pitfall for students without the understanding or ability to speak up for themselves.

      In a related article written by public school teacher Julia G. Thompson, she expresses her belief that teachers can inspire faith in students through working within a more traditionally structured academic setting rather than simply allowing for greater freedom and independence in the classroom. Throughout her article entitled "28 Ways to Build Persistent & Confident Students", she outlines many specific strategies for inspiring self-confidence, a handful of which are directly related to teachers' expression of faith. These strategies include teaching students perfect work isn't the only acceptable work, frequently praising students, encouraging students to work independently for as long as possible, and helping students focus on their strengths. These manifestations of faith in students can allow students to become more confident in their own abilities to think independently, can be conducive to a more positive, productive learning environment, and can assist students in overcoming or managing fears or doubts generated by perfectionist tendencies. These tips, however, are probably more useful for younger children than high school juniors, for example, but adaptations of these strategies certainly have the potential to yield positive results.

     In review, many individuals believe that teachers' expressed faith in students has the ability to encourage students to be more vulnerable, open-minded, confident, independent and responsible, though these effects still rest unproven. Some of those who believe teachers should assume a role in which they express their confidence in students believe that teachers should primarily allow students more freedom and independence to accomplish that, while others believe that faith in students can be more strategically manifested within a structured academic environment. As a student I am inexperienced in the teaching field, however, I stress that this post is solely an objective look at educational matters.

If you were/are a teacher, would you/do you put a lot of emphasis on showing students you're confident and faithful in their abilities, or would you be/are you more withholding of your expression of faith in students?

Faith and Football: Why They Are So Commonly Intertwined

Many football players over the years have attested
to the interconnectedness of their faith and their game

Athletics necessitates a wide range of skills, both physical and psychological. Physical skills important to sports may include general fitness in addition to specialized abilities. On the other hand, psychological skills imperative for athletes range from the ability to manage stress and focus to having confidence. In the intense, volatile world of football, where being tackled by a 300-pound man is commonplace, psychology has always played a unique role in the study of the game. Many football players over the last several decades have attested to having a degree of religious faith, ranging from talented ex-QB Terry Bradshaw to the freshly retired Ray Lewis. But how does religious faith exactly fit into their view of the game? Why do they need it?

Commenting on his recent Super Bowl win, Ray Lewis said, "it’s simple: when God is for you, who can be against you?" Here, Lewis is commenting on what he feels is the inherent importance in maintaining faith in a game where an incessant battle for possession of a ball is ensuing: faith brings resilience. When one imagines the game of professional football in the eyes of an athlete, a feeling of an almost "supernatural" resilience is an almost necessary factor in high performance and continued effort during difficult games. In addition to confidence--faith in oneself--religious faith intertwined with sport, especially football, seems to award the player who has it with an almost calming, reinforcing sense of being supported, of being chosen, of being powerful, and of being very resilient.

For ex-QB Terry Bradshaw, religion
was reinforcing

Other players over the years, like star ex-quarterback Terry Bradshaw, have believed that the path they were following through becoming involved in football was inherently chosen for them by a supreme deity. Bradshaw once said, "God has a calling for everyone. If you truly believe in your calling, no matter what it is, you can be a success." While Bradshaw was playing, then, did he feel a compelling, reinforcing feeling that he was indeed "responding" to his supreme calling and fulfilling the larger purpose in his life? It is likely, but something also of value is examining the reasons behind this type of thinking. Doubt is a powerful vehicle for weakness in modern day humans, and especially in sports it is important to maintain a rigid support for the sport and be without second-thoughts that could potentially undermine the focus that one brings to the field.

Nonetheless, there are still outliers in the world of football--among them, former Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, who made "Tebowing" famous--and those agnostics and atheists for whom the game has no supernatural connotations or relations. Last year, Broncos linebacker Wesley Woodyard explained that before a very important game, Tebow "came to me and said, 'Don’t worry about a thing,' because God has spoken to him." This implication of Tebow's personal conversation with God is unlike many testaments of NFL and former NFL players about their religious experiences. For Tebow, though he does subscribe to a very antiquated type of Protestantism, his exchanges with God reflect the potent power of his religious perspective. Nonetheless, faith played an important role in his athletic ability: the "personal reinforcement" he received from God or from his conception of God gave him hope and confidence. That hope and confidence has its origins not only in his staunch religious perspective and upbringing, but also in his likely need for assurance before a very challenging game. Thus, faith in religious athletes, especially football athletes, should be seen as being not only resulting from a faithful background or perspective but also from a need for reassurance, stability, and confidence in the face of challenges.

Religious Faith: How You Experience It Decides How It Affects You

Religion was previously believed to
be solely healing, but new research
shows religious influence on the
brain is more complex

What comes to mind when you think about the effects of religious faith on the brain? Resilience-building? Harmful? Or does it depend? Many early researchers found that religious beliefs and practices help people manage stress and protect against mental illness, and many people might passively agree. Nonetheless, recent research has shed light into how much religious faith exists within a context--the personality and character of a person, his or her self image, his or her personal relationship with the religion, the religious influences that act upon him or her, and the degree of oppressiveness of the religion, to name a few aspects of this context--and we are gradually understanding that by no means is religion innately stress-relieving or illness-deterring, but varies in effect between people and groups.

In a recent article published in the New York Times' IHT Global Opinion, writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali speaks to the degree to which he was influenced by anti-Jewish sentiments growing up in a Muslim family and country. "I constantly heard my mother, other relatives and neighbors wish for the death of Jews, who were considered our darkest enemy," Ali writes. Ali explains that even religious tutors and preachers at mosques would reserve time for prayer for the destruction of the Jewish people. As such an endorsement of negative sentiments by religious authorities probably insinuated that Allah resented Jews, the people who subscribed to the belief that Islam is anti-Semitic have likely experienced more stress than others in the Middle East or in the world who have experienced Islam as an embracing religion.

San Francisco Gate writer David Ian Miller comments on these evident discrepancies in emotional responses to religion between those who see their god as loving and peaceful and those who see him as more intimidating. "If you focus on a God that's angry and vengeful," he writes, "that activates the anger centers of your brain, the strong emotional centers, which creates stress and anxiety."

Many other people and groups of people also experience stress as a result of religion. For example, a person can have issues incorporating certain dramatic events they've experienced into their religion, or may feel disconnected from his or her family's traditional religious beliefs and wish to start anew. Yet others may feel they are persecuted or resented by their religion or their god--homosexuals who subscribe to Christianity, as a well-known example--and this inspires feelings of exclusion and a lack of love that could make a person emotionally unstable. More oppressive religions or denominations might inspire more stress among those who feel innately persecuted than religions or denominations that are more moderate or liberal in their views. More conservative religions may also inspire stronger negative sentiments in people who feel that they are being chastised by their god or those that feel they've failed their god in some way. In terms of location, those who feel they are a religious minority where they live likely experience more anxiety as a result of their religion.

MRI scans showing hippocampal shrinkage (yellow=hippocampus)

There are, however, undeniable health risks of such increased stress in individuals experiencing emotional conflict as a result of their religion. David Ian Miller encapsulates this well in describing that as a direct result of heightened religion-related stress, "your body releases hormones that can actually damage the way your brain functions which fosters more negative emotions and negative behaviors outwardly." The authors of a study conducted at Duke University over a 11 year period incidentally found that people 58 and older that experienced more stress also experienced more shrinkage of their hippocampal regions (a process that naturally occurs with age). They also found that people in certain religious groups seemed to experience more stress, and thus more hippocampal shrinkage, than those belonging to other religious groups. "[The researchers] found significantly greater hippocampal atrophy among born-again Protestants, Catholics, and those with no religious affiliation," Scientific American writer Andrew Newberg writes, "compared with Protestants not identifying as born-again."

This study seems to offer biological evidence that supports the argument that those who subscribe to more historically conservative religious groups--born-again Protestants and Catholics, in this case--and those who have no religious faith experience more stress than those who are subscribe to a religion with more "moderate" views. Thus, an argument supporting this conclusion might hold that experiencing a more positive personal relationship with religion allows a person to experience less stress and perhaps less susceptibility to emotional or physical illness that could result from higher stress levels.

Think Positive. Be Positive. (But Only in Moderation)

"Think positive!"  "Look on the bright side!"  "Have faith!"  "Don't lose hope!"

These expressions, often heard and said, encourage their recipients to adopt a positive attitude. We often think of a positive attitude as an outlook on life that is optimistic, confident, and faithful, associating postivity with focusing on the good in our lives, believing in the future, and believing in ourselves. Many of our associations with positivity involve faith: faith that the future will yield favorable outcomes, faith in ourselves and our abilities, faith in others, and faith in the world.

An image demonstrating the popular
philosophy that positive thinking, if done
well, is the key to success

For many of us, thinking positively and having faith are unquestionably benevolent behaviors. Throughout the postmodern age this perspective has subtly spread, something author and blogger Lara Owen attributes to the self-help industry. "It is an oft-repeated tenet of the self-help industry," she writes, "that positive thinking is something to strive for and that if you do it well enough, you can get everything you want." Many people today consequently generalize positivity as constructive, stabilizing, and encouraging growth, and negativity as destructive, destabilizing, and propagating failure. As a result, we disregard the perils of positive thinking and the potential advantages of negative thinking, and fail to understand that a synthesis of both attitudes is possible--and perhaps most beneficial.

Before we can consider a synthesis of both types of thinking, it's important to understand how positive thinking falls short of encouraging productivity (its advertised benefit). Many of the strategies suggested for achieving purely positive thinking act as double-edged swords, helping people feel happier while getting less done. For example, in an Inc.com article, writer Geoffrey James recommends that to become positive thinkers we should "focus on what's going well" and "get a sense of proportion" in our lives. Such strategies promote ignorance of emotions resulting from problems in life. This ignorance can lead to an inhibited ability to acknowledge problems and delayed or insufficient responses to problems. Another of James' suggestions--to "improve your body chemistry" through trying not to encourage or surrender to bad moods--also serves to encourage avoidance of emotions through suppressing their manifestations. Such ignorance and avoidance allowed by positive thinking strategies are detrimental because they involve repression of unresolved emotions, which leads to psychological instability and vulnerability.

Another problematic aspect of positive thinking is visualization, the formation of mental images in one's mind of favorable future outcomes. SuccessConsciousness.com founder Remez Sassoon explains visualizing positive outcomes "is the primary tool for attracting success and prosperity." Critics like expert blogger Dr. Heidi Halvorson, however, believe visualization results in reduced success and productivity, and point to studies that show that the brain reacts to the mental images as it would they were real (you can read Dr. Halvorson's pertinent blog post here).

Surely a purely negative attitude--devoid of faith or confidence in oneself or the future--also involves its share of destructive distorted thinking. Instead of suffering at one end or the other of the the spectrum, however, it is more realistic to adopt an outlook on life that involves a synthesis of positive and negative thinking.

This graphic shows how a realistic outlook contrasts
purely positive and negative attitudes

Such an outlook would comprise of confidence in oneself coupled with a healthy acceptance of the possibility of failure. A method for achieving this outlook--fantasy realization--is outlined in an APA journal article published by the NYU psychologists Dr. Halvorson mentioned in her blog. "Fantasy realization theory states that when people contrast their fantasies about a desired future with reflections on present reality, a necessity to act is induced that leads to the activation and use of relevant expectations." Thus, for the general, mentally healthy population, the highest degree of productivity, efficiency, and success can be achieved through a combination of positive, faithful thinking and negative thinking.