No Room for Grey

For school I have to make a spoken word poem. I wrote this one and some people said I should put it on my blog. Hope you like it.

No Room for Grey

We are all raised

To believe there is:

Good and bad,

Law and Chaos,

Black and White.

Bright, shining heroes,

Bathed in sunlight.

Evil, haunted villains

Under a heartless moon.

All out problems will end

When he is in the grave.

It’s not just fiction.

History book have their favorites,

And their hated.

No room for grey

In the human psyche.

The death penalty lives as

long as we believe this illusion.

But what if we’re in the equation?

Not like we’ve ever killed,

Or saved a life,

Or started a war,

Or stopped a killer.

We are told

In the library,

In the theater,

In the classroom,

In our minds,

That there is good and bad,

Law and Chaos,

Black and White.

But what if we’re in the equation.

History books have their favorites.

Are you one.

Science vs religion

I know, I haven't been posting in a while. My excuse is homework, coupled with the fact I haven't had access to a computer where I knew how to use spell check (Which, if you consider the spelling errors I have with spell check, would make a post practically impossible to read) over christmas vacation.
At school, in history class, I've been learning about the John Scopes case, in which a science teacher named John Scopes was tried for teaching the theory of evolution. The simple case of whether or not he had broken a small, local law spiraled into a huge debate over the age-old question of science versus religion. And the defense, by the end, resorted to more or less trying to disprove much of the old testament. Given that the defense lawyer was a practicing christian.
I believe in evolution, but this kind of questioned my faith.
This doubt was deepened when, in science, we learned started our unit on the universe, which, if you believe it (Like I  do) pretty much discounts the whole creation story. But the thing that disturbed me most of all was the fact that, apparently, the earth was going to be burnt to a crisp slowly and painfully. Why would god put us on a planet that was doomed from the start?
The universe unit also exposed how small earth is compared to the whole world. I have never heard of anything in the bible saying we were the biggest thing in the universe, but it is still pretty demeaning.
To be honest , lately I've been doubting religion in general. It seems as though the word of god is somehow fighting things that can easily be proven true. And, although in some cases religion and science can agree with or even back up each other, they clash so much that it seems hard to hold onto christianity.
But the thing is, it only really disagrees with the old testament, which is also the part which has God go out killing the Hebrews' enemies (A very un-Godlike thing to do) and says the homosexuality is a sin. I can't find a single passage in the new testament where science would disagree with it (Except possibly Revelations, which is most likely in code anyways). And that is where true ideals of Christianity come out.
I'm not saying the old testament is a lie. Jesus does agree with most of it, doesn't he? But in the fine details arguments spring up.
But, whether or not he created the earth in seven days, god is out there. Why else would people who are resuscitated describe an after life? If matter and energy can't be created or destroyed, who made all this? Why is there life on the earth in the first place? These are the true questions that prove fatih.

Judas

Just as a note up-front, yes I know in my previous post I used greed twice and left out wrath. I'll fix it soon.
As for the content, I've been reading about some film-maker, who says that in all his films, he tries to keep out any antagonist, because he believes there is no one person who is completely responsible for a major conflict and his or her death is the sole solution to it. I know this is an opinion I have talked about before, but when I read that opinion, I started wondering about if other stories follow that principle. So far, none the literature I've read in school has proven to have a realistic antagonist, nor have many of the books and movies I read or watch for pleasure. The I thought about it in terms of the bible.
If you asked most christians who the antagonist of the bible was, the knee-jerk reaction is to respond satan. But since I don't believe in satan in the first place, and he isn't really an antagonist that can be over-come (As long as it holds true that no humans, be Jesus sides, are sinless). So, as far as the Christ story goes, most people consider Judas the big-bad guy. And since I can't think of anyone else like that, let's go with him.
In case you're not familiar with the story of Judas (Or are victim to the rumors about him, such as he used the first ever gun to kill himself), more or less his story goes like this: He was one of the disciples, starting with high hopes of the son of god crushing the evil romans underfoot. He became the sort of treasurer of the disciples and sometimes took more that his own share for himself. Later, when it became apparent Jesus  was not the expected military leader, he sold him out to the romans, and Jesus was crucified. Later, Judas killed himself out of remorse.
 Now, that is very different from the traditional antagonist story. For one thing, he seems to see Jesus as the sort of traditional hero, the one who fights people so evil they aren't really people, but monsters. For one thing, those kind of people don't exist, and Jesus sees that. So, after his vision is crushed, yes he sells Jesus out to the romans, and yes he gets payed for it. But now his vision is changed, seeing Jesus as the person who isn't a person.
But the thing is, the antagonist never has remorse in most stories. That's what separates the bible from books and movies, it has people who are really people, each one of them. Judas knows he did a wrong, and takes it out on himself.
If Judas had resisted his urge to commit suicide, would Jesus condemn him? Hurt him? At the very least lecture him? I say probably not, unless Jesus was some sort of hypocrite or else dying changed him a lot. Remember the story of the parodical son? Yes, this is a fair bit more than wasting your savings, but since Judas felt remorse more painful than any cross of torture Jesus suffered, Jesus would have welcomed him and save him, even if the Other disciples might  loath and despise him.
Speaking of which, have you ever wondered: what if Jesus has already come back, in some third world country or distant land. What if he's out there now with his own group of followers, waiting for us to hear.
 

7 deadly sins

I never really thought about the seven deadly sins much before, mostly because they have the word sin in the name, which is a word I never really like, mostly because whenever people use it, they're talking about why someone's going to hell. I've thought about it a bit more, and although it's a very imperfect philosophy (There are a lot more than seven reasons people do bad things), it gives a different way of thinking why people do bad things. And I'm going to do a series of posts about each one of them. But for now, I'll take a break from religious or philosophical posting and do something about my theory of how the seven deadly sins relate to different hogwarts teachers from Harry Potter. If you haven't read the books or don't like the books, please just stop reading here.

Note: Yes, I know Slughorn was potions teacher and Snape was defense against dark arts the sixth year, not the seventh. But, think about it. If J.K. Rowling intended each defense teacher to carry a deadly sin, it wouldn't bee the real defense teacher in the seventh book, who is mentioned and then forgotten.

Year 1, Qurall, greed: This argument is the weakest because  Qurall is one of the least developed characters, or rather, his actual personality is undeveloped, and his pathetic stuttering personality is not really him. The only part that he actually shows his true colors is in the climax, where he says (Quote approximated) "There is no good or evil, just power and those who are too weak to use it". He was power hungry, so he represented greed.

Year 2, Lockheart, pride: Simply the fact that he gave a quiz about himself to his students shows how vain he is. Throughout the year his class degrades into lectures about stuff he did.

Year 3, Lupin, sloth: I'll be honest, I did the other ones first so I could eliminate all the options but one, which had to be Lupin. Lupin seems like such a good person (Except for at night when he turns into a murder-crazed wolf. So I eliminated all the other and the final choice surprised me,  sloth. I suppose he was a sloth, he foolishly ignored the danger of his condition and taught at school of children he could easily accidently maim, kill, or infect with one hiccup on snape's part.

Year 4, moody, lust: I don't really know what lust is. Mostly when people thinks about it, it is thought to be lusting over someone whom you are physically attracted to, but the way I can see it, some people can lust for power or money as  much as they can a person, so this is what Moody, who is actually Bardy Crouch junior lusts for, revenge. Revenge against his father he wanted so badly that it was all that consumed him. Revenge for abandoning him and and betraying him. Revenge for being less a human and more a machine. Revenge for sentencing his own son to a punishment worse than death.

Year 5, Umbridge, greed: In this it is not Umbridge herself that is greedy. Umbridge is just a puppet of whoever is in power at the time, as long as she is at the top. No, the greed that I'm talking about is the greed of her puppeteer, Cornilias Fudge, minister of magic. You see, he is greedy because he has become minister of magic and, as is the human impulse, now that he is at the top, he is trying to keep that position. Although it would take a remarkable politician to let go of the feeling of wanting to be on top, Fudge keeps his position by using torture and fear to keep students from telling people about the impending crisis with Voldemort which fudge would be fired for if he was blamed for it.

Year six, slughorn, gluttony: This one is easy, Slughorn lets himself be bribed into telling Tom Riddle about a deadly secret that he knows is dangerous for a small treat. He also indulges himself with surrounding himself with talented students in order to do them a favor, and when they make it, reap the rewards.

Year seven, Snape, Envy: Snape is shaped by his envy of James Potter. That much you can tell by the seventh book. He sees Lily as a great person foolishly thrown away to the arrogant and talentless James Potter. He wishes that he were James Potter and he was with Lily. He only helps Harry because, even after Lily's death, he envisions himself with her and thinks she will thank him in the afterlife.

facebook religion

I know this is a small topic after writing about suicide, but have you ever gone on facebook and seen all the things where doctors will give cute/heroic people free operations if their posts or pictures get a certain number of likes or shares. What doctor would actually be evil enough to say, "Your boy who took a bullet for his little sister needs a heart transplant, but I'll give it to you free... if his picture gets 1000 likes on facebook! Bwahahahahaha!" But what gets on my nerves even more is facebook religion.
It's not like I expect deep philosophical discussion on facebook, but almost every post that is about religion is threatening non-believers.
If you read my blog on a regular basis, you know that I don't believe in hell in the afterlife, so this probably affects my view point, but I think it is completely unfair for god to condemn you on the day of judgement for not sharing a post. I actually talked to someone about his religion posts and his answer was "Well, I do agree it is a bit extreme, but think about it, there is so much other stuff on the internet, I might as add some religion in there."This leads me to believe that these people who put it up aren't actually believing it themselves, but just want to "Show god who's side they're on". In other words, they want a cushion in case somewhere in the afterlife they have to prove they were a good christian. Or maybe they really  believe it. Not to say there's no good religion on facebook. Just a few weeks ago I saw a post about why christians should be pro-gay.  

Suicide.

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in awhile. I was waiting for something big to happen that I could post about, and now that it has come, I wish it had never happened.
I heard that a friend of mine from second grade hanged himself this week.
I know it is much easier for you to have someone you don't know that well to die than someone you know very well. But the down side is my friend, who I hadn't seen in six years, only appears in small places in my memory. And he's never moping around or acting depressed. He's always smiling and laughing or making a joke or sining a silly song about "Different countries of the americas" Most people would instantly assume he changed in those six years, but I've seen photos of him, obviously not. In the pictures, he's smiling the way you can't fake.
And yet he killed himself.
I don't know the whole story, only he was angry so he stormed up to his room, tied the knot, and did it. But something else must have been going on who he was angry at is undoubtedly not to blame. Something was eating away at him. I fell like if I could just have five minutes alone talking to him before he did it I could have stopped it. Whenever something bad happens, I always think about it from what I could do if I was there before it happened.
I don't really know where I'm going with this. It just helps me to think about it when I type. The only real insight I can provide is it is the human impulse to feel sad and guilty when someone is dead. But if I could talk to his ghost I assure you, he would want to be remembered not by weeping, but by "Different countries".

Different religions

I'm officially off hiatus now.
To start it off, I want to talk about a book I've been reading. It's called The Life of Pi, and most people would say it's about a boy stuck on a life-boat with a tiger, which it mostly is. But the first part is all about religion.
The protagonist, Piscine Patel is a boy growing up in India who is rather undecided about religion. He gets into his native Hinduism, but later in life he meets a priest who introduces him to christianity, a baker who tells him about the muslim faith, and even his science teacher who tries to convince him there is no god.
He actually takes all the teachings to heart, except the atheist science teacher (Although he still considers him a big figure in his life).
The thing is, each figure who introduces him to the religion is completely ignorant of the two others. One day, all three of them corner his parents asking them about him. His parents believe him an atheist and were unaware that he subscribed to any religion. But the result is a heated debate between his three religious figure and his parents utterly confused how you can worship three religions and consider them all true, and Pi stuck with the image of his the priests fighting each other with angry, fiery words, each condemning the others religion as foolish and stupid.
I think I can understand what Pi is getting at. He saw what you are supposed to see in religion, love and theories. If there really is a god or multiple gods for each religion as  Pi believes, why should they be mad at each other? Because they wouldn't be. If god or the gods are really immortal and forgiving, then why would they condemn others? Because they don't. What causes the anger and angry debates are the people.