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(04/06/05 12:00pm)
I bet quite a number of you are surprised that I am writing again after receiving so many negative responses in the past two weeks.
Then again, seeing as how I never received many positive responses to begin with, perhaps this isn't much of a surprise.
Why do I keep coming back despite reactions that range from neutrality to deep hostility?
It is because I like writing for The Signal.
Since I began writing for The Signal last semester, it has been both a source of amusement and a crucible for my beliefs.
I have enjoyed being a columnist because it gives me a chance to improve my writing skills and to try out new ideas.
It allows me to see what type of reactions I receive from all sorts of people.
It gives me insight into the views my fellow students hold on politics and the meaning of life.
Further, writing is slowly helping me figure out the flaws in my own style of arguing.
Most importantly, writing Signal columns gives me a way to communicate with people I otherwise would not have the chance to meet.
Communicating, I feel, is something that a lot of people do not do.
As G. K. Chesterton said, most people "rely altogether on a few cynical maxims which are not true."
Take for instance, the idea that any argument that supports moral values is necesarily a religious argument.
I have encountered this mindset from many people.
No matter how much I try to base arguments off of reason, there is inevitably someone who gets back to me saying that I should not impose my beliefs on others.
Yet, to me, trying to explain to someone why premarital sex or having no spirituality is objectively dangerous to oneself is much more real than any debate over foreign policy.
So, I write in order to see what people think of these ideas and perhaps convince them of my point of view.
And, if I am wrong, it will help me figure out where I have erred.
Some have told me that they have stopped reading the articles entirely because they feel conservatives have taken over the opinions section.
This is the absolute worst reason for them to stop reading The Signal.
In doing so, they are openly admitting that they do not want their ideas to be challenged.
As a conservative on a liberal campus, I have learned many of the shortcomings of conservative thought.
I do not believe, for instance, in the death penalty, destroying the environment for our own gain, prayer in public schools or the agenda of the National Rifle Association.
But, where I do believe in conservative values, I am all the stronger because I have been exposed to the exact opposite so many times on this campus.
In these articles, I am not hoping to win a fight as much as I am trying to get people to see a different point of view that they probably would not have encountered otherwise.
It enables them to broaden their perspectives and become intellectually stronger.
Still, some might be dissuaded from taking an interest in The Signal because they feel this campus is apathetic and its students do not care about the world around them.
While this might be true in a lot of cases, I still disagree.
Just two weeks ago, I received major backlash from people who thought that, in my article attempting to expose problems with gay marriage, I was judging homosexuals.
In response, I received not only two pages of complaints in The Signal but also many messages over the Internet.
This is a very strong indicator that the campus does care and students should express themselves more often.
Until someone does step up, I am going to continue voicing my opinions unchallenged, no matter how unpopular those opinions may be.
I would encourage everyone who disagrees with what I or anyone else has to say to start writing for The Signal.
If a person feels his or her voice is not being heard, there is no reason for him or her not to do this.
Writing columns only takes a few hours a week and those hours go by quickly if you care strongly about a certain issue.
Furthermore, there is no reason to fear editorial censorship.
Despite holding opposing viewpoints, the only changes Signal editors have made were to make my columns stronger than they would be otherwise.
Also, regardless of what field you enter, writing a semi-weekly column and gaining your name in print will probably look good to an employer.
Lastly, no one should be dissuaded simply because he or she isn't a natural writer. After all, I am a math major who disliked Rhetoric and that has not kept me from writing.
So really, why not give it a shot?
If I can do this, so can you.
(03/16/05 12:00pm)
Most people I know do not consider same-sex marriage to be a big issue. They think of it as just another civil rights matter. Given enough time and pressure, society will change to accept gay marriage.
Further, they would probably argue that it would not harm anyone. If one says otherwise, that person must be homophobic or prejudiced.
For the most part, these people would be right. Most people who oppose homosexuality do it from the basis of religious belief, tradition and nothing else.
This is a major blunder on the part of all who argue against institutionalizing homosexual marriage. One can make an argument against it by relying on simple facts. So, for anyone who is willing to listen, here is that argument.
Many people first assume that homosexuals are as emotionally satisfied as heterosexuals.
If this were true though, homosexuals would not be 14 times more likely to attempt suicide and three-and-a-half times more likely to succeed at it than heterosexuals.
Some people would think that these studies were done in the 1970s, when homosexuality was less accepted. However, the statistics have not dropped even in the 1990s.
Furthermore, homosexuals have higher rates of interpersonal maladjustment, depression, conduct disorder, childhood abuse, domestic violence, alcohol or drug abuse, anxiety and dependency on psychiatric care.
There is a higher rate of promiscuity, which has leads to a higher rate of contracting STDs for homosexual males. In all, the life expectancy of a homosexual male is half that of a heterosexual male.
If just about any other activity had this level of risk and just about everyone who was involved with it claimed that they had no control over their desire for this activity, then probably most would agree it is an unhealthy activity or a disorder.
Yet, most would never dare think of this of homosexuality.
Many people also assume that if homosexual marriages were allowed then it would have absolutely no affect on heterosexual marriages.
I would argue against this notion by saying that if we allow same-sex marriages, then we are changing the definition of marriage itself and this has several implications.
Because homosexuals are much more likely to have more partners throughout a lifetime, they would be more likely to divorce and would, as a result, weaken the definition of marriage. This weakening would then make it psychologically easier for heterosexual couples to divorce.
Further, if one can change the definition of marriage to include people of the same gender, then there is no reason at all to not change it to include incest, minors, polygamy or animals.
One just needs to do a quick search on the Internet to see that there are organizations in America right now in support of these agendas and that they are just about the same size as groups supporting gay rights in their earlier days.
So, by allowing gay marriage, we are allowing the potential to change marriage into just about anything. One may even make the argument that some of these activities are far less harmful to individuals than homosexual activity.
I hope that no one reading this article will believe that I am condemning anyone.
In the past some have done horrible things to homosexuals. There has been unjust discrimination against homosexuals and all sorts of propaganda. These activities deny the basic human dignity that all human beings deserve, even those with harmful habits.
In truth, some people have no control over whether they have same-sex attraction and they should not be blamed for having this tendency.
The only reason I am writing this article is because I really do believe people are harming themselves by giving into these habits when it would be better for them to be chaste.
By allowing same-sex marriage, the government would be publicly condoning a practice that I have already shown is harmful to the people involved and to society as a whole.
Allowing it would not be helping anyone involved.
(03/02/05 12:00pm)
When the first priest sex scandal was exposed, it lead to a chain of events that was nearly catastrophic for the Catholic church. An endless stream of people came out of the woodwork to accuse the Church of hiding many known sex scandals. Caught off guard, the church had many sins to account for, but not nearly as many as an average observer would think.
Because I am writing about a sensitive subject, I would first like to say a few things up front.
First, while only less than four percent of clergy is accused, that is still four percent too many.
Second, the victims need all the care and help that they can get to overcome this dark time in their lives. That being said, the scandal is poorly represented in the media.
The media does not misconstrue the scandal with outright lies, but instead they leave certain details out of the reports. For example, it does not report that most of these cases have been settled out of court over the last 30 years.
Further, it does not tell you that settlements out of court secretly were commonly made to protect the face of the abused as well as the abuser, a practice the families of the abused supported. (However, it was still a mistake since it allowed people to avoid proper psychological treatment.)
The media does not even talk about people who are completely penitent for what they have done and have left the priesthood.
Also, it does not tell you that 80 percent of the cases, while legally pedophilia, were carried out with teenagers as opposed to small children.
Finally, the media does not bother to mention that some are falsely accused.
The reason for this media blitz against the church is very simple: the Catholic church is the loudest voice against the gay agenda, abortion and contraceptives. Because of this, the media applies pressure in hopes that the church will change its stances.
One way of doing this is to embarrass the Church. This desire to harm extends beyond the sex scandal and manifests itself in attacks on the pope.
The pope is savaged every time he states what the church has always believed. Is it such a surprise that the pope is against gay marriage? Every time he is ill, it is made to seem like he is taking his last breath.
This pressure group also commonly wants the church to give up its stance on priestly celibacy because they believe celibacy is partially causing the problem.
However, when one looks at abuse statistics, the percentage of clergy that have been convicted or is known to have committed these crimes is much lower than their counterparts in other denominations and among people who work with children.
We know in California that two percent of priests have been involved, compared to four percent of married people and seven percent of the general population. If celibacy had contributed to sexual abuse, then these statistics should be the opposite.
What the media fails to understand is that the real cause of the scandal goes back to the seminaries of the late '60s and '70s that did not recognize the value of celibacy as a gift from God that St. Paul, Christ and several others recommended.
Instead, they depended on a misapplied psychology that said that pleasure is the best guide to development and happiness.
Many seminaries thought that celibacy was soon going to be abolished. For someone planning to live a life of complete service and chastity, this was the worst possible training that one could receive.
Luckily, reform of the seminaries has already begun. With the writings of the current pontiff such as "Theology of the Body," the Church has taken on a whole new theological perspective on human sexuality.
What I am presenting here is not an excuse for what happened. I hope more than anything else that no one thinks that I am scapegoating either psychology or sexuality. The real problem is, and always will be, whether or not people choose to live morally or selfishly.
Some people believe that the problem is that the church was too strict with its teachings and people cracked beneath it. The real problem though is not that the teachings were too strict, but that the church did not follow them.
(02/23/05 12:00pm)
The one thing the Bush administration has been criticized about more than anything else is its foreign policy.
Many believe that the war in Iraq was a mistake or that it was conducted for purely economic reasons.
Because of it, the United States has lost favor in Europe, which has traditionally been an American ally.
One large complaint is that this administration has no real plan for its policies and is acting recklessly. These are all problems facing newly appointed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
To put it simply, Rice's plan for the Middle East is to promote democracy. That is why there was war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Both countries had regimes that were unpopular among their people. In his last term, President Bush decided it was better to remove them than allow them to make the region more unstable.
Some believe that this takes the focus of the war on terror off dismantling al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
Rice, however, defends the president's previous actions by saying that the aim "is to have allies in the war on terrorism in the heart of the Arab world and to have a fundamentally different kind of Middle East than we have."
If the governmental changes in these countries are successful, it could mean a whole new chapter in Middle Eastern politics. Iraq and Afghanistan were both known to harbor terrorist organizations and both worked to undermine U.S. actions for the personal gain of each regime and not necessarily of its people.
With these regimes gone, friendlier ties with the United States and a whole new form of economic stability are possible.
As a result, terrorist power within these countries will decrease and make America safer, especially since both countries had great turnouts for their elections and have elected secular governments.
As long as people are indoctrinated in how evil the United States is and are harmed by their government's irresponsibility towards them, the terrorist organizations will only grow.
If, however, they see that the United States is helping nations become successful and free, it may undermine the terrorists' goals.
Some are skeptical that Rice will succeed in promoting democracy, but two recent events give hope.
First, a new cease-fire has been declared between Israel and Palestine. The new president of Palestine has stated that his first priority is peace.
In response, the secretary of state is pressuring Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and is offering Palestine $350 million in aid and is otherwise staying out of the situation.
Second, Indonesia has announced that it wishes to restore military ties with the United States. Indonesia is the largest Islamic nation and will be useful in the upcoming years to show that not all of the Islamic world is hostile toward America.
To further show that the United States can be extremely helpful to countries that cooperate with it, Rice has supported giving aid to Pakistan and Jordan as well. These changes could be an impetus for great change in the Middle East.
The world might appreciate that Rice has policies that use more persuasion than force.
In North Korea, Rice refused to enter bilateral talks because she believes it is a regional problem and not an American one.
Instead, she supports the multilateral talks already in place.
She has also convinced Europe to apply economic pressure to Syria for not cooperating with the investigation of a former Lebanese prime minister and for possibly hiding Saddam Hussein's supporters.
In Iran, she is supporting similar action because of its developing nuclear program. With her "whirlwind" tours of Europe, the Middle East and Asia, she has reached out to more countries than I thought this administration ever could.
Overall, we are at a great crossroad in the history of the world. There are many who say we should immediately withdraw from Iraq and stay out of world politics. Those who say so forget what potential there is in this region.
Given recent events, there is a good chance that peace in the Middle East can be achieved in our lifetimes. If we withdraw now, that possibility will end.
If America is to reach its full potential in promoting democracy and peace in the world, then Rice is the right woman for the job and I hope that her next four years are as successful as her first month.
(02/09/05 12:00pm)
In many ways, Valentine's Day is my least favorite of all the holidays. It would be one thing if it were merely a commercialization of a holiday, but it is all one giant commercial. All I ever see of it is the exchanging of chocolate, powdery candy, cute little stuffed teddy bears and gaudy little cards. All this is done in the name of romance, but I do not see what is so romantic about it.
Do not get me wrong, I like chocolate and dating and whatnot (though cards and bears I can do without), but the problem I see is when all these things come together in one holiday meant to glorify an emotion.
Emotions themselves are a fickle thing. Given how much hydrocarbon you have in the morning can determine your mood.
Even someone praising you or a giving you bad grade on a paper can change your mood. That is why so much chocolate is passed around on this holiday: it is an aphrodisiac meant to inspire romantic thoughts in those who eat it.
Most people are not bothered by this fickleness of emotions. After all, it is natural and it does not really matter too much if one person has emotions for another person or not since it is up to them who they date or not date anyway.
But I say the danger that comes from thinking of this emotion as romantic love is that eventually people think these emotions are all there is to love.
Many people have the notion that once there is no longer lovey-dovey feelings in a relationship, they are not really in love and that it is better for them to be apart. I believe that is a contributing factor to the high divorce rate in this country.
However, this mode of thought goes against all of what is really romantic in the world. Take, for instance, someone like Jane Eyre who really had no reason to fall in love with Mr. Rochester, but loved him anyway.
In the movie "The Princess Bride," Wesley comes back to find that the girl he loves is engaged to the king. He has to go save her from bandits and is tortured for their love. In the great movie "Spider-man 2," the hero is willing to give up the girl in order to save the city from crime and supervillains.
Even though each of these stories may be exaggerated in terms of the amount of suffering people can go through for love, they still hit a core truth that love and sacrifice are one and the same. So love cannot be a pure emotion because no one would ever naturally want to give so much of themselves to another person.
St. Valentine himself was a man of much love, though knowledge of him has been greatly obscured over time. But he showed his love much like the previously mentioned fictional characters by giving himself to be martyred for his love of Christ. As Ephesians says, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."
To me, this is the greatest sign of love because it shows love as a willed action at great cost to the one who is loving.
I am not saying that you should not go out and have your fun that night because I really hope you all do.
But please, do not go around convincing yourself that the emotions involved in it are love. Love will come not when you are having a good time, but rather in your worst times. Love will happen when one of you are sick or when one of you are tired or depressed. Love is what happens when you stick with a person despite their faults and when you try to improve that person.
Above all, love is when you feel you need to improve yourself for that person. I hope you all keep this in mind when celebrating love this year.
(02/02/05 12:00pm)
It was a very cold day immediately after the storms and my car was still half buried in snow.
I traveled over 150 miles in a bus that day with eight other students and 40 people who you would never expect to participate in any form of public protest. But, we still went protesting because we had a mission. Our mission was to affirm that every human being has a right to live. Yes, my friends, I was going to the March for Life in Washington, D.C.
What is the March for Life? It is a time when pro-lifers from all over the United States converge on Washington annually in protest of the Roe v. Wade decision. In this decision, freedom of choice was declared. This meant a woman has a right to do whatever she wishes with her own body. But that left the doorway open for later court decisions to define what constitutes her body and what her choice means.
It is commonly thought now that anything within a woman is her own body and that if she wants cut out a part of herself, that is perfectly legal.
However, such a decision ignores 30 years of advancements in science that shows that what is inside a pregnant woman is not her own body but a completely separate being with its own blood-type, nervous system and DNA.
Even with the scientific fact that we are dealing with another person, people still ignore that abortion is nothing more than publicly supported murder done by doctors.
In a decision aimed to help poor women in their most desperate straits of either death or poverty, things that have gone completely off course with 1.3 million abortions done per year in the United States alone.
These numbers point to a vast lack of respect for human beings. This shows up in the dramatically rising statistics of domestic abuse, divorce, infanticide and Post-abortion syndrome. These are facts and we can see the immediate rise in all of these after the year 1973, when the decision was made.
Another correlation to this disdain for human life is the slippery slope of further life issues such as cloning and euthanasia. It is an unfortunate fact of human history that people have acted horribly toward one another and, as a race, we are guilty. This is not the type of world I nor anyone who was at the March wish to live in.
If abortion were only legal in cases of rape, incest or whenever a woman's life was in danger, this would be a whole other issue.
As the facts remain though, these events are only a small fraction of all the reasons people have abortions. Even if a child was born impoverished, that is better than never being born because at least that child could still be adopted and maybe rise above that state.
There may one day be a problem with food production or with caring for these unwanted children or even that we would head to a world where illegal abortions are done at the costs of the lives of women.
But these are societal problems that must be dealt with and are not avoided by abortion, which causes more problems than it solves.
Long after this dark period of history is over and is just a distant memory, I bet abortion will appear to be as strange as slavery appears to us today. In that day, however, there will still be a March for Life.
For so long as there are people being mistreated and unjustly harmed and rights are thrown out to be meaningless, there will be good people aiming to defend the dignity of human life.
Each of us can choose whether we march for ourselves and our desires or whether we march for a better world in which everyone can live happily and freely.
What pro-choice people sometimes forget is that once one chooses death, there are no other choices to be made for whomever they chose to kill.
What I support as a pro-life person is the right for everyone, even the unborn and unheard, to choose what their life will become.
(01/26/05 12:00pm)
In a recent address to the National Press Club, Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts revealed his vision for the the Democratic Party's role in America's future.
With quite wonderful rhetoric, he displays everything that is considered sacred to his party and makes some strong points about Medicare and education.
Anyone who agrees with him would be immediately drawn to his prose and hope for a place for Democrats in the future, which they see as a bleak America ruled by the Republican Party, after gaining majority in both houses of Congress and winning the Presidency.
His speech can be summed up with the words, "We as Democrats may be in the minority in Congress, but we speak for the majority of Americans."
But I fear that Kennedy does not accurately describe the current political spectrum.
While he can support his claim that Democrats speak for the majority in the United States with polls that show Bush has a dropping approval rate, these polls have been shown to be very inaccurate from the outcome of the election.
The statement in itself ignores the fact that elections really do matter and that this election has not been challenged by the opposing candidates.
Simply put, if the Republican view did not represent the view of the majority of Americans then the Republicans would not have gained majority in government.
The outcome of any election in which a party has lost so much must be a horrible thought for anyone who is completely and totally convinced that the opposing side is wrong.
So, instead of reexamining the views of the Democrats, he blames other circumstances. He first claims that Americans are living in the memory of Sept. 11 and they fear terrorism.
But if they really feared terrorism and were convinced of the Democratic view that Bush was the cause of even more hatred of America in the world, then they should have voted Democrat.
Then he lists the "quagmire in Iraq" and the relentless attacks on the Democratic candidate as the cause of the loss.
If Iraq was so bad, then they could have at least nominated a candidate who voted consistently against the war.
Further, if you want to talk about relentless attacks, Bush has received more than his fair share of hits from just about everywhere and has had at least one film dedicated to the shortcomings of the war.
The point is that the American people knew these things going into the voting booth, and they decided pro-Republican.
To say that the Democrats still deserved to win because of underhandedness from the other side is just nonsense and they should move on.
The chief reason for public backlash against Bush has been the war in Iraq.
Yet Kennedy only mentions that the Democratic presidential candidate would have done a better job getting other countries to help out with the effort.
Other than that, he has no plan on how we can leave Iraq or better the situation.
So if people hate Bush mostly because of Iraq, they are truly at a loss because even the most liberal of the liberal democrats, Kennedy, does not support immediate withdrawal.
Kennedy also criticizes making the Democratic Party more conservative by saying that we do not need two Republican parties in this country.
While I agree with him on that, we also do not need two Democratic parties, which is more in line with his goals.
He talks about the "politics of hope and unity" while simultaneously bashing everything which Republicans stand for and which Democrats pretend Republicans stand for.
One would think that at the very least, people would learn from the presidential campaign that negative campaigning, especially while making up truths, does not work.
If there is one good thing about Bush, at least he does not spend his time muttering on and on about how the Democrats are wrong.
What is the hope and unity that Kennedy wants?
He wants to give everyone a decent education, make sure all people have good health care and that they will be kept above the poverty level from the time they are young to the day they die.
None of these goals are unworthy, and I look forward to seeing how the debate continues on these issues and the compromises that are made.
The debate is still on for how we should deal with the social issues of this country and the Democrats have an important role in it.
That is why, more than ever, they need to recognize the limitations of their policies because neither side of the aisle has solved the world's problems.
If Kennedy really desires people to be more united in the future, then the first thing he should do is to live past this election defeat.
If he continues to attack what the American people have chosen, then he is just pushing his party further away from ever gaining power again.
In this scenario, all his worse dreams will come true and the conservatives will have control of government unchecked.
The Democrats cannot continue working against the president and still hope for a better future, so they must work with him.
Bush's plan to help the poor is centered around faith-based initiatives that have been known to spend money more efficiently than government.
His plan to help education is the No Child Left Behind Act, which was at first a cooperation between the parties but has since turned sour.
These are things that Democrats can work on with Republicans and there is no reason why they should not. Kennedy can do a lot of good right now and stop this senseless blame game.
I pray that he does.
Because, despite all the rhetoric, Bush is not an evil man and he is able to listen to people who disagree with him.
In some cases, he does act without consideration, but that is what a leader should do if he absolutely believes he is right.
If Kennedy understands this and really wants to help people, then some good work can be done in Washington.
(12/01/04 12:00pm)
With Colin Powell leaving the position of Secretary of State, President Bush has decided to elevate Condoleeza Rice to the position, making her the first black female to have this rank. With this new rank comes much responsibility.
Not only is Rice trying to fill the shoes of one the most popular members of Bush's cabinet, but she also has to be America's face to the world in a time when the country does not have as many allies as it once had and its policies are more far reaching than ever before. Who is this woman in whom Bush has put so much trust?
Rice was born in Birmingham, Ala. in 1954 during a time of racial segregation. Because of her early experiences with racism she learned that in order to overcome prejudice she would have to be very educated. She proved to be a prodigy and entered college at age 15.
While attending the University of Denver, her interest in Soviet Russia was peaked by Professor Josef Korbel, father of Madeleine Albright. She learned fluent Russian. She graduated college at the age of 19 and became a fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control by age 26. Her interest in Eastern Affairs earned her the rank of Soviet Affairs Adviser under the first Bush just as the Berlin Wall fell.
On returning to Stanford in 1993, Rice became the first woman and first non-white provost of the college. There she remained and authored three books, until Bush asked her to become National Security Adviser.
In this role, Rice has been incredibly loyal to the president and has acted as a balance between Powell's State Department and Rumsfeld's Pentagon. She has more often than not agreed with the more hawkish Rumsfeld and the rest of the cabinet than with the more moderate Powell.
Some believe that the president chose Rice in order to gain more control over all of his agencies. Some also say that she has not been assertive in dealing with internal conflicts and imposing her will on the president.
This criticism, while valid, ignores one important fact: Rice taught Bush his foreign policy. She was instrumental in forming his plans on the war against terror as well as other issues. So, as long as Bush and the rest of his cabinet already agree with her, there is not much to be assertive about.
Others have said that Rice is too close to the president, citing that she spends much of her recreation time at Camp David and they often watch sporting events together.
But, this closeness is one of her greatest strengths considering how different Powell's view of global diplomacy is from the president's.
When the world leaders deal with Rice, they will know that her opinions will be nearly identical to the president's. Considering the precariousness of foreign politics today, a united front is necessary.
If one only listens to Rice's detractors then she will be no more than Bush's yes-woman who will carry out the president's will unquestioningly. She has been called a number of racial slurs as well, such as "Aunt Jemima," by certain members of left-wing media because of her support of the president and conservative foreign policies.
But, this is an obviously gross oversimplification of her role and what she means to the president.
In truth Rice is a woman of amazing character and possibly the most learned person available for dealing with Russia and other former Soviet states. Her knowledge of foreign affairs and loyalty to the president make her the most logical choice for secretary of state.
We can expect great things from her in the days ahead.
(11/17/04 12:00pm)
This election has caused many to question the role of religion within American politics. Some believe that separation of church and state is being violated by people who make moral decisions based on their faith. They feel that religion is irrational and unreasonable. This view of religion in politics is completely false.
The first thing that everyone should remember is that religious people are not forced into religious beliefs.
In this day with modern means of distributing information, there is no reason for anyone to stick with whatever faith he or she was brought up in and usually when that faith is forced on someone, he or she rebels against it later in life.
So, far from being a controlling force over people, religion becomes a means to fully express what someone already believes and a means to know more about life and live it more fully.
This is why I would want people to vote based on what their religion is. They have freely chosen it and it is part of who they are. If people cannot make public decisions based on their religion then certain beliefs are being oppressed.
Still, some say that this overt attempt to impose morals on society is a violation of the separation of church and state. This is untrue because all "the separation of church and state" means is that the state will not endorse any religion. If the majority of elected officials just happen to be conservative Christian types and they all vote based on their morals, then it is just as legal as voting for other reasons.
However, some may say, religion is superstitious and obviously wrong. They would then go on to say that there is no reason to ever be against what people do in privacy since it has nothing to do with another person.
So, gay marriage and abortion are perfectly acceptable and how dare anyone say these choices are wrong. I feel this is less of a function of rational thought than pure blindness to how these decisions would affect society.
I am not just against abortion and gay marriage because my religion tells me to be. Abortion is far from being a miracle that alleviates women from the pains of raising unwanted children. Every year it kills more people than all 12 wars America has ever fought combined. It is an abuse toward women in terms of guilt and physical-emotional damage, and ultimately it is men who do not want to be tied down to children who win.
Gay marriage cannot even be granted by the state because, at least in western culture, marriage is a religious notion. Therefore, only a religious body can grant a marriage.
All a government can give two people is a civil union based on a contractual agreement dealing with monetary responsibilities and legal rights.
A marriage assumes that there is a couple that can and will reproduce and that the two people involved will be completely devoted to loving and honoring each other.
The state cannot grant this because marriage is not owned by the state. So, if the state starts granting marriages, then that would mean the state is enforcing a religious belief.
These, in short, are my rational arguments for anyone who ever wanted to know why anyone without religious beliefs would be against abortion or gay marriage. My faith helped me to come to these conclusions but it in no way bound me to them.
Another misconception is that it is mostly/only right wing Christians voted for Bush and against gay marriage.
Being that 60 million people voted for the president and that gay marriage was voted against in every single state where it was on the ballot, including Oregon which voted Democrat, either there are many more Christian Evangelicals in America than I ever dreamed or more than just them voted for Bush. This shows the universality of moral issues beyond the scope of just one point of view of faith.
Overall, this strange backlash against religion displays nothing more than a fear of religion. To someone without any faith in general, religion seems like a weird thing: people do things sometimes without completely thinking out why and a lot of times they do not even live up to their own morals. Sometimes it seems that people have absolutely no reason to believe what they do.
But, since the grand majority of people think and act like this, the best thing skeptics can do for themselves is try their best to understand why people have religious faith.
So, I suggest to all of those people who are very scared of a giant religious invasion of a formerly free America that they should try to find a religious person who is not a bigot or a hypocrite and knows his or her faith well enough to explain it.
Try talking to this person and try to get deep into understanding why he or she believes in the invisible. Even if you do not agree, you just might understand from where these people come.
Once you do that, you may realize that there is very little to fear from religion.
(11/10/04 12:00pm)
Some say the apocalypse will come in a fiery explosion. Some say the dead will rise and be judged. Others say robots will rule the Earth. Judging by the reactions to the election, I am betting the majority of this campus thinks the end of days will begin with President Bush's second term.
Never have I heard of such an incredibly negative reaction toward a candidate who won so decidedly. One issue that continually comes up is this notion that Bush will bring back the draft. This, my friends, is the biggest lie told during this election.
As Bush himself said during the second presidential debate, "An all-volunteer army is best suited to fight the new wars of the 21st century, which is to be specialized and to find these people as they hide around the world ... We don't need mass armies anymore ... Now, forget all this talk about a draft. We're not going to have a draft so long as I am the president."
In the third debate Bush fleshed out his argument by pointing to new technologies that can be used and the fact that American forces are training a new Iraqi security force that will number 125,000 people by the end of this year.
Meanwhile, Sen. Kerry believed that our army, being as over extended as it is, needed an increase in order to continue the war.
As Kerry clearly stated during the second debate, "I'm going to add 40,000 active duty forces to the military, and I'm going to make people feel good about being safe in our military, and not overextended."
And again in the third debate, Kerry said, "In addition, I'm going to double the number of Special Forces so that we can fight a more effective war on terror, with less pressure on the National Guard and Reserve."
I do not know how Kerry planned to get these numbers without a draft. But, does this pressure to increase our military really exist?
According to retired Lt. Col. Leonard Wong, a research professor at the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, the answer is no.
Wong said, "The draft would be the Army's worst nightmare. We have a high quality Army because we have people who want to be in it. Our volunteer force is really a professional force. You can't draft people into a profession."
Also, according to statistics on troop deployment, only three National Guard units are active and four are being mobilized. This means that there are 31 other units that America can still draw on if needed. This is very far from overextending our troops.
Another initiative taken by Bush is a redeployment of troops across the world. Currently, we have troops set up to prepare against a Russian Cold War invasion to Germany or South Korea.
Over the next four years Bush plans to remove troops from those areas and put them in more strategic areas to fight terrorism, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Afghanistan so long as those nations allow us.
What Bush recognizes here is a need to change strategies to fight a new war.
What's ironic in this whole situation is that the only people in Congress who are pro-draft at all have been two liberal Democrats. Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York and Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings have both supported bills that require "that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes."
In these bills' defense, people can choose in times of peace to enter non-military service. While they are both dead in the water when it comes to them possibly being passed, the bills have the purpose of increasing military service by making people serve whether they want to or not.
So, they would make in effect, a draft.
To me, it seems that the campaign against Bush was run primarily on fear. There is no count to the number of times the Democratic Party and its supporters have tried to pin a draft to this president among other lies.
These fears were believed deeply, especially in states like New Jersey and especially on college campuses.
You all may still fear the overturning of Roe v. Wade; you may still fear an economy run by conservative economics. But one thing you will never have to fear from this president is a draft.
(11/04/04 12:00pm)
Throughout the presidential election, the war in Iraq has been used as a pawn in both the Bush and the Kerry campaigns.
Because George W. Bush has made many controversial decisions on this war, he has been widely criticized.
Some people believe that more diplomacy should have been used before going to war with Iraq and he should have brought in more allies.
Others believe that Bush lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Many believe that Bush is picking and choosing which opressive regimes should remain and which regimes can be removed.
Still others think that it was, "the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time."
To understand why Bush decided to go to war, I will now go over the events preceding this war.
According to the Doelfer Report, Saddam Hussein's mission ever since the Kuwait war was to reconstitute Iraq's WMDs. He was concerned primarily with his survival, regime and legacy.
But in order to foster a grand image of a leader to the Middle East, he needed WMDs. So, first he had to end the U.N. sanctions.
Saddam saw these sanctions as one thing: an enemy. He did everything he could to get past them and tried to carry favor with some members of the U.N. Security Council in an attempt to divide them.
He planned that after the sanctions were lifted, he would come out with a much stronger Iraq and be able to immediately go back to amassing military strength.
How did he plan to do this? By exploiting the Oil-for-Food program. The OFF program was supposedly to help Iraq because it was decimated by sanctions and war.
Because of corrupt French and Russian officials, Saddam received in some circumstance hard cash for which to buy weapon systems.
Even with the legitimate money, he was able to buy dual-purpose machinery that could be used for military and non-military purposes.
Also, since Iraq was still allowed to develop weapons with a range of 150 km, it was still able to invest money into weapons development.
Because of this type of diplomacy and underhandedness, Iraq was able to build up 400,000 tons of munitions and that was just what we could secure post-war.
Iraq may not have had WMDs, but because of all these back-room deals, everyone from Bush to Blair to Putin to last year's Kerry thought that they were there.
Even without them, Iraq still had an impressive arsenal.
Still, some say Saddam had no link to terrorism and was not a threat. Yet, he was fostering terrorism within his borders.
Furthermore, if Iraq ever acquired the means to create WMDs, it would most likely use it against its enemy Iran or against Isreal, in a hope to gain favor in the Muslim World.
If either of these situations occurred, it would mean complete destabilization of the whole
Middle East. So long as we are a country dependent on oil, this cannot be allowed to happen. Some will then say that with that reasoning we should take out Pakistan. The difference between Iraq and Pakistan, though, is that Pakistan is willing to give up terrorists within its borders and is not lead by an anti-American fascist.
The war on terrorism is very simple: other countries should stop harboring people bent on destroying America and we will leave them alone.
It has nothing to do with that county's internal affairs or its form of government. Because terrorist groups are such a large threat to American stability, we cannot tolerate them anymore.
So as long as there are world leaders bent on their own goals and stock piling weapons in order to gain more power while harboring our enemies, we are not secure.
That is why we must support our troops and support our president in war.
If we end this war haphazardly, we will make the whole situation worse off than when it started and lose any potential of creating any good from it: the creation a free democratic country. So, it is my hope that the president will continue to rebuild Iraq and to defeat terrorism wherever it is.
Our security should be the first concern because without it all other issues do not matter.
Instead of bashing the Bush administration and constantly calling for an immediate end of the war, please think on the best way to come out of the situation, not the easiest.
Above all, be respectful despite the political climate. We are at war and useless politically-driven quarrels will just make it last longer.
(10/13/04 12:00pm)
I have heard people say that belief in God is fine and well enough, but that we have no proof of anything beyond religion's claims to know truth. Therefore we should not bother exploring any of them because of their conflicts and hypocrisies.
I respond that not only do I believe that we can come to know truth but that religion itself is a necessary part of being human.
Every culture in the world has some sort of religion. Each have certain aspects that are remarkably similar.
First, there is the idea of setting yourself below something higher, whether it is nature or a spirit. Second there is an idea of sacrifice and thanksgiving to this being. Third, there is an idea of community and moral law.
There is no reason for every culture to have these similarities especially when they hardly have anything else in common unless there is something universally true in this idea of religion. In a way, all societies are built around a religion.
In societies where religion is abolished, the people worship other things instead. Take, for instance, the French Revolution when Notre Dame was converted into a Temple of Reason. Also, look at the Soviet Union when Communism was practically dogma.
As a less extreme example, look at the sudden rise of the New Age movement as traditional religion withdraws.
There are even people who raise certain pop culture icons, or money, or sports or their job, or romance to the status that people in any other time period would consider to be nearly of religious significance.
Some will say that they do not want to be fanatical like an Islamic Fundamentalist or Medieval Christian, and that being religious will just open people to more violence.
To this I say that there is nothing inherent in having a faith that turns people into fanatics. There will always be bad people with authority and there will always be war.
Unless it is a specific tenant of a religion to be warlike and intolerant, I do not see how the religion could be blamed.
Some will say that what really matters is spirituality and individual belief and all religion does is get in the way of truly knowing the creator and his will. I could not agree more; individual belief is an incredibly important thing.
If you do not have a community of like-minded people, I suggest you find one because I have found that unless you share what you believe with others, you may become inconsistent and lazy about striving for the truth and never realize it.
Trying to live a holy life is hard and everyone needs help with it sometimes.
And other people might say that religion is not essential and does not change lives; it is just a list of do's and do not's. If faith does not change the way a person lives, then it's the person's fault, not his or her faith.
Most likely, religion did not change a person's life because that person did not wish to give something up for that religion.
Religion is based on the idea of sacrifice and without some sort of sacrifice, whether it means actually giving something up or correcting certain behaviors, there can be no change in a person's life.
Why sacrifice? One sacrifices because he or she loves something; if one loves something then there is no room for selfishness or pride or any of the other things that put humans against each other and God.
In a natural sense, this is a very important function of religion; it raises us up to think about more than just our immediate surroundings and minor pleasures and always keeps us focused on something higher.
When most look at religion, they see archaic myth detached from reality - a way one human used to control another one in order to keep a stable society.
But any attempt to remove religion for the sake of making man his own god has instead made him equal to animals and a slave to any number of passions, none of which makes him any happier.
So please, strive after truth for it is the only thing that makes one free.
(10/06/04 12:00pm)
It seems to me that in my last article on prayer, I was doing things a bit backwards.
In it, I made the claim that prayer is useful and it helps you live life well. I still believe this is true.
However, I did not go deep enough because I did not say what I actually believe prayer is: a deep communion with God.
But, before I could say that in an article in The Signal, I would first need to give a reasonable explanation for God's existence because some people have a naturally atheistic bent.
Here is why I believe God exists.
My first argument is called the Argument of Causality. The world exists as a series of causes and effects. But, there is nothing which causes itself.
The first cause cannot be of this world because then the world would be self-caused.
So, the creator must be outside natural understanding. This Creator we call God, and Aquinas goes on for volumes describing the attributes of God.
My second argument has been termed the Argument from Desire.
The premise is that we desire many things but are never satisfied by those things.
Also, we cannot have desires that cannot be fulfilled because no other creature wants what is impossible for it to get. (Fish do not dream of breathing air and dolphins do not crave broccoli.)
Yet, humans are restless with what they have no matter what they have, whether it be the biggest car or the latest movie or dreams of fortune.
But, ultimately this does not satisfy. I call the satisfying of this desire the ultimate good, God. Without God, there are only three routes desire can take - oblivious optimism, jaded dissatisfaction or hedonism. None of these will lead toward a satisfying life.
Why does this make a difference? Belief in God is much more reasonable than people usually suppose.
In fact, despite what people think, religion is much more tolerant than atheism.
As a theist, I believe in a freedom of religion that allows people a freedom of conscience that allows them to understand God in whichever way they wish. Yet, the atheistic version of this basic freedom turns it into an oppression of all religion.
There are many instances of this oppression. For instance, in France any religious symbol in a public place, including a Muslim's head scarf, is banned.
Also, look at the forced removal of all prayer at public school. The California Supreme Court that ruled that the pledge of allegiance was unconstitutional for even mentioning God.
There are many more instances of this and all done in the name of liberalism that is supposed to respect people of all beliefs.
What people fail to realize is that freedom of religion of this type enforces a whole new kind of religion.
The thing I find most ironic is that if there is no God, then why would anyone be offended by another's belief in a god? To me, this is the greatest proof that there is a God.
So, I argue that people should be open to the possibility of God.
For, if there is something that exists that created you, then it is likely that that being created a way for you to know Him.
For those of you who are interested learning more about Christianity, then I suggest you read "Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton or Gospel of Matthew chapter five and then the rest of the Gospel.
Above all, pray and always be in pursuit of truth whereever it leads you.
(09/15/04 12:00pm)
As I looked across the activities fair last Wednesday, I saw the school at its best. One could taste the optimism in the air as all the clubs crowded into Brower Student Center to put their best foot forward to win a few new members.
In all this flurry, one is promised many things. In one club, you could go sky diving, in another you can become a political activist and in another you can hang out and have a good time.
This is what college is supposed to be: a place of opportunity and discernment where you can try many things. It is final preparation for the rest of your life.
There are, though, clubs which do not strive for any of these things. These clubs support a faith-based view of life, and for that they are often ignored by the rest of the campus, written off as unneccessary and a waste of time.
What they can teach you though is more important than anything you can learn in college: the importance of prayer.
To understand why prayer is important, one must first understand what prayer is.
Prayer is that natural instinct of all humans to open their souls to spiritual realties. It is not a withdrawal from the world, but a way to affirm the world.
If taken all at once, the world can be a large and distracting place, without any sort of center. One can easily fall into a trench of thinking that all things happen without purpose.
But, if you turn and deeply reflect on questions like, "Why do I do what I do?" and then follow whatever answer you find, life is anything but meaningless.
I believe that many people aren't only passively being distracted from asking such a question, but they actively avoid it.
When I ask myself, "Why do I do what I do?" I'm starting with several assumptions.
First, I'm saying that my life and, by extension all other life, has a reason and purpose.
Second, I'm saying that there is a right way and wrong way to live.
Third, I'm saying that we are responsible for ourselves and to change ourselves if we are not living up to our own morals.
This can be a very scary thing for most people and so they do not pray.
What I tell you all, though, is that if you do not reflect on your life and live up to your morals, then you are missing out on one of the most important things a person can do.
You may say that you are controlled by forces beyond yourself. But, then how can you even reflect on purpose?
Ultimately, pretending that we are determined is a removal of responsibility from oneself. In this way, prayer helps to bring you back a dignity and freedom of choice.
Jesus once said, "What does it profit a man to have all the treasures in the world but to lose his soul?"
I believe he is not only talking about the heavenly sense when he says "soul," but how one lives his whole life.
For, what is the point of getting an "A" in all your classes, or getting your candidate into office or just sitting around having a good time, if life itself has no greater meaning?
And if life itself has a greater meaning, isn't it worth 30 minutes a day reflecting on that meaning and living it out?
If you are a Christian, I want you to be the best Christian you can be. The same goes for Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists and everyone else. The only way I can see this happening, though, is if each person has a deep commitment to prayer and reflection.
In prayer, we recommit ourselves to our beliefs and we are renewed to live them out. In my experience, prayer has been a great source of renewal for me. It took me two years of wandering around college, not quite knowing what to do with my time here.
When I first began to have a strong commitment to prayer, I realized how many times I gave in on my morals and never stood up for what I believed in.
When I reflect on scripture or meditate on a great mystery, life becomes so much deeper and has that much more meaning.
On certain levels the activities fair is an outward manifestation of what goes on in the heart of the student body.
There are hundreds of possible pursuits in life, but you can only do so many in the time you are here.
In a way, it is a microcosm of one's whole life.
So, before you do anything else, I urge you to think out actions and pray. Each one of us has a purpose and no one wants to miss it.