Well, today, I got to sit in on six student panel meetings and repeat myself 5,000 times. It was a lot of fun. SO much fucking fun, I almost strangled myself. One interesting point, however, is I found out how proud I was of our Honor's Program out here at Millikin University. Seriously, it kicks some serious ass. Even though I had to answer the same canned questions again and again, I found I grew more passionate about the subject matter, and really wanting to communicate not only the facts about the program, but also my feelings about it. I got more excited and engaged, and had a decent time doing panels. Some of the kids there...Oh Dear Non-Lord... I doubt half of them knew how to blink and speak at the same time. Talk about not being able to walk and chew gum. Holy Crap! There were some decent ones there, and I think I saw at LEAST one Presidential Scholar out there (somehow known by the nice Holly Gleason).
Anywho, right now I feel really betrayed by health services. I'm really going through a lot right now (as per usual) but my counselor has rescheduled the past few times always pushing back our appointment to a later date. The last time I went in to the office, she pretty much told me to leave and not come back without "due" cause, so I left.
I need some way of reaching out to something. I need to speak. I need to deal with my emotions. If I can't do it through counseling, then I'll just have to do it in my journal and here...
Anyway, my brother recently had a birthday, and I refused to acknowledge it. He has been very mean and cold lately. He made fun of me for being an atheist and says he's better than "some devil-worshiper!!" He merely acknowledged my birthday with a facebook "happy birthday," but took no interest in calling or seeing how I'm doing. I tried calling both him and my sister on Christmas to no success. I left my sister a message. No call back. A week later: still no call back. Two weeks later: I stopped caring.
This leads me for my atheist venting for the moment. If there was no kind of religion, I think that these things would mainly cease. People want to argue this point about Christian charity, but if people realized that charity exists independent of a god, then atheists could still be charitable people.
Another point I'd like to call attention to is how Christians who argue for a god's existence never do any thinking. In this case, I am talking about the typical bible-belt person. A typical, Timbuktu Christian does not read the Bible extensively, does not read atheist critiques, and is generally poorly educated and indoctrinized by religion and social custom as unchanging forces. This leads to staunch conservativism. The typical Suburban Christian, however, DOES read, but still doesn't think. My aunt is a great example. She uses canned arguments from a pastor who got the argument from doing a half-assed google search, or reads ONLY Christian materials that only reference faith and then two weeks and 200 pages later, you haven't learned anything pertinent to the existence of a deity.
Instead of calling Philosophy "bullshit" like my aunt (who is a licensed Physician), I think we should examine what Philosophy can do. I think this is mainly applicable to my favorite branch of Philosophy: Ethical and Moral Philosophy. It is critical thinking about the meaning of morality, leading theories of the origin of morality, and what it means to be moral. It also evaluates and analyzes moral and ethical theories. Philosophy uses the tools of logic and reason to come to a plausible conclusion as to the moral nature of a matter. How is that "bullshit"?
I think we need to better educate the younger children. There should not be schools cranking out drug dealers and racists. Philosophy should be a requirement. We need to raise the bar. We need to get people to THINK FOR THEMSELVES. I want people to be aware of what they are doing, why they are doing it, and the implications of doing as they do.
Is that so bad?
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