Dante's concept of Hell

I overall thin Dante's concept of Hell is original, but I think it would be fairly different in a few key features.  First off, i think Hell would be structured very differently than how Dante's journey takes place.  I believe Hell would be in a constant state of anarchy and chaos since, well, its Hell.  Nothing about Hell screams order or any sort of state where sinners are segregated per whatever their worst sin committed was.  The 9 circles make sense for the story, having to go through gradually harder places to find yourself, but for a "realistic" Hell, its kind of weird.  Also, I figured punishments would be more indicative of a individuals personal "Hell" instead of a punishment per whatever the sin was. 

Doc 3 Thing

My Wikipedia article topic, and subsequently the topic for my Doc 3 assignment, is about chaos in mythology. The article was fairly sparse, so there was a lot of room for additions and improvements. I focused mainly on how chaos is represented in Ovid's Metamorphoses since it only has one sentence in the entire Wikipedia article about it.  I think that since chaos is basically a motif in the Metamorphoses that I will have a lot to write about for Doc 3 since we can use our opinion.  Chaos within Metamorphoses is fairly broad in my opinion, anything from the structure of the Metamorphoses as a whole to the actual manifestation of Chaos illustrates Chaos in one form or another.  I'm still not entirely sure what I'll be focusing on in my paper, but by tomorrow/Sunday I'll hopefully have a good bit of it written or at least an idea of where I want to go. 

Qur'an and New Testament

Though they are the books for two of the biggest religions in the world, the Qur'an and New Testament share a lot of features.  Both are obviously religious books that help the people of the respective religion live their life in the ways of their respective gods.  Both have parts where they look down on anyone practicing the religion who does things that are against the beliefs of the book. The Qur'an states that things like "intoxicants and gambling" are basically things the devil does and that he will manipulate you through these acts.  It also says that "God loves those who do good deeds," something that I believe is apparent in both books.  The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, it is said that you don't need a "trumpet blown before you" for doing charity.  Both believe that you should do good deeds for the sake of doing good deeds, not for the sake of reward or admiration.     

New Testament to Now

I think that there is a lot of aspects of the New Testament that can be relevant in modern society, especially when it comes to religion and other aspects of life.  I think my focus of this post will be on a section of Matthew 5-7 (specifically Matthew 6) and how it can pertain to people's actions with/without religion.  The beginning line of the section where it says that you'll have "no recompense from your father in heaven" if you practice righteousness/arrogance in public with concerns to your religion.  In my view (note, I'm not super religious), practicing your religion is more than fine.  The first amendment protects the exercising of religious faith and making laws around religion.  The only problem I have when it comes to religion is when a particular religion tries to push their views on people who aren't particularly fond of those ideals, ESPECIALLY if they clash and ESPECIALLY if religion shouldn't be apart of the discussion (separation of church and state particularly).  For example, the whole Kim Davis things falls under this sort of mindset.   The US Supreme Court, the highest court in the land that has to interpret the Constitution (where the 1st amendment resides), basically said that the Constitution guarantees gay marriage as a right to all citizens.  Kim Davis didn't believe in that, so she denied homosexuals deciding to get married (in her area) a marriage license based on her religious views.  Though she has all the rights in the world (or at least our country) to profess her religion, there is nothing saying she can use her religion to deprive people of their rights.  If she wanted something to change, she could've appealed or something less intrusive to others rights.  She seemed like she wanted the national attention, akin to a "trumpet being blown" before her.   

Opposites

I think that the Opposites presented in the Daodejing have a lot to do with the concept of an inherent nothingness in the world.  Some of the most obvious opposites exist solely because of a lack of something.  The Daodejing referencing the spokes on a wheel helps to illustrate how something like empty space is an opposite and brings purpose to make the wheel functional.  The wheel would most likely have less optimal functionality if the spokes and empty space didn't exist.  Light and dark only exist as opposites because dark is the absence of light (I equate darkness to a form of nothingness).  Both light and dark are contingent on one another to exist/survive and I feel that is the essence of opposites.  The opposites also juxtapose each other, further enhancing each one's features (the light looks lighter and the dark looks darker).        

Confucian Candidate?

I think that the project on the comparing the Confucian ideals to our chosen candidate's ideals really helped me get a grasp on the concept of Confucius in modern society.  I believe that the candidate I chose (Bernie Sanders) does exhibit some ideas that line up with the ideals of Confucius, but I don't think any candidate could ever be 100% confucian/Laozian/any other old philosopher.  One big cause of that, besides none of those candidates begin practicing confucians, is how much society has changed since those principles were originally written.  Take violence or war in general as an example: One of Bernie’s main points is to make the act of going to war a “last resort.”  He acknowledges that war/force “must always be an option”, but there are a variety of means to attempt to diffuse any given situation before bloodshed has to occur.  If he or the entire world was predicated on Confucian principle, war would cease to exist.  Our country's foundation is pretty much based around war (the war for independence) and it seems like every day we hear about war and violence in the news.  I do think Bernie has a lot of general attributes/ideas similar to Confucius, but anything super specific of Confucius' thoughts kind of gets lost with time.   

The Eternal Soul

I believe there is something after death.  I think most religions have their own version of the afterlife, whether its being reincarnated or going before God to be judged, but for someone who doesn't practice a particular religion, there is some more uncertainty about the afterlife.  Most afterlife talk seems to skew toward the religious, but as technology develops more and more take notice and want to explain the soul scientifically.  Before searching for just the word "afterlife" on google, I was expecting to find a lot more religion-based results about the afterlife.  Instead, I'm treated to a healthy mix of science and religion, with some of it going as far as human composting.  There are even scientists who have doe studies/experiments on the soul and the after life (see: http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp and http://www.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/harvard-neurosurgeon-confirms-the-afterlife-exists/ )  It's astounding all the different viewpoints and beliefs on the afterlife that are out there.         

Justness in Syria

The Syrian war seems like something the US probably shouldn't have gotten involved in. I think the US in general, or at least the leaders of the country, believe that the US should act like a form of global police.  Over the last decade(s), the US has had its hand in the cookie jar of many other countries.  I'd say the biggest reason we feel we have to be involved as a country is because of the possible threat on our way of life. I don't think it's unclear that most countries on the other side of the world (Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan) aren't the fondest of the US, so they could be a problem (whether it's the actual govt or being a main hub of terrorist activity, who knows).  I believe that as long as our actions in the country aren't shady (covert assassinations, rogue bombings, etc)  that what the US does regarding Syria is (relatively) justified as long as they are in the best interest for our country/not going to start a WWIII.

Gender Swap

I honestly don't know how I would react to waking up as a girl.  This is the kind of question that will probably never cross your mind unless you happen to be in some variation of a college lit course.  If I still had all my memory and knowledge from the past 19 years, I'd instantly question how it would even be possible for this kind of a transformation to occur.  I'd probably think about the trade-offs for being a woman, and also all the other burdens women have to deal with on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.  First off, the morning bathroom routine will be a lot different than how it is now.  No more school urinals or "aiming" in general, turning bathroom visits into 100% sit-to-go service.  Also, if the first day of new womanhood was accompanied by the dreaded period, I'd freak out... a lot.  I think any guy--> girl with this topic would have the same reaction.  One thing guys never have to deal with, barring any freak accidents near or involving the genitals, is bleeding from your genitals.  In hindsight, the fact that it occurs at all is seriously effed up.  Stuff like that and the idea of pregnancy and stuff would probably make me uncomfortable.

Those issues are just a small issue of what women have to face.  This isn't even mentioning all of the outside social issues (wage gap, media representation, not being treated fairly in general, etc) that women face on a daily basis.  It would be an interesting perspective change, but it would be very weird/ probably super difficult.          

Change

I think probably one of the hardest changes I've had to cope with has been transitioning from high school to college. Don't get me wrong, the freedom college provides is great. Picking your own schedule and not being resticted to a set amount of classes, being able to leave classes early, and (outside of core classes) choosing the field in which you study is greatly improved over high school.  The changes I'm thinking of don't really deal with the classes.  It has to deal more with friends and the friend making process.

 Back when I began high school in 2010, I had a big advantage when it came to making friends. Besides knowing _______ amount of people that also transitioned from middle school to high school, I had a second family of kids from every grade in band.  I constantly had things to do with these people which kept me busy and feigning me as being social. Since I was always in the upper quarter of the band (top ensemble 4 years and also marching percussion 4 years with a year of both front ensemble and drum line), I got to know the older kids and spent little time with the majority of kids in my class.  Though this was great at the time, I feel as though it lulled me into a false sense of "social" security. Out of all the kids(I'd classify as good/great friends) I marched with that didn't end up choosing MGSU as their choice for college, I've probably kept in touch (consistently) with 2-3 people at most.  I will say that my first year out of high school was definitely more social with those people than this year.  I guess that life just happens and people get busy.  People being busy was always my thought for people not responding to me because I knew they probably had more homework, some sort of a job or some new social experience (sorority/frat/bible study/etc) that the had to do or prioritized.  It has made me realize that I guess some of those friendships had nothing more in common than band (which if you knew me, band is [or was] a big part of my life).  I feel bad about that since I have known some of these people since I started my band journey in middle school.  I can't (/am not trying to) blame them for my un-social-ness since I can easily reach out to them, its just... (from past experience) they might not reciprocate the socialness or the effort.