The Slave

I am so behind in my reading it is sad, but anyway I started reading the slave. It was a breathe of fresh air really. The bible is great and even poetic, plotz has an interesting take on it, and I'm certainly learning a lot from all those readings, but with "The slave" I've really got a story to sink my teeth into. Not a collection of stories but one, with an overall plot and message.
I certainly like the style of the book. I can see why so many people have been commenting on how they couldn't put it down.
The first thing that struck me was the way jacob is described in his enviornment. It reminds me of castaway stories, almost as if he is adrift in this ocean of foriegners. The contrast between his desperate clinging to faith, and their lack of faith is interesting. I say lack of faith because while the peasants of the village are described as christian, it seems only a word. It states how they still act like animalistic pagans, they worship old house gods, and they don't have any rituals that I would associate with the christian religion. Their world is full of faeries and superstition, and the christian term is just a word to add more gods and monsters.
Speaking of monsters, I must admit I love all the old folk lore references, particularly Baba Yaga, one of my favorite old story creatures. http://efimero.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/baba-yaga.jpg She's your standard wood witch type, but she's got a hut with chicken legs :D http://images.elfwood.com/art/r/e/reuben/reubencdodd_baba_yagas_hut.jpg

One line that struck me, on page 37 of my book, as Jacob is trying to resist temptation and at the same time think of a way for it to be okay for him to be with wanda, he thinks this "It was God who spoke in the simpler language while evil overflowed in learned quotations" First of all this threw up a red flag for me in terms of the preist, where he's described as having lost his knowledge except for the ability to speak in large words.

But it also struck me as a sort of lesson from simply taking this class. Just from reading the bible we've all had a moment where we've realized some highly quoted thing is misquoted. I'm sure we've all had a moment where we've seen someone mindlessly quoting the bible to further some sort of point, but without any real knowledge of what that means. Sometimes when I've asked they are unable to put it into summary and use simpler words.
This speaks to me because I personally see it as one of the larger problems with religions. It isn't really the message that's wrong, simply that people will use little quotes and such, without knowing the real meaning of something.

Anyway I shall carry on with my reading. I just needed to write this bit out before I forgot.

Group of Samuel *please read and comment*

Hey guys, could you guys maybe comment here so we can figure out where and when to meet. There's less than a month so just getting together to know each other and figure out stuff would be a good plan I think.

I don't have classes after 1 any day, so afternoon any day of the week is alright for me.

Sussana & Job

Arg there is so much reading in this class T.T

I read susanna, it was shorter than i thought it would be, but a very nice little read. It's certainly different in style from the J and P and so on writers. At least it seemed that way to me.
I liked the story. It seemed to put a lot of emphasis on age however. The evil elders and young susanna and daniel are awesome, and by the by young...yeah, maybe i looked into that too much, I'm not sure.
This little story seemed better in terms of a complete story. The version i read had dialogue, the two elders saying it's dinner, then running into one another, it's almost comical. I can see how this was a story. I'm not entirely sure why Susanna is considered to be so great. She stuck to her morals? okay i must admit that is a very strong characteristic. Still I'm trying to understand what she is meant to represent? When confronted by the men, she decided to not give in even though she knew it would be the death of her or worse. Then at the trial she doesn't really deny it, she just asks god for help.
So Ask god for help? doesn't that go against the, god helps those that help themselves bit?
It did remind me of Narnia though (I am a big dork >.>) in prince caspian Lucy pretty much just waits around until Aslan shows up. Yay faith?

Ah reading Job. I knew this story before, and it has always bothered me, generally the nature of suffering when a deity is involved bothers me. Doestovsky sums up my feelings rather well in his great novel. If there is a God that expects us to accept suffering as a test of faith...I don't want anything to do with it.
There is so much that bothers me in this book. First of all, innocent lives are lost to make a point. His offspring all die...to make him sad. I assume his offspring were mostly innocent. It says Job worked at resolving their sins, and we're not all perfect, that doesn't mean lives ought to be taken just to prove how awesome you are.
Honestly it seems like the Job's trouble starts because God wants to get in a pissing contest. But looking past that, I suppose the core of it makes sense. Faith isn't really faith if it goes untested. Anyone can believe God is awesome if they have a great life.
The reasoning for God's actions at the end bothers me. Claiming that God is never wrong in his decisions (I guess the whole being sorry for the flood thing doesn't mean he was wrong), humans can't fathom everything god can (fair enough) so God is completely free in his actions with his creation, he can do what he wants and we can't question it and should just trust in it. The answer to why there is suffering in the world is "I do what I want, stop asking questions"
I can't stomach it. I try not to be hypercritical of this story, but I just don't understand why this is appealing. Why would you trust in a being that may torture you for unknown reasons,Why would you want that feeling of helplessness.

I've had someone comment to me about this. Asking how I could deal with being Atheist when there's still suffering and you can't do anything about it. Well I see it a bit differently. Shit happens, a simple fact of life, but it's impersonal. There is no one causing me to suffer this way. I am not like a mouse pinned beneathe a cat's paw waiting to see if it will eat me or let me go.

It's just that personal causing or allowing his followers to suffer that bothers me with this God.
Admittedly Jod gets all his stuff back (sort of) and it's better, but I find that to be a very hollow gift for faith. Possesions mean to mask a tear in trust.

Spoiler warning D:

This discussing of suffering and tragedy got my thinking. I've read King Leer, great play. If you haven't read it yet DO IT.
Anyway the Brothers of Dostoevsky. Here is a link. It's a bit long, and Dostoevsky can be a bit...heavy, but it's worth taking time to study, it is referenced...so often.
Here is a link to the online chapter (yay e-text :D)

All this makes me think of a movie. A Dog of Flanders. I saw an animated version, so i couldn't say anything for the live action, but this movie is the most tragic story I have ever read/seen. It's based on a book, so you could probably check that out too.

This is where spoilers begin, if you don't want anything given away don't read further.

In King Leer, he isn't that innocent. It begins with his idiotic idea of love being measurable. So while it is terribly tragic, there is a reason all the trouble began.

In Brothers it is much worse, but with the kid he still did something (throwing the rock like a punk) to start the tragedy going for him. I'm not saying that isn't one of the most terrible things I have ever read, I am simply noting that these tragedies have a start.

In a Dog of Flanders, it doesn't. The Story is about a poor boy, Nello, that lives with his Grandfather and his dog Patrasche. Patrasche was adopted by them after escaping a nasty owner that beat him and such and Nello nursed him back to health. Nello and his grandfather are milk farmers and Nello is a talented artist. Nello is friends with a girl who's father owns the windmill in the village, basically owning the town.
The story starts with Nello wishing to see canvases painted by Rubens that are on display at the church, but there is a fee and he can not afford it. The trouble starts when Patrache's previous owner spots Nello with the dog and goes after them. In order to ensure Patrache stays with the family Nello's Grandfather pays the previous owner his life savings. Later Nello is playing with the windmill owners daughter in secret (her parents don't want her playing with the poor boy) and the windmill catches fire because the overseer forgot to oil the gears. It is blamed on Nello. Now the town won't do business with him and his grandfather, and to top that off his grandfather grows ill and dies. So Nello is alone and broke. He enters an art contest. The winner of the contest would get a full tuition to a prestigious art school. Basically he loses to the rich kids that can afford more supplies. Still alone, still poor, christmas rolls around. it's freezing and his landlord (the mill overseer) kicks him out of the home as he can't afford the rent. So he starts a long walk to the church. On the say he finds a large bag of money. It belongs to the mill owner, his friends father, surprise surprise it's a large chunk of his savings. Nello returns it to the house, leaving patrache there.
The family finds it and discovers he hasn't taken a single coin, despite the fact just one would make his life much better. They see they greatly misjudged the poor kid. Also a man from the art school comes saying he wants to personally fund Nello's education. Fantastic. they go to find him and discover he was kicked out of the house. The finally find him in the church. Nello died of exposure, in front of the Rubens picture...happy because he got to see something everyone else had just taken for granted.
That is a seriously depressing story, and the reason it reminds me of Job. despite all that terrible stuff brought upon him for no apparent reason, the kid doesn't lose his faith in humanity. He's still nice and he actually dies happy.
that story will always have my vote for most tragic >.> Sorry Prof. Sexson

perfect day/ worst day

I suck at blogging. >:{
Anyway i felt I should describe my perfect day and the worst day of my life.

First the perfect one. It started with being able to sleep in. this may not sound amazing, so i should explain. I was stayingg with my family on a break. they have a tendency of going to bed before i do and waking before I do. Whenever i try to sleep in something happens. the dog escapes the yard, someone needs something from the room, they wake me up to ask innane questions, something is always there to wake me, except this time. I woke late and then went to visit my boyfriend where we spent a leisurely day watching firefly, gilmore girls, and other dvds. We made dinner, and just chilled. It is a fantastic feeling to do absolutely nothing after so many classes and so many midterms and papers and such. That night we discovered there was a meteor shower, and on a whim we drove off to pete's hill, hiking the hill in the dark (it was on a whim and we forgot flashlights) and we sat on a fence to watch the stars fall.

Now for my worst day. It started with being woken up early (funny how that happens) in order to start chores, because it was saturday and my mother is a morning person, so when she cleans, we all clean XP. After the chores were done my parents went for a drive. I went to do pressing homework so I could watch the movie we rented for later. I started to get a stomach ache and went to lay down, but it didn't go away. it turned into a burning stabbing pain in my stomach. it only grew worse and I had to go to the emergency room. Stomach pain wasn't particularly high on their list so i waited a few hours. When they finally got to testing i wasn't much happier. I had to move around, and do things, and getting very few answers. to top that off they were testing for appendicitis...if you have ever had a test where they inject dye into your intestines they you will understand when I say this was the most painful experience of my life. If you haven't...take my word for it, it hurts. It hurt enough that the tech felt no reason to sugar coat. He simply told me is was excrutiatingly painful...joy. Well that was done, and they decided I needed emergency surgery. Well now I was hungry, getting surgery the first time ever, in horrible pain, and didn't get to see the movie (weekend rental). Also it was the day before valentine's this is important info for later. I got the surgery, turns out that I was internally bleeding, so I was enemic for a while afterwards, and like i said it was valentines, and i missed school the day a guy that had had a crush on me for a while brought roses. Sigh. I'm glad it's over now...

test fail

I thought I was prepared, I studied through the night, but i couldn't get to sleep until 7. I don't know why, i just couldn't turn my brain off. I woke for the test and, I'm so angry I made so many stupid mistakes. It was far more detail oriented than I thought and well blah. maybe there will be a way i could make it up. hopefully.

Women in the bible

yep it's been a week. I've been busy running around town for meetings and such. So i finally have time to tell my opinions on the guest lecture. I found it to be incredibly interesting. It gave me new insight into the patriarchy. Sure it was very anti woman, but it was also anti anything which wasn't the dominant male. I found it really interesting how women were the representation of isreal being lead astray.

Anyway hopefully this test goes well tomorrow. Now i must return to work :<

Bleh XP

so i was absent tuesday unfortunately. I'm rather sensetive to sudden weather changes so the recent fluctuation had me sick enough that I had to miss class (that and i didn't want to share germs if i had the flu)

So I read some exodus, the king james version with etext. I gotta say, the pharoh is a really dim guy. The way i understood it was he has a group that he's using for hard labor, and wants to kill off all males of the slave group. Honestly I always thought it was the first male born that was killed and after that it was alright. It almost makes sense, it gets numbers down and it's a bit kick for family lines, but no, apparently this was a pharoh with no contingency plan whatsoever. Kill now, find a new work force later.

I want to say he's stupid for needing so many plagues to get the point, but in a way, it's almost like modern thinking. Now adays when we see something miraculous, scientists try to replicate it, and normally they do. So it turns out it isn't mystical, it's science. yay. Well pharoh does the same thing in a way. Moses throws down his staff and the whole snake bit happens, the magicians replicate it. It's not amazing if it happens twice. Granted moses' snake pwned the other snake. I'm sure it's a metaphor for god's power and dominion or something, but still it's nearly like the modern era thinking
I wonder how many believers out there see something interesting as a miracle, when science has repeated and explained it. How many think it's all just a trick.

I had a friend that was joining the mormon church and often attended bible study on a weekly basis. I was curious about it, and like to be informed about religions and so I followed along to observe. There was something that bothered me about it, but for the longest time I couldn't put my finger on it, at least not until someone said what I had been thinking. You, or they really, needed to push aside logic for faith. It's a concept that I personally can't live by, but it's interesting to see it now in terms of the pharoh. Imagine if he just had faith in the power moses had, instead of trying to seek explanation and hardening his heart, he would have been saved a lot of trouble, but the story would have been rather boring.

another thing I noticed in my sickness. The bible is a lot more fun to read when you imagine the pharoh as darth vader >.> stew on that one for a while