Obviously, this was only two sections of the Koran, and that’s not much to create an opinion of a religion on. I, myself, have a Christian background, so most of the things I will be commenting on will be in conjunction with my experiences with Christianity.
In the Maryam section, there were a few things that caught my attention. First, the birth of Jesus is significantly different than any Christmas story I’ve ever heard. It never included Mary giving birth next to a palm tree or having dates showered on her, and Jesus is not recorded in the Bible as being able to speak while still an infant. Also, in the Christmas story Joseph was around, whereas in the Koran he was never mentioned. Then there were also those shepherds that never showed up at the non-existent stables (after all, she gave birth leaning on a palm tree). Also, according to the Koran, she’s taken a vow of silence. There are some places where the Bible and the Koran agree, but this area is notably not one of them.
The second thing I found interesting in the Maryam section was the description of life after death. The Bible talks about every man individually standing before God on His throne and being judged. In the Koran, it says that all men and devils being assembled together around hell. From there, according to 019.069, "Then We shall pluck out from every sect whichever of them was most stubborn in rebellion to the Beneficent." Those people will stay and be burned. So apparently we are condemned if, in comparison to our neighbors, we are MORE evil. Our salvation depends on how bad other people have been. In comparison, the Bible in Titus 3:5 says, "Not by the good works that we have done, but according to His (God’s) mercy, He saved us." Also, it also says in Ephesians 2:8-9, "For you are saved by grace though faith, and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, so that no man can boast." To me, how a person is saved is a pretty important thing for a religion. Such a fundamental difference in theology shows clearly a point of contention between Muslims and Christians.
Those were the only two things that really struck me. Considering how long they were, I was really hoping to find more theology in them, but oh well.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Smut for Sense
When in past days of lore – epoch of old
our world was puerile, tales would unfold.
The legends hewn, cut, molded through, and forged
for people knelt ‘round fires, braced from cold.
From minds of old and young, creation bent
to heroes sprung with powers from gods lent
for journeys, odysseys, of great import.
These epics, crafted o’er, became advent.
Then nation conquered nation, and with the fall,
recast or lost, old yarns were marred for all.
And so, initial chronicle was razed,
the maxims gone, with so few to recall.
Some proverbs have survived, some anecdotes,
some adages of whimsy and some quotes
are left for us to ponder. Now your test
of education, wisdom. Take Good Notes!
our world was puerile, tales would unfold.
The legends hewn, cut, molded through, and forged
for people knelt ‘round fires, braced from cold.
From minds of old and young, creation bent
to heroes sprung with powers from gods lent
for journeys, odysseys, of great import.
These epics, crafted o’er, became advent.
Then nation conquered nation, and with the fall,
recast or lost, old yarns were marred for all.
And so, initial chronicle was razed,
the maxims gone, with so few to recall.
Some proverbs have survived, some anecdotes,
some adages of whimsy and some quotes
are left for us to ponder. Now your test
of education, wisdom. Take Good Notes!
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Jinni
I always loved the big blue guy in Disney’s Aladdin, and reading the 1001 Nights has just made me want to look into the lore more thoroughly. Since I found about 5 pages of info, I'm just going to put the bare bones of what I found on Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica (concise). The rest of this blog is directly quoted from these sites.
The jinn are said to be creatures with free will, made from 'smokeless fire' by God (the literal translation being “subtle fire”, i.e., a fire which does not give itself away through smoke), much in the same way humans were made of earth. According to the Recitation, jinn have free choice, and Iblis used this freedom in front of God by refusing to bow to Adam when God told Iblis to do so. By refusing to obey God’s order he was thrown out of the Paradise and called “Shaitan” (See Shaitan). In the Qur'an, jinn are frequently mentioned and Sura 72 of the Qur'an named Al-Jinn is entirely about them. Another Sura (Al-Naas) mentions the Jinn in the last verse. In fact, it is mentioned in the Qur'an that Muhammad was sent as a prophet to both “humanity and the jinn”.
The jinn have communities much like human societies: they eat, marry, die, etc. They live in tribes and have boundaries. They follow religions as humans do, and follow the same ranks in armies as humans do. Jinns can settle in a vast area to a tiny hole, as they are massless and can be fit into any space they find sufficient for them. They are invisible to humans, but they can see humans. Sometimes they accidentally or deliberately come into view or into contact with humans. Jinn are believed to live much longer than humans: some of whom are said to be still alive having seen Muhammad (who lived during the 7th century), which would affirm their long life. Much like humans, jinn have learned to assimilate into the human world when they desire to do so. In many cases they live unnoticed among people marked only by the rather unusual or somewhat secretive practices they keep. They cannot breed with humans. Jinn can transform themselves into humans and can be summoned by humans.
Types of jinn include the ghul (“night shade”, which can change shape), the si'la (which cannot change shape), the Ifrit, and “marid”. From information in The Arabian Nights, marid seem to be the strongest form of jinn, followed by Ifrit, and then the rest of the jinn. Arabs believed that the jinn were spirits of fire, although sometimes they associated them with succubi (demons in the forms of beautiful women). The feminine form of jinn is “jinniyah” or “jinneyeh”.
Ifrits in contemporary popular mythology are jinn spirits that embody fire. A Marid in common mythology is a djinn related to the element of water. Evil Ifrit in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights are called “the seed of Iblis”. The Spirit of the Lamp in the story of Aladdin, a familiar djinn to the Western world (see next section), was such a jinni, bound to an oil lamp. Ways of summoning jinn were told in The Thousand and One Nights: by writing the name of God in Hebrew characters on a knife (whether the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, or the Arabic Allah is used is not specified), and drawing a diagram, with strange symbols and incantations around it. The jinn’s power of possession was also addressed in the fictional Nights. It is said that by taking seven hairs out of the tail of a cat that was all black except for a white spot on the end of its tail, and then burning the hairs in a small closed room with the possessed, filling their nose with the scent, this would release them from the spell of the jinn inside them.
The jinn are said to be creatures with free will, made from 'smokeless fire' by God (the literal translation being “subtle fire”, i.e., a fire which does not give itself away through smoke), much in the same way humans were made of earth. According to the Recitation, jinn have free choice, and Iblis used this freedom in front of God by refusing to bow to Adam when God told Iblis to do so. By refusing to obey God’s order he was thrown out of the Paradise and called “Shaitan” (See Shaitan). In the Qur'an, jinn are frequently mentioned and Sura 72 of the Qur'an named Al-Jinn is entirely about them. Another Sura (Al-Naas) mentions the Jinn in the last verse. In fact, it is mentioned in the Qur'an that Muhammad was sent as a prophet to both “humanity and the jinn”.
The jinn have communities much like human societies: they eat, marry, die, etc. They live in tribes and have boundaries. They follow religions as humans do, and follow the same ranks in armies as humans do. Jinns can settle in a vast area to a tiny hole, as they are massless and can be fit into any space they find sufficient for them. They are invisible to humans, but they can see humans. Sometimes they accidentally or deliberately come into view or into contact with humans. Jinn are believed to live much longer than humans: some of whom are said to be still alive having seen Muhammad (who lived during the 7th century), which would affirm their long life. Much like humans, jinn have learned to assimilate into the human world when they desire to do so. In many cases they live unnoticed among people marked only by the rather unusual or somewhat secretive practices they keep. They cannot breed with humans. Jinn can transform themselves into humans and can be summoned by humans.
Types of jinn include the ghul (“night shade”, which can change shape), the si'la (which cannot change shape), the Ifrit, and “marid”. From information in The Arabian Nights, marid seem to be the strongest form of jinn, followed by Ifrit, and then the rest of the jinn. Arabs believed that the jinn were spirits of fire, although sometimes they associated them with succubi (demons in the forms of beautiful women). The feminine form of jinn is “jinniyah” or “jinneyeh”.
Ifrits in contemporary popular mythology are jinn spirits that embody fire. A Marid in common mythology is a djinn related to the element of water. Evil Ifrit in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights are called “the seed of Iblis”. The Spirit of the Lamp in the story of Aladdin, a familiar djinn to the Western world (see next section), was such a jinni, bound to an oil lamp. Ways of summoning jinn were told in The Thousand and One Nights: by writing the name of God in Hebrew characters on a knife (whether the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, or the Arabic Allah is used is not specified), and drawing a diagram, with strange symbols and incantations around it. The jinn’s power of possession was also addressed in the fictional Nights. It is said that by taking seven hairs out of the tail of a cat that was all black except for a white spot on the end of its tail, and then burning the hairs in a small closed room with the possessed, filling their nose with the scent, this would release them from the spell of the jinn inside them.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Sinbad
For my blog, I decided to refer to the stories of Sinbad. I have read the Sinbad stories before, and I have also seen the DreamWorks adaptation. In fact, I read the stories first, and was shocked when I saw the movie. The differences are staggering, and not just when you look at what the stories’ MPAA rating would be compared to the movie’s PG.The movie is a swashbuckling adventure with some romance and comedy. According to the online Internet Movie Database (IMDb), “Sinbad, the most daring and notorious rogue ever to sail the seven seas, has spent his life asking for trouble, and trouble has finally answered in a big way. Framed for stealing one of the world's most priceless and powerful treasures--the Book of Peace--Sinbad has one chance to find and return the precious book, or his best friend Proteus will die. Sinbad decides not to take that chance and instead sets a course for the fun and sun of the Fiji Islands. However, Proteus' beautiful betrothed, Marina, has stowed away on Sinbad's ship, determined to make sure that Sinbad fulfills his mission and saves Proteus' life. Now the man who put the "bad" in Sinbad is about to find out how bad bad can be. Written by Sujit R. Varma.” It’s a fun little bit of fluff, with a few life lessons to consider. I was strongly reminded of the old Disney movies (Little Mermaid, Aladdin…).
The stories, on the other hand, are an entirely different matter. In fact, the few similarities that I saw were the existence of the same monsters (although not always in the same environments or situations). In order to clearly juxtapose the movie with the original storyline, I decided to pick just one thing for close perusal: the moving island.
First, here is the Sinbad’s account in The 1001 Nights: “So I embarked in a ship, and... We continued our voyage until we arrived at an island like one of the gardens of Paradise... But while we were thus engaged, lo, the master of the ship, standing upon its side, called out…Come up quickly in to the ship…for this apparent island, upon which ye are, is not really an island, but it is a great fish that hath become stationary in the midst of the sea, and the sand hath accumulated upon it, so that it hath become like an island, and trees have grown upon it since times of old; and when ye lighted the fire upon it, the fish felt the heat, and put itself in motion, and now it will descend with you into the sea, and ye will all be drowned.”
In the movie, there were these random ogres/cyclopes on the island, and the fight between Sinbad (and his crew) and these things is what woke the fish up. In fact, the only continuity between the two situations was that the island was a fish. For all of that, I think both are pretty enjoyable, and worth the time.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Emilia
Since my last article was more what Dr. Allen wanted for this one, I’m just going to write what I should have written for the last one. I’m going to write about Emilia. Although not a main character, I think Em has a significant role. After all, the reason Iago decides to destroy Othello is because he believes that Em had been cheating on him with O. The first time Em is really involved in the story, Cassio is kissing her in front of Iago. What kind of a kiss is subject for interpretation. During this section, we can infer some ideas about Iago and Em’s marriage. She seems to be the nagging type, they have little respect for each other, and Iago may have reasonable grounds for his jealousy.
In Act II, Scene III, Em is with her mistress, Des. She seems to trust Des enough to admit that Cassio’s downfall has upset Iago. On the other hand, when Em find’s the handkerchief (napkin) that O gave to Des, she doesn’t immediately return it, she gives it to her husband. We see that Iago and Em don’t have the healthiest relationship, but it’s difficult to tell why she favors him. Options: Em could naively believe that he’s not going to do anything wrong; she could have an inkling of what he’s planning and is deliberately trying to hurt Des, O, or both; or she could have an inkling but is choosing to ignore it because she wants Iago to love her. However, keep in mind Em’s speech on jealousy in reference to O. Can she be speaking of Iago as well?
In Act III, Scene II, when O is accusing Des of infidelity, Em staunchly defends Des, and there is reason to believe she knows exactly what Iago’s thinking and been doing. Em says in front of Des and Iago, "I will be hang’d, if some eternal villain, Some busy and insinuating rogue, Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office, Have not devised this slander." She also says to Iago, "fie upon...some such squire he was That turn’d your wit the seamy side without, And made you to suspect me with the Moor."
In Scene III, Em and Des discuss if they would cheat on their husbands. Em would, and Des wouldn’t. Em reasons that if husband abuses, or is unfaithful to his wife, he’s the one to blame. This begs the question: has Em cheated on Iago, and if so, what did he do first?
In Scene IV, we return to THE question: Does Em really think Iago is at fault? She says to him (concerning O), "He says thou told’st him that his wife was false: I know thou didst not, thou’rt not such a villain." When Iago admits he did, Em tells everyone what really happened, and Iago kills her for it.
So this is my analysis: I don’t know if Em was self or truly deceived, but I think that she is the most REAL character of the whole play. Em seems like the everyday person caught in a bad situation. I read a quote by a famous author, and the jist of it stuck with me. He said that in fiction, the more fantastic the situation, the more basic and everyday the main people have to be for your story to stay believable. I think Emilia, though not THE main character, is what really grounds this story.
In Act II, Scene III, Em is with her mistress, Des. She seems to trust Des enough to admit that Cassio’s downfall has upset Iago. On the other hand, when Em find’s the handkerchief (napkin) that O gave to Des, she doesn’t immediately return it, she gives it to her husband. We see that Iago and Em don’t have the healthiest relationship, but it’s difficult to tell why she favors him. Options: Em could naively believe that he’s not going to do anything wrong; she could have an inkling of what he’s planning and is deliberately trying to hurt Des, O, or both; or she could have an inkling but is choosing to ignore it because she wants Iago to love her. However, keep in mind Em’s speech on jealousy in reference to O. Can she be speaking of Iago as well?
In Act III, Scene II, when O is accusing Des of infidelity, Em staunchly defends Des, and there is reason to believe she knows exactly what Iago’s thinking and been doing. Em says in front of Des and Iago, "I will be hang’d, if some eternal villain, Some busy and insinuating rogue, Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office, Have not devised this slander." She also says to Iago, "fie upon...some such squire he was That turn’d your wit the seamy side without, And made you to suspect me with the Moor."
In Scene III, Em and Des discuss if they would cheat on their husbands. Em would, and Des wouldn’t. Em reasons that if husband abuses, or is unfaithful to his wife, he’s the one to blame. This begs the question: has Em cheated on Iago, and if so, what did he do first?
In Scene IV, we return to THE question: Does Em really think Iago is at fault? She says to him (concerning O), "He says thou told’st him that his wife was false: I know thou didst not, thou’rt not such a villain." When Iago admits he did, Em tells everyone what really happened, and Iago kills her for it.
So this is my analysis: I don’t know if Em was self or truly deceived, but I think that she is the most REAL character of the whole play. Em seems like the everyday person caught in a bad situation. I read a quote by a famous author, and the jist of it stuck with me. He said that in fiction, the more fantastic the situation, the more basic and everyday the main people have to be for your story to stay believable. I think Emilia, though not THE main character, is what really grounds this story.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Othello
Since I already read Othello my senior year of high school, I didn’t have any new revelations about it. So, I’m going on to what new things I have learned. I suppose the aspect that has now interested me the most is the effect of the Barbary privateering on the public idea of Turks during this time period. Most specifically, how Shakespeare expressed those ideas in his writing of Othello. It seems one of the more lucrative trades during the time was the enslavement of British and other European women. An very informative, if equally boring abstract that I found was titled Britons, Muslims, and American Indians: Gender and Power and this link will take you to the page the PDF is on.According to this article, "there were numerous women captives who were seized in the first half of the seventeenth century by North African privateers and hauled to the slave markets of Salee, Algiers, or Tunis". On the other hand, it also says that, "European dramatists did not seem to have much of a clue of as to what was really happening to women in captivity: their fiction was quite different from Mediterranean reality. For while they were fantasizing, captured women from Britain and the rest of Christendom were confined in the boudoirs of Muslim rulers, husbands and masters. Such a stark reality may explain why, in the whole corpus of English dramatic literature of the early modern period, there is not a single play about an English woman captive in North Africa, suggesting perhaps that no English writer could address a situation where the compatriots he described would not be "possessors" but "possessed.""
Another intriguing fact was that although Christians and Jews were not allowed to intermarry, there were no prohibitions against the marriage of a Christian to a Muslim (either Turkish or Moorish).
However, there was a catch that wasn’t so obvious in Othello. Although a Muslim male could marry a Christian woman while staying a Muslim, any male that wanted to marry a Muslim woman had to convert to Islam. The author of the article chalks it all up to a theory of religious and sexual domination. A great deal of Othello revolves around ideas of sexuality; either sexual purity and monogamy, or adultery. Othello is deceived by believing Cassio and Desdemona had an illicit sexual relationship. Then he goes nuts and kills her. Obviously there were other factors involved, but this was the aspect that interested me the most.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Middle East Before 1400AD
Considering the fact that the majority of the Middle East is Islamic, I first set about trying to find as clear and concise a history of Islam up to 1400 A.D. that I could. This timetable was the best that I could find in terms of covering the holistic aspects of Islamic influence, while still remaining succinct. I actually found it in a handout from a conference I attended back in 2005, so sadly there isn’t a website to link to.
"Important dates in the Development of Islam"
c. 1900 B.C. Abraham is willing to sacrifice Isaac; Muslims say Ishmael was the almost-sacrifice.
c. 30 Christ, crucified, dies, and is resurrected; Muslims say He was a Muslim and did not die.
610 Muhammad rejects both Christianity and Judaism and begins to develop his own monotheistic religion.
622 Muhammad flees Mecca-this becomes year one in the Muslim calendar-and over the next 10 years succeeds as both teacher and general.
632 Muhammad dies without a clear political heir; Muslim infighting begins.
637 Muslims capture Jerusalem and soon possess Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia.
661 Muhammad’s nephew Ali is murdered and the Sunni-Shiite division begins.
700 Muslims, sweeping across North Africa and virtually wiping out Christianity there, conquer Algiers.
711 Muslims conquer most of Spain.
732 Muslims are defeated at Tours/Poitiers in what is now southern France; they conquer little more of western Europe.
786 Harun al-Rashid, Caliph in Bagdad, leads the way toward a golden age of Muslim learning.
846 Muslims sack Rome and the Vatican; meanwhile, mathematician and geographer al-Khwarazmi (algorithm is derived from his name) advances knowledge.
900 The writing of the 1001 Arabian Nights begins, and the Arab physician Rhases becomes the first to describe smallpox, plague, and other infectious diseases.
963 Al Sufi’s Book of Fixed Stars, which mentions nebula, is one indication of Muslim superiority in astronomy.
1006 Muslims settle in northwest India.
1037 Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the most influential Islamic philosopher/physician, dies.
1094 El Cid defeats Muslims in Spain.
1095 Pope Urban II calls for a Crusade.
1099 Crusaders capture and sack Jerusalem.
1187 Muslims under Saladin retake Jerusalem.
1250 First Muslim states in southeast Asia are developing.
1380 Ottoman empire emerges.
Excerpt taken from Summit Ministeries 2005 Islam and Terrorism Supplement, pg.9.
Sources include Gerhard Endress, An Introduction to Islam; Malise Ruthven, Islam; and Bernard Grun, The Timetables of History By Marvin Olasky, editor in chief of World magazine. "Reprinted with permission from WORLD Magazine (www.worldmag.com), Copyright 2001. For subscription information call 1-800-951-NEWS."
Here is a link to an article in Wikipedia on the Islamic Golden Age. I hadn’t realized quite how much this period of time had contributed to the European Renaissance. I knew the Chinese had developed paper, but I hadn’t before realized how it was integrated into Europe. Even though I love learning about how philosophies and religions are created, I think the Golden Age is the most interesting part of Islamic history. In some respects, even more interesting than what is happening now. After all, isn’t everything else just fighting? It’s probably just me, but I never could enjoy sitting through my dad’s war movies.
The Lawyer's Tale
Although I should probably be putting some resounding insight onto this section, the truth is that the Emperor of Syria just ticked me off. Now, I'm sure there are some girls who would find it very romantic for a guy to give up his deepest beliefs for love. I'm not one of them. More than anything else, I believe in absolute truth. If something is true, than it doesn't matter whether we love it or not. It doesn't matter if we like it or not. It doesn't even matter if we know about it or not. It's still true.
The idea that this guy was willing to renounce what he held as true merely to attain some idea of a perfect woman is frankly disgusting. I have no idea how he would have managed to hold on to his throne for as long as he did, because I can't see how anyone can respect another person who has such a Charlie Brown mentality toward their convictions of right and wrong. His mom might have been a lying, progeny-murdering deciever, but she stuck with her beliefs.
That said, those who will not even consider that they might be wrong are almost as bad. Even if they are right about that particular thing, people should be constantly reassessing what they believe. If you don't, you run the risk of never maturing past a certain point. And let's face it, we're ALL wrong about something.
"Important dates in the Development of Islam"
c. 1900 B.C. Abraham is willing to sacrifice Isaac; Muslims say Ishmael was the almost-sacrifice.
c. 30 Christ, crucified, dies, and is resurrected; Muslims say He was a Muslim and did not die.
610 Muhammad rejects both Christianity and Judaism and begins to develop his own monotheistic religion.
622 Muhammad flees Mecca-this becomes year one in the Muslim calendar-and over the next 10 years succeeds as both teacher and general.
632 Muhammad dies without a clear political heir; Muslim infighting begins.
637 Muslims capture Jerusalem and soon possess Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia.
661 Muhammad’s nephew Ali is murdered and the Sunni-Shiite division begins.
700 Muslims, sweeping across North Africa and virtually wiping out Christianity there, conquer Algiers.
711 Muslims conquer most of Spain.
732 Muslims are defeated at Tours/Poitiers in what is now southern France; they conquer little more of western Europe.
786 Harun al-Rashid, Caliph in Bagdad, leads the way toward a golden age of Muslim learning.
846 Muslims sack Rome and the Vatican; meanwhile, mathematician and geographer al-Khwarazmi (algorithm is derived from his name) advances knowledge.
900 The writing of the 1001 Arabian Nights begins, and the Arab physician Rhases becomes the first to describe smallpox, plague, and other infectious diseases.
963 Al Sufi’s Book of Fixed Stars, which mentions nebula, is one indication of Muslim superiority in astronomy.
1006 Muslims settle in northwest India.
1037 Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the most influential Islamic philosopher/physician, dies.
1094 El Cid defeats Muslims in Spain.
1095 Pope Urban II calls for a Crusade.
1099 Crusaders capture and sack Jerusalem.
1187 Muslims under Saladin retake Jerusalem.
1250 First Muslim states in southeast Asia are developing.
1380 Ottoman empire emerges.
Excerpt taken from Summit Ministeries 2005 Islam and Terrorism Supplement, pg.9.
Sources include Gerhard Endress, An Introduction to Islam; Malise Ruthven, Islam; and Bernard Grun, The Timetables of History By Marvin Olasky, editor in chief of World magazine. "Reprinted with permission from WORLD Magazine (www.worldmag.com), Copyright 2001. For subscription information call 1-800-951-NEWS."
Here is a link to an article in Wikipedia on the Islamic Golden Age. I hadn’t realized quite how much this period of time had contributed to the European Renaissance. I knew the Chinese had developed paper, but I hadn’t before realized how it was integrated into Europe. Even though I love learning about how philosophies and religions are created, I think the Golden Age is the most interesting part of Islamic history. In some respects, even more interesting than what is happening now. After all, isn’t everything else just fighting? It’s probably just me, but I never could enjoy sitting through my dad’s war movies.
The Lawyer's Tale
Although I should probably be putting some resounding insight onto this section, the truth is that the Emperor of Syria just ticked me off. Now, I'm sure there are some girls who would find it very romantic for a guy to give up his deepest beliefs for love. I'm not one of them. More than anything else, I believe in absolute truth. If something is true, than it doesn't matter whether we love it or not. It doesn't matter if we like it or not. It doesn't even matter if we know about it or not. It's still true.
The idea that this guy was willing to renounce what he held as true merely to attain some idea of a perfect woman is frankly disgusting. I have no idea how he would have managed to hold on to his throne for as long as he did, because I can't see how anyone can respect another person who has such a Charlie Brown mentality toward their convictions of right and wrong. His mom might have been a lying, progeny-murdering deciever, but she stuck with her beliefs.
That said, those who will not even consider that they might be wrong are almost as bad. Even if they are right about that particular thing, people should be constantly reassessing what they believe. If you don't, you run the risk of never maturing past a certain point. And let's face it, we're ALL wrong about something.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
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