Wednesday, January 09, 2008

The Need for Religion

Today was an awesome day, I finally learned how to solve a rubix cube! Its cool but there is a lot of patterns that you have to memorize. It snowed a lot today so there was really nothing else to do.
I have an Ethnographic Essay due tomorrow for English so I worked on that. It is about Man's need for religion.

here it is:

Man’s Desperate Need for Religion

Why does man have a need for religion? This is the question that often pops into my head when I am sitting at church. I want to say right now, before I get into things, that I am not an Atheist. I am a Mormon and I go to church every week. At times I wonder why I’m there, I could be snowboarding or doing something important, but every week, I still go and sit for three hours listening to people talk about our religion. Why is religion so important that millions of people dedicate their time and money to teach it and live by it? Through this paper I hope we can find an answer.

First, I’m going to go over the many elements of religion. Most religions are based upon a specific event in history. For example, Jesus Christ is believed to be the messiah. Most religions believe in a higher power or God that governs all people. They also have set standards to live by or certain things you can and cannot do. They have a specific location to gather and worship on a specific day. Some religions can’t really even be considered religion, take Theravada Buddhism for example. Thomas A. Idinopulos writes, “Here is a something called "religion" which is not a religion. Although Theravada Buddhism is usually included in any book on the world's religions, it is not theistic, recognizes no sacred being or beings, and does not officially encourage worship of Buddha or any "higher being" (despite popular veneration of the Buddha-ideal). Theravada Buddhism appears to be a technique or program for human self-purification or self-fulfillment or self-negation.” So not all religions believe in a god.

Some people might wonder, is religion a scam? Did the government create it to control the people and get revenue? Why can’t it be proven? You might be thinking that whoever asks these types of questions must be paranoid. Austin Cline wrote, “One of the reasons for the existence of religion is that it's an effective means for society's powerful to control everyone else.” Diana Hardman states, “It is proven in statistics that without God as a basis for living that crime, sex, drugs, etc. has greatly increased.” So this shows that whether the Government created religion or not, religion does decrease a person’s motivation to commit crime. There is no solid evidence that there is a god or higher being. On the contrary, evolution has been proven on a microscopic level, InfoZine News says, “DNA sequencing and molecular biology have provided a wealth of information about evolutionary relationships among species.” So it is up to the person if they want to believe in a particular religion or not.

A major reason a person would want to be part of a religion is they want a feeling of belonging. Some people join a religion because they feel their life has no purpose and they want to put meaning to their life. Ohio State University Research states that there are 16 desires of humans that attract them to religion, “The desires are power, independence, curiosity, acceptance, order, saving, honor, idealism, social contact, family, status, vengeance, romance, eating, physical exercise, and tranquility.” Ohio State also stated, “people embrace religion because of a fear of death, as expressed in the saying ‘there are no atheists in foxholes’.”

There are many reasons why people need religion. As stated in the previous paragraph, people need a sense of belonging, direction, power and family. Imagine a world with no religion, what would it be like? What kinds of problems would there be? Without religion what is the purpose of our existence? It’s surely not to just live, reproduce and then die. There has to be something more meaningful to life. It’s up to you to decide if you want to have a long purposeful life, or to live in fear of dying. It’s an easy decision for me.


There you have it. Feedback is appreciated.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Subway "Feast"

Sorry guys that I havent posted in a week, I try to update daily. I have just been busy with parties and post-christmas stuff. Anyway today is New Years and thought I had to work today, so I went down to to my work, on time, and I found out that they were closed today! I was so happy! When I got home I remembered that I had a big review paper due tomorrow for my English 1010 class. I went right to work and this is what I came up with:

"          I used to work at Subway and of course I tried all of their sandwiches. They just came out with a brand new sandwich called “The Feast” and I am going to review it. I was excited when I found out they came out with a new sandwich because they haven’t came out with any since I worked there one year ago. It only took me two months to try all of the Subway sandwiches while I worked there. From the delicious Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki to the revolting artificially flavored Seafood Sub. Every time they come out with a new sub I have to try it. It’s a weakness I have.

          When I got up to the counter I was trying to decide on what to put on the sandwich. I saw a display with a plastic version of the “Feast” in it. For reviewing purposes I made my sandwich look exactly like the display. The “Feast” is composed of five different types of meat: turkey, roast beef, ham, salami, and pepperoni. The toppings that I put on it included: American cheese, mayonnaise, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles, and green peppers.

          After paying I sat down to eat the massive sandwich. I only got a six-inch “Feast” because I didn’t think I would survive the foot long. I could barely fit my mouth on it to get a bite. After I took the first bite I noticed the strong spicy pepperoni taste. It was kind of unpleasant but still better than most of their sandwiches. I don’t like eating a sandwich where there is more meat than vegetables. The meat was stacked at least an inch high. After eating it most people would feel guilty about how many calories they just ingested. If I were to rate the overall taste, I would give it a 7/10.

          Jeff Girod, also known as the Fast Food Guy, on www.pe.com stated, “Subway has hired Peter Griffin from ‘Family Guy’ as its official spokesman. It's a move I applaud, because anything endorsed by a cartoon character just tastes better.” I disagree with this statement because the Subway “Feast” is no better than a classic turkey sub and twice the price. If you wanted to order a Subway “Feast” you would have to pay a whopping $9.09 for a foot long or $5.59 for a six inch. Although, I admit, the “Feast” was quite filling and it did give me a lot of energy.

          The overall quality of the sandwich was great. At this particular Subway restaurant they have a new system that refrigerates the vegetables and meats in their containers. It is a great invention and works well. The manager at the store makes sure that all of the bread is freshly baked the same day. So this is the only Subway that I will eat at.

          As for the Nutrition of the seemingly unhealthy sandwich, www.thenewstribune.com says, “The site [subway.com] featured a ‘Nutrition Information’ button for every just about every sandwich – except the Feast.” I think that Subway doesn’t want to contradict their healthy appearance. I found a page at www.subway.com that shows all of the nutritional information for all of the toppings and meats so I am going to add them up to see how many calories are in a six inch “Feast” with Italian bread, American cheese, mayonnaise, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles, and green peppers. With all of the toppings, bread, and meat, the total amount comes to a whopping 1210 calories and 48.5 grams of fat.

[UPDATE: Subway recently posted the amount of calories and fat in a Feast Sub, 590 calories and 25 grams of fat! I was way off! The info is at Nutrition Values(thanks Chris!)]

          After reviewing the “Feast” I have concluded to never eat this unhealthy sandwich again. It may taste good but it packs in a lot of unwanted calories. I can’t even imagine what would happen to you if you ate a foot long “Feast” every day. I’ll tell you one thing though; you might really end up looking just like Peter Griffin from the cartoon Family Guy."

Tell me what you think. I hope I get an A on it!