Now, my paper I have to do for Comp II is supposed to be 7-10 pages in length. My annotated bibliography ALONE was 11 pages. Yeah, I think I've got enough info to work from, and I didn't even include ALL of my sources. There's a few books and even a lecture from Columbia University from 2006 I watched on the web AND a piece from the Washington and Lee law review that I didn't even begin to cover in my annotated bibliography. You could say I educated myself well on my topic so that I could write about it.
Funny part of all of this is that I stayed up on Monday night until 5am to write the annotations. Now, believe it or not, I was so delusional after I got 1/2 way through that I didn't even know if I made sense in the darn thing or not. I ran out of 'give-a-shit' and just turned the thing in. All of my annotations were short and to the point, but giving the summary of each one was the long part of it. I came back with an A+. I still can't believe it.
Anyhow, now it's on to drafting the actual paper. My next few days? The outline. I've got to draw one up and organize my thoughts and really get it super specific, precise and absolutely clear. I don't want to monkey it up...and given my subject matter, that is pretty funny thing to call a mess up...with a lot of extraneous rah-rah.
The fun part about this is that I get to write a "that's just me of course" that is going to argue the fool out of why creationism shouldn't be anywhere near a science class and convince that the only place it could possibly go, if the creationists would just shut up and listen, is in a philosophy class. Here's the sticky part...the whole lynch pin to my argument is that the philosophy class would have to be taught by someone completely unbiased that wouldn't risk proselytizing it. My vote? Get an atheist to teach it. That way you've got no way a religious agenda could be presented.
Now, that's another can of worms altogether. Atheist. All that means is that it is a-theistic = no god. Now, I know a lot of folks who hear that I'm atheist say, "I'll pray for you." Don't bother. Don't even start to get on the holy rollercoaster, I don't need it. I actually looked something up in my research for my paper in the bible...oh man...it's the realm of the boogeyman. A couple of passages I read, my brows knit and I just sat there going, "What the...", it was real simple, the passage I read was "if you don't believe in God, you're going to hell." Ok, and who says??? I'm a better 'christian' than most folks who beat on their bibles and go to church every Sunday! I know plenty of 'christians' who talk out of both sides of their mouth that sin from Monday to Saturday, but come Sunday, they act like they're cleaner than a nun's underwear! I don't get that. Don't preach to me if you don't live it. Hell, I'm atheist and I KNOW that I'm a good person. I've helped more people, loved stronger and been tolerant to individuals who think they know better than everyone else.
If you dissect the 7 deadly sins...they're just simply character flaws. I'm serious! Let's look at the list...
- Lust
- Gluttony
- Greed
- Despair/Sloth
- Wrath
- Envy
- Pride
Then there's the bad version of pride. Now, I've seen this one way too often in my life not to know a bit about it. Bad pride is something I could probably write a book on how many people I see fall flat on their faces with pride. Bad pride is akin to arrogance. It's the "I'm better than you are" mindset some people just can't shake. It's the "I'm prettier", "I'm this", "I'm that" business. It's what none of us really have room for when we see other people do it. It's a character flaw. It's got nothing to do with a religious pretext at all. It's that mean streak that goes through everyone at one point or another. I know I've apologized for being prideful lots of times. Being prideful turns people off. It enslaves, belittles and it's just flat out mean.
But we ALL can tell the difference between good pride and bad pride. We know it when we see it. It's like that thing in Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. We don't step on the "backs of the least". That's prideful and it's wrong to belittle someone then step on them. I want to slug the hell out of people who do that.
And that takes us back to my paper. Now, not only have the Creationists been prideful in the worst sense, but they've taken that pride to an all time high with saying that you can't teach evolution because it's anti-religious. You can have evolution and God you know, it's not unheard of. What's wrong with reading a how-to guide about being a good person, having a deity that you pray to so you can be comforted? Nothing at all. But, when you look at all of the weed killers you use on your lawn for those pesky weeds who just seem to keep growing more resistant or the new strains of antibiotics you take to get rid of the Swine Flu (which by the way has evolved so it is more drug-resistant), you have to thank evolutionary biologists and scientists who make the more powerful weed killers and antibiotics because that's evolution at work before your very eyes!
So, sit back, think. Don't make someone into a round peg that doesn't fit your square hole just because it's different! That's prideful! It's the ability to turn the box to find the round hole that makes you special. It's not called "thinking outside the box" for nothing.
So, onto the Outline! Woot! Only a month and a half left in the semester.
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