Redefining the Republicans?

As we all know, President Obama won re-election and Democrats solidified their majority in the Senate, with the House of Representatives still Republican dominant.  And as much as I dislike politics, I couldn't help but read some post-election commentaries, such as this, "Christian Right Fails to Sway Voters on Issues."

The current Republican party is so far to their end of the extreme it's no wonder that they failed to win the election.  This got me thinking.  What is meant by "conservative" and what is meant by "traditional?"  These in and of themselves aren't sinister terms that should be tabooed.  Indeed, many people may consider themselves conservative or traditional but still be alienated by the current gestalt of the Republicans.

Economics

I've read that Republicans tend to favor market forces and believe in individual responsibility.  These are things that many people can rally behind.  They are less in favor of government hand-outs and give-me's, and as such are likely to be more restrictive on social safety nets for the poor or disenfranchised.  Still people can rally behind that notion when they believe they shouldn't "rely" on the government to pull themselves up or have seen others abuse the system.

Taxes
Republicans generally are in favor of less taxes on (preferably) everyone, but the current Republicans want tax cuts for the wealthy to a fault. Wealth is really a matter of perspective.  How much does one need to live comfortably?  How much does one need to enjoy life?  Yes, money is hard-earned, but taxes exist for a reason and without them, many things in society would simply cease to function.

Health Care
Republicans are united against "Obamacare."  Fine, I get that.  It's not a perfect bill.  But if you're going to attempt to repeal it, you better have a viable alternative ready to go as soon as it's gone, because the status quo isn't benefiting anyone.  Is health care a right?  Is it a basic right?  A civil right?  Is it a privilege?  Is access to health care a right?  These are philosophical questions that our society must determine.

Abortion
Alright, Republicans are generally anti-abortion.  Fine.  But I take issue when they say they're "pro-life."  They are not pro-life.  If you're going to oppose abortion, you better set up a support system for the children and mothers whose lives are affected.  If you're going to oppose abortion, you must make it okay for a single mom without a high school degree to give birth.  This takes investment, time, infrastructure, and of course money.  If you're truly pro-life, you'd campaign to have all kids vaccinated.  You'd campaign to have every child be in programs such as Head Start and Birth to Three.  You'd campaign to help single parents find jobs or tax credits for education.  You'd campaign to offer prenatal care at Planned Parenthood, not cut its funding across the board.  This is truly pro-life.  But it all costs money, and where does that come from?  Taxes.

Family
Republicans are pro-family.  But really, aren't we all?  Their problem is that they haven't kept up with what a "family" can be these days.  Yes, a family may be the nuclear family of parents and children.  But it can also be an extended family, where one lives with aunts, uncles, and/or grandparents too.  It can be a single parent home.  It can be a gay or lesbian couple.  All studies suggest that it matters less what kind of structure the family consists of, and more the love and care provided by that family.

LGBT
Republicans are against LGBT rights at large, but particularly gay marriage.  It doesn't hold much water with me from a legal perspective.  There is a difference between a civil marriage and a religious marriage.  Churches and other places of worship may refuse to consecrate a gay marriage, but that doesn't mean that the state should refuse as well.  In America where we profess to be open, accepting, and tolerant of all religions - where we believe in separation of church and state - where is all that here?  The same arguments made against gay marriage is exactly the same arguments made against interracial marriage several decades ago.

Minorities
The Republican party has a dearth of minority representation, and it has so far made little to no attempt to attract minorities.  It's really a shame.  Many African-Americans, Asian-Americans, and Latino-Americans likely agree with the Republican's economic stances and their sentiments about family.  Yet the Republicans have managed to alienate all of these groups.  Immigration reform, if done well, would begin to sway some Asians and particularly Latinos to the Republicans.

Environment
Republicans should be truer to the word "conservative" when it comes to environment.  The US has one of the greatest natural resources on the planet, and while it's something that we should tap into, it's also something that we should protect and cherish.  Investment into alternative energy would definitely open up job opportunities and drive innovation.

Education
There's a distinctly anti-education sentiment in the Republican party these days.  I do believe everyone should have the opportunity to attend college/university if so inclined.  I do believe we should invest in recruiting more people to become teachers, and to hold schools accountable (to a degree, this a very complex topic sufficient for its own post).  Teachers and their unions shouldn't be made out to be the bad guys.  It's not easy being a teacher.  If the Republicans don't do something to advance education, the US will continue to slide further and further behind.

Anyway, this post is long enough.  The point I wanted to make is that the Republican party, at its core and true to its moderate members, is not a bad thing.  But they've drifted so far from where they should be that they've become hypocritical.  Perhaps this election has kicked their butts sufficiently to see that what they're doing isn't working and will never work.

And this is a nice article to end on, "The Great Experiment."

When the Courts Intervene

These days the news are filled with stories of various laws, bills, and practices brought before the Courts system.  It must be difficult to be a judge, to sit in a position of logic when so many of the arguments brought forth are ones of emotion.  And when it may at first appear that the Courts overstep their boundaries, the reaction can be explosive.

In Germany, a curious ruling was made by a Cologne court: German Ruling Against Circumcising Boys Draws Criticism.  Of course Jews and Muslims are up in arms over this, believing the court overstepped its jurisdiction and invaded religious space.  The court basically ruled (paraphrased) that the child has the fundamental right to bodily integrity and must be able to consent to the procedure if it's not done for medically indicated reasons.  It sounds logical enough.

Now the vast majority of circumcisions are done in infancy or early childhood, when the child cannot of course consent.  By Jewish tradition it happens on the 8th day of life.  Muslim tradition, as I understand it, varies a bit - it could be in infancy or all the way in adolescence (when the child would be able to consent).

So the argument come back, does the child's fundamental right to bodily integrity trump the parents' rights to parent?  To dictate the child's religion?  This is a gray zone, to be sure, and I'm not sure why male circumcision gets such a pass (from a logical standpoint).  Courts have ruled previously that a parent may not tattoo their child.  Courts have ruled that female circumcision (aka female genital cutting/mutilation or FGM) is illegal.  Are those necessarily drastically different?  Tattooing inflicts a permanent mark on the child, but doesn't remove any part of his/her body.  Female circumcision exists on a spectrum - the most "benign" being a simple prick to draw blood from the clitoral hood (or removal of the clitoral hood) to practices way more extreme.

One medical body considered allowing physicians to perform the most benign on the FGM spectrum (pricking the clitoral hood to draw a few drops of blood, symbolically of female circumcision) to assuage parents who come from a culture that practices that, and to ensure they don't take their baby girls to a practitioner who'd do something way more extreme.  That consideration was met with a furious backlash and promptly retracted.  But we're allowed to do more than that to baby boys.  I mean, really now?

For the purposes of this post I'm ignoring the potential medical benefits/risks of male circumcision because the research on that waffles all the time, and whatever potential medical benefits that may be gained are easily achieved with other means (e.g. using a condom, good hygiene, etc).  But these procedures, because they are surgical in nature, do come with very real risks.  In an old Jewish tradition (fortunately not practiced by most - I think - Jews these days), the mohel sucks the blood away from the circumcision wound with his mouth.  This is obviously not sanitary and is against all medical standards.  How 11 New York City Babies Contracted Herpes Through Circumcision.  That's one of the complications of that particular practice.  Now in normal healthy older children and adults, herpes is annoying but nothing more really.  In babies, because their immune systems are next to none, a herpes infection can be deadly.

And when public health officials try to intervene to limit/stop these practices, religious backlash is again furious as they claim they can self-regulate.  Clearly not always.  Circumcision, as my ob/gyn attending once said, has a "narrow therapeutic window."  It's not a difficult procedure to perform, but when you mess up, you mess up big time and you can destroy that kid's life.  That's not a burden I'd like to carry.

If at this point you may think I'm bashing religion, I assure you I'm not.  But when a religion requires modification to a person's body, particularly to a person who cannot consent, there are at least standards that must be met.  I'm in full support of medical/public health/legal bodies regulating such practices to ensure minimal harm.  The Cologne court in Germany may have gone too far, but the issue they bring up is valid: does the parents' rights trump the child's right to bodily integrity?  What if the child grew up and wish he (or she) wasn't circumcised?  What consolation is there then?

On my ob/gyn rotation I met a young first-time mother who asked me, as she was in the last stages of labor, whether her son would get circumcised right after birth.  I tried my best to mask my shock.  I said that the baby must first be observed for at least 12+ hours to ensure he's healthy enough.  I told her if she wished it to be done, it'd happen the following morning.  She asked me again if it'd be done right after he was born.  I reiterated myself.  Her friend suggested she could just leave him uncircumcised, that there's nothing wrong with that - I agreed and said most of the world's men are uncircumcised and the vast majority of them have no health problems because of it.  She considered this for a full 3 seconds before asking me that question again.  I changed the topic, exchanged some polite words, and left.  This mother, in my opinion, shouldn't have had the right to make that snap decision for her son without full consideration of the potential risks/benefits.

Thoughts?  Should logic rule over emotion and tradition?  Did that German court go too far, or simply conform to laws regarding other somewhat similar practices?  Whose rights should respected first?

Here's one last article, food for thought: Circumcision's Deadly Fault Line: Rationality vs. the Metzitzah B'Peh.

Election Wrap-up

I spent the evening watching the election last night, and consequently got no work done. Oh well. As people may (or may not) have noticed, I try to keep politics out of this blog because I don't much like politics. So just a few things:

1. I'm glad Obama won. I hope he'll be able to deliver the change he promises and the change that we so need as a country after 8 years of Bush. I have no doubt he'll be a competent and capable president, but I feel just a little bad as he's charged with cleaning up all that Bush messed up.

2. McCain is a great and respectable man. There was a time (at the very beginning of the campaign) that I might've considered voting for him. The closer it got to election time, the more that evaporated. Yet, he exhibited dignity and grace in his speech accepting his loss in the election.

3. California, we've been watching your Prop 8 here. Of all the states with that initiative on the ballot, we never expected it to turn out so close with "Yes on Prop 8" slightly ahead. Last I checked, not all the precincts were in, so there's still hope that "No on Prop 8" will win the day. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you. If for no other reason to support "No on Prop 8," it's that if Prop 8 passes, it'd be a clear violation in my mind of the Separation of Church and State. And I hold that concept pretty sacred.

4. I am ecstatic to say that Prop 2 in my state passed (barely), which means "looser" restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. Prop 2 is actually a very specific and detailed proposition that has many limits on obtaining embryonic stem cells (see my past post here for more). So "looser" really means "at all" and with all the attendant restrictions at the state and federal levels.

Now, to go research for my term paper on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (aka, embryo screening). And to study for my pathophysiology exam next Monday. I do love that class, lol.

A Theological Discussion

In one of my courses today, "Issues in Public Health Genetics," we had a guest lecturer (SBK-F) discuss the theological issues concerning public health genetics, or what are theological issues in general. Apparently, there's such a thing as a Doctorate in Ministry in Spirituality. Her discussion today was so inspirational that I thought to discuss it here.

First a few disclaimers. I apologize for writing her words in any way less precise than she had described them herself to us. I'm going off the imperfection of human memory (and her PowerPoint slides), so pardon my distilled and potentially diluted words. This following will be long, so be patient if you're going to read it all. Also, no attacking me!! Lastly, keep an open mind.
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SBK-F puts forth an idea called soulful reasoning. It is a means through which we take a step back and look at the whole human being. It is a holistic approach that posits that we are all more than the sum of our parts, that we can sense something beyond what is tangible to our five senses. Soulful reasoning is also a means to connect spirituality and science as partners.

What is meant by spirituality? And what is meant by religion? The two are not synonymous though they are intimately linked such that it's difficult to separate them. Spirituality is the "beyond," the "more than" that we sense beyond our five senses. Different cultures give it different names. Religion is the means through which different groups of people understand and connect to spirituality, ultimately how we manifest spirituality.

SBK-F present this quote (from who I forget) that goes something like this: "There is a realm for which there are no words. There is then a realm for which there are no words yet we grasp for words. And then there's the realm for which there are no words and yet we settle on words because we need words." Spirituality is like that first realm, a place for which we have no words. Religion is like the last two realms, a place where though we may not have the words, we give it words because we need them.

What is faith and what is ideology? Both are meaning systems and must be developmental, dynamic, and always growing and essentially alive. Neither can become static or else they hazard becoming too rigid and ultimately obsolete. Faith deals with the final or ultimate questions, seeking understanding of the unknowable. Ideology is the practical means through which faith may be executed. Religions all contain both the elements of faith and ideology. The fundamental danger of both faith and ideology is to avoid dualism. Dualistic thought is where things are clearly divided into discrete categories. For example, good and bad, right and wrong. Both faith and ideology need shades of gray in which to operate. There cannot be only good or bad, only right or wrong.

Values are a set of principles, standards, or qualities considered worthwhile or desireable. They may be things, ideas or people that are important to us and give our lives meaning. They help us make decisions and choose paths in life, shaping our behavior and defining who we are. The stronger the value is to us, the less willing we are to change or compromise them - this in itself is dangerous. There are many different "kinds" of values ranging from personal to religious to institutional to societal to cultural to work. In many cases values may overlap in several categories. Core values are the set of values that we stand for, are the most important, and that we encourage.

Moral values (or simply morals) are the standards of good and bad that govern an individual's behavior and choices. An individual's morals may be derived from society, government, religion, or from oneself. A "set of morals" as a whole are not derived from a single source (such as society or religion) though "individual morals" may be derived from a particular source. Morals are a source of great power but also of great danger. Morals present the pitfall of becoming dualistic, of saying with "certainty" what is right or wrong, what is good or bad. We need to always be aware that there are gray spots that morals operate in.

When moral values are derived from society and government they will change as laws and the social mores change. An example given was impact of law changes on the moral values between marriage and "living together." Several decades ago it would've been appalling for people to simply "live together" without getting married. Today there are options and people are freer to choose. Morals derived from oneself is shaped by our experiences from childhood to adulthood and help us determine what's acceptable and what's forbidden, kind or cruel, generous or selfish. Going against these morals tends to elicit guilt. Lastly, most religions have built-in lists of morals that individuals of that religion follow. For example, the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, the Five Pillars of Islam, the Five Precepts of Buddhism, the Ten Dharma Embodiments of Hinduism.

Spiritual values and religious values are often used interchangeably though they may be used to distinguish between human values and doctrinal beliefs that become expressed as values. The two are not necessarily the same but often share a lot of overlap.

The following is what leads me to believe in the "more than" which has been called Enlightenment, the Oneness of the Tao, the Divine, Heaven, etc.

There are five human values that are found across ALL spiritual traditions: truth, righteousness, love, peace, and non-violence. Furthermore, there are very similar religious values that seem to apply to a universal ethic of human respect and dignity. (The following are copied from her PowerPoint slides, so I don't know for sure if they're quoted exactly from the sources.)

Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful (Udana-Varga 5:18).

Confucianism: Surely it is the maxim of loving-kindness: Do not do unto others what you would have them do unto you (Analects 15:23).

Taoism: Regard your neighbor's gain as your own gain and your neighbor's loss as your own loss (T'al Shang Kan Yin Pien).

Judaism: What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow human. That is the entire law; all the rest is commentary (Talmud, Shabbat 31a).

Christianity: In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets (Matthew 7:12).

Islam: No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself (Qu'ran, Sunnah).
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So what are some "take away messages" from the discourse presented by SBK-F through me? What I got out of it is that it's dangerous to hold onto a value or moral in a very tight grip. If one holds on to it too tightly, they lose sight of its source, they lose sight that there may be alternatives that are just as good. We all operate in the gray area between two extremes and that if we were to ever eliminate this gray area, conflict results. Because if one person believes he/she is right "beyond any doubt," does that mean necessarily that everyone else is wrong? Also, morals (and by extension morality) does not solely stem from religion. It does, in part, but not entirely. Like many things in life, morals are complicated and are derived and synthesized from many influences, whether we recognize it or not.

Also the most powerful message is that, regardless of religion or non-religion, everyone seems to share the same basic spiritual and human values. SBK-F had us do an exercise in class where she dictated to us the public health values and assigned each group of three a set of personal values and a set of institutional/work values. And we had to come up with 2-3 spiritual values to reconcile or appeal to those disparate values. The most interesting thing is that everyone ended up choosing very similar spiritual values (sometimes with different terms, like charity and compassion, but ultimately similar) but used them in different ways to deal with the very different value systems laid before us.

So that which unites us, all of us - whether or not we're religious, whether or not we believe we're spiritual, whether or not we share the same values and/or morals - is somehow something fundamental to everyone. It is something "more than," something greater and beyond us, something we can't sense with our five senses and yet know is there, whether we recognize it or not.

Apparently . . .

. . . I need to be saved.

After getting coffee with AG-F after work yesterday, we walked across the campus to a Borders where she had a book on hold. We managed to walk past an evangelist without attracting his attention. But we had to walk back in the same direction to get to where we each needed to go. On the way back, he saw us.

He came up to me and handed me a leaflet with "Christ is Victor" on it. Nevermind that AG-F was walking closer to him. Nevermind that he completely ignored her, bypassing her arm and body to give it to me specifically. After we walked past hearing distance, we both thought "What was that?!" We had expected him to give a leaflet to both her and me, but no, only I had to have one. Our following conversation was something as followed:

Me: "What was that? Did that just happened?"

AG-F: "I don't know. Apparently you need to be saved. Just you, not me."

Me: "That's so weird. Maybe you just look like a generic WASP to him? Hmm, I already have a Bible . . ." (AG-F's Catholic, I think . . . and the Bible was for class)

AG-F: "Clearly they don't have enough of 'you.' They've already enough of 'me,' maybe they already have a whole collection of 'me.' But aren't there lots of Asian Christians?"

Me: "Yeah, but they're all Korean . . ." (Kind of somewhat true)

So yeah, that was strange. I gave her the leaflet so it could fulfill its fate (aka, get recycled). She was headed to the library anyway. On my way back to my apartment, I half-heartedly decided that I want to collect some major religious texts. I already have a Bible (and a Torah in retrospect as that's basically the Old Testament, though I'm sure many would disagree with me). I have excerpts of the Analects of Confucius, excerpts of the I Ching, and the Tao Te Ching. All I need now are the Quran, Buddhist scriptures, and Hindu scriptures to have collected the world's most "popular" religions.
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. . . Asian guys have small penises that drag the average down.

SC-F and RS-M were talking about their mutual friend, Tyler, who apparently has a huge penis. And she was talking about penis sizes and such. At one point, she said something to the effect of, "The overall average seems small to me. (Average = about 6 inches) You know why? It's cuz of all the Asians, they're dragging the average down."

She went on about this for a little bit, about how Asians have smaller penises on average and that it was a fact. And they drag down the average significantly, otherwise it might be an inch or so higher. I don't know if she noticed that I was sitting behind her, because suddenly she turned to me and was like, "No offense."

But how could I not take offense? Granted, I'm not above average but I'm well within the average range (of what, 5 to 6.5 inches?). The strange thing is that it didn't bother me at the time. But when I woke up the next morning, I was so indignant. Sure, I can accept that Asians tend to be on the small side of average, just like Asians tend to be shorter and Asian women tend to have smaller breasts. I can accept that the exceptionally large Asian penises are rare. But to say that "we're" so short that we drag the average down for everyone else, that's just wrong.

I don't know why I felt so indignant, I just did. I almost wished I could go back in time and say to her, "You know what? Asian women have smaller breasts and vaginas." Which isn't exactly false, but again, not lying outside one standard deviation of the normal distribution centered around "average."

Sigh, all the things I wish I had said or should've/could've said.

Preaching Intolerance and Hate on Campus

Okay, I know I was going to post about music and all, but this is too amusing/interesting/important/whatever to not post first. So yesterday (well, since it's past midnight I guess it's 2 days ago) there was a person in the middle of central campus preaching his twisted interpretation of the Bible. He came back today as well. We (and by "we" I mean my friends and I, but mostly me) call these people "diag preachers" when they're on campus and "hell-callers" when they're off campus.

So this African-American guy was standing in the middle of a crowd of students basically spouting his intolerance and hate, telling everyone they're going to hell for their sins unless they convert to his perverse version of Christianity. He "visited" our campus last year too and he had the same large banner with him. I took two pictures, but I feel it might be a bit unethical to post them. Anyway, he was preaching his intolerance and hate for homosexuals and Jews, amongst other things (like masturbation, which is now widely held to be healthy and good for you - in moderation; I think I'd go insane without masturbation). He apparently went up to this girl who passed by and told her she was going to hell for wearing a low-cut shirt. ::rolls eyes:: Where do these people spawn from?! Honestly, these people give Christianity a really bad name. Much like Jihadists do for Islam. You don't win people over by fear, intimidation, and violence. It just doesn't work that way.

What's more is that it's National Coming Out Week (apparently), and our university's LGBT commission was having an event on the diag too right next to him. That got pretty . . . interesting, or so I heard. I saw an old high school acquaintance of mine, JH-F; I believe she's the president of the LGBT student group on campus. She's changed A LOT since high school. While she was out as a lesbian during junior and senior year, she at least "looked and acted" normal (although, she was always rather intimidating for a female). But since coming to the university, her attire changed dramatically starting the end of freshman year. I never understood the need to change one's appearance (or behavior) like that, it almost seems like it's to prove a point (it certainly doesn't appear to be more comfortable). Anyway, I saw her, went to say hi, and gave her a hug. And I wished her well as I left to eat lunch with some people before class.

ES-M is also a lot more religious (he's thinking of getting a theology minor, if possible) than I had originally thought, though I don't know how conservative/liberal he is but he seems pretty tolerant. He was curious about the diag preacher and wanted to listen to what he had to say for a few minutes, but I tried to convince him that it was a waste of time. He also didn't understand the point of a National Coming Out Week; my answer was that there's a week for everything here in the US. I suppose everything needs a week.

ES-M and I had a brief, but interesting, conversation about religion/Christianity after class. I contended that one must be careful in interpreting the Bible (or any religious text) and be aware of the wording, as that changes depending on the version and translation and can subsequently change meaning. He believed that it didn't really matter, because when taken as a whole it always leads to the same point. I don't know, I suppose I tend to look at things analytically and critically, from the perspective of a literary critic and scientist. Religion is a realm I don't like to trespass too far into.

Mask of Faith

I was not raised in a religious house, and the closest thing to religion was to live according to a rather Asian philosophy - to be concerned about this life and living a "good life" and how to achieve that life. The key was always education, as that opened the doors to everything and my parents have emphasized that like no other.

This is not to say that religion is foreign to me. My cello teacher was Lutheran, and we had recitals and concerts at the churches she belonged to. I also played for her church a few times for their Sunday morning service. When I went to Hong Kong in 5th grade, my mom and one of my brothers (and I) went to the grave of some family member I didn't know and prayed/paid our respects in the Chinese-Buddhist (not to be confused with Indian Buddhism) way. We also went to a monastery place in Hong Kong, and that was actually really cool. In my second semester at the university I'm attending, I had a class where we had to read parts of the Bible (as a piece of literature, not as a religious text) - that produced some very . . . interesting conversations between the Christians and the Jews in my discussion (I never want to experience that again). And towards the end of that class, I attended a Catholic mass with a devout Catholic friend of mine. I was amused that they read a passage from Matthew that I had to read for my class a few days prior. I also have some Jewish friends and celebrated a few Jewish holidays with them (mostly out of curiosity).

In all of those instances, the closest thing I've felt to God or anything Divine was in the monastery place. I've never really liked to discuss my beliefs and the topic of religion, as there's a lot of closed-mindedness there. But under this "Mask of Faith," suffice to say I don't belong to any one religion or world philosophy, but I have developed my own beliefs. And where did I find my beliefs? In my major - biology. It's interesting how many people either see science as an antithesis to religion or otherwise a way to disprove religion, but I disagree. I am more in concordance with Einstein and his beliefs on science and God.

There's also a line from Dan Brown's book Angels & Demons that I particularly liked (it's actually on my facebook profile). The line goes: "Science tells me God must exist. My mind tells me I will never understand God. And my heart tells me I am not meant to." It's such an elegant quote, so simple and true (for me).

So then, where do I "find God?" Or rather, as I'll call it, "the Divine." I'd have to say, in a leaf. Has anyone actually taken the time to look at a leaf, I mean, really look at it? (I'm talking about an archetypal leaf.) To notice how the top side is often darker than the underside, how there are veins running through it like veins under your skin, to see the patterns making up each leaf and iterated to all leaves of the same tree/plant. To see a world of complexity in something so "simple" as a leaf. And with some knowledge of how a leaf works - how chlorophyll works with a single atom of magnesium that literally resonates when struck by electrons that're powered by photons of light, like sound waves of an instrument, how photosynthesis turns carbon dioxide into oxygen and creates starch - how can one NOT be impressed by something so simple containing such complex mechanisms? And that's barely scratching the surface.

Here then, is a leaf. A massive collection of atoms and molecules that somehow knows what to do, something composed of non-living particles that acts with so much life. In the same sense, the regulation of DNA is equally amazing. How DNA fixes and prevents errors and mutations so effectively, is something to be awed. Even something like evolution provides such a simple yet complex explanation. I believe that it was Einstein who said something like "Science is the mind of God." And I believe it truly is, and we're just unlocking that mind.

So then, what might the sum of my beliefs be? That everything is connected in an endless cycle of birth, growth, death, and recycling. That life, consciousness, after-life, whatnot, is also a part of that endless cycle. Do I believe in reincarnation? Maybe, I don't know. But I believe everything has a reason, a meaning, a purpose - though it might be beyond human comprehension. I believe that everything is simple, and everything is, at the same time, complex (think of the leaf).

Again, there is a quote that sums this all up fairly well. It's from the movie Latter Days (a decent movie), and it goes: "When I was a little kid, I used to put my face right up to them [the Sunday comics] . . . and I was just amazed because, it was just this mass of dots. I think life is like that, sometimes. But, I like to think that from God's perspective, life, everything, and even this, makes sense. It's not just dots; and instead we're all connected. And it's beautiful, and it's funny, and it's good. From this close we can't expect it to make sense, right now."

There is so much more that I could say, but they're not coming to mind at the moment. Perhaps I'll leave it at this, for now. It seems like a decent start. I'd also like to say that perhaps "God" is not what we think, and all the religions and beliefs of the world are merely "manifestations and ways" for the Divine to reach people. If there is "one true religion," then honestly, why do all the other ones exist?