Measuring It - Pew Research

I chose an interview with Pastor Rick Warren, "Saddleback Church's Signature Issues". I recognized Warren's name for one of two reasons. Firstly, when I lived in Alaska, I went to a 'cell group' with my parents. It was like church in the middle of the week, but with a smaller group of people and at someone's house. For a few weeks our cell group was centered around "The Purpose Driven Life" written by Warren. I'd also heard Warren's name at Obama's
inauguration when Warren delivered the inaugural prayer at his swearing in.

The conversation with Warren consisted of the six signature issues of the Saddleback Church, the church Warren founded in 1993. Warren lists the six signature issues of his church; purpose driven training, celebrate recovery, AIDs initiative, P.E.A.C.E., Civil Society Initiative, orphan care issue and religious freedom and persecution. Warren elaborates on each issue. The few I found the most interested were the Civil Society Initiative and the orphan care issue. On the Civil Society Initiative, Warren says, "I don't know if you've noticed it or not but the world is getting ruder...you can walk hand in hand without seeing eye to eye." Warren says that he spends most of his time speaking to people who do not agree with him. I find this commendable. It's easier to 'preach to the choir' than to state you beliefs in a setting where you are under fire.
He also spoke of the orphans issue, "...there are 146 million orphans in the world. Whoever gets to those people first is going to get their hearts and minds – either madrases or radicals or fundamentalists or whatever. [T]hat's anarchy waiting to happen ..."
Warren also made the statement that the Christian population is growing. Warren says that the future of Evangelicalism is not in America, but in places like Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He mentioned growing numbers of Christians in of the countries, but he failed to talk about proportions or the growing number of Christians with respect to the growing population. He did say that, "We're in this little bubble that we think most people don't have a faith." and said that secularism is not as popular as us Americans seem to think it is.

After Obamas inaugural address I'd been hearing negative news about Rick Warren on the topics of gay marriage. This was hardly surprising. Nothing in this report addressed that issue and therefore it did nothing to confirm or change my perspectives. I find myself on the other side of the fence from Warren when it comes to this wedge issue, but this article helped me to realize that churches that stand for intolerance in the queer community can benefit the global community in other ways (such as many of the initiatives of Warren's church).

This report wasn't worthwhile to me. I was hoping to glean some information about Warren's stand on gay marriage or at least get nitty gritty about some of his more controversial political views, but as Warren said, "I don't talk policy ever with politicians." and the exception being his work with the orphans. It was nice to read about Warrens war on AIDs and his Civil Society Initiative, but I don't feel I've grown in any way by reading this article.

I chose an interview with Pastor Rick Warren, "Saddleback Church's Signature Issues". I recognized Warren's name for one of two reasons. Firstly, when I lived in Alaska, I went to a 'cell group' with my parents. It was like church in the middle of the week, but with a smaller group of people and at someone's house. For a few weeks our cell group was centered around "The Purpose Driven Life" written by Warren. I'd also heard Warren's name at Obama's
inauguration when Warren delivered the inaugural prayer at his swearing in.

The conversation with Warren consisted of the six signature issues of the Saddleback Church, the church Warren founded in 1993. Warren lists the six signature issues of his church; purpose driven training, celebrate recovery, AIDs initiative, P.E.A.C.E., Civil Society Initiative, orphan care issue and religious freedom and persecution. Warren elaborates on each issue. The few I found the most interested were the Civil Society Initiative and the orphan care issue. On the Civil Society Initiative, Warren says, "I don't know if you've noticed it or not but the world is getting ruder...you can walk hand in hand without seeing eye to eye." Warren says that he spends most of his time speaking to people who do not agree with him. I find this commendable. It's easier to 'preach to the choir' than to state you beliefs in a setting where you are under fire.
He also spoke of the orphans issue, "...there are 146 million orphans in the world. Whoever gets to those people first is going to get their hearts and minds – either madrases or radicals or fundamentalists or whatever. [T]hat's anarchy waiting to happen ..."
Warren also made the statement that the Christian population is growing. Warren says that the future of Evangelicalism is not in America, but in places like Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He mentioned growing numbers of Christians in of the countries, but he failed to talk about proportions or the growing number of Christians with respect to the growing population. He did say that, "We're in this little bubble that we think most people don't have a faith." and said that secularism is not as popular as us Americans seem to think it is.

After Obamas inaugural address I'd been hearing negative news about Rick Warren on the topics of gay marriage. This was hardly surprising. Nothing in this report addressed that issue and therefore it did nothing to confirm or change my perspectives. I find myself on the other side of the fence from Warren when it comes to this wedge issue, but this article helped me to realize that churches that stand for intolerance in the queer community can benefit the global community in other ways (such as many of the initiatives of Warren's church).

This report wasn't worthwhile to me. I was hoping to glean some information about Warren's stand on gay marriage or at least get nitty gritty about some of his more controversial political views, but as Warren said, "I don't talk policy ever with politicians." and the exception being his work with the orphans. It was nice to read about Warrens war on AIDs and his Civil Society Initiative, but I don't feel I've grown in any way by reading this article.

I read the article, "Rights of Conscience vs Civil Rights: Are Health Care Workers Obligated to Treat Gays and Lesbians?," which was written in June of 2010 and focuses on the intersection of religion, law, and discrimination against sexual orientation. I chose to read the article because I had heard some news about gays and lesbians being refused healthcare and wanted to learn more about what was going on.

The article focuses on Julea Ward, who was studying at Eastern Michigan University and participating in a graduate-level counseling program. She was dismissed from the program in March of 2009 because she refused to counsel a gay man about his same-sex relationship. Julea Ward explained that her "Christian beliefs about homosexuality would prevent her from affirming the client's relationship with another man." However, her decision to deny him counseling was still not acceptable because it goes against her ethical obligations as a counselor; it is discrimination against the man based on his sexual orientation.

Julea Ward then filed a law suit against EMU saying that the school violated her rights to free exercise of religion and freedom of speech. She emphasized that she was willing to talk with him about all other aspects of his life, just not the gay part. EMU responded by saying that the "free exercise of religion" doesn't allow her to deny the man of counseling service, she is still obligated to provide him with that service.

My personal opinion about the article is that I agree with EMU, I think that even if counseling the man goes against her "core religious beliefs" Julea should still talk with him because not doing so is blatant discrimination. It is her job to counsel people, so she should do that!

Anyway the conclusion of the article is that thus far, lawmakers have decided that public employees don't have the right to refrain from service same-sex couples. Another thing I found surprising was that only twenty states outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, I thought it would / should be a lot higher than that…..

Overall the report was somewhat worthwhile to me but it mostly just confirmed what I already knew. I would recommend reading it if you would like some general knowledge about lgbt rights.

-sarah

I chose an interview with John Greene, a Pew Forum Senior on Religion and Public Life, in Will Obama Win the White Catholic Vote? I chose this interview because I believe winning the presidential nomination process is about gaining the votes of large groups of people and mastering the concept of political wedging. Back in the 70's Nixon won his nomination with the help of the southern strategy, gaining the voters of the south by slowing down the Civil Rights Act. The democrats won the hearts of the African Americans by supporting the Civil Rights Act. Now a days white Catholics have traditionally been the swing voters so its interesting to me to see how this plays out with Obama's success.

Going into the election John McCain had a 13-point lead among white Catholic voters, but this soon changed as Barack Obama's campaign brought in an 8-point lead at the end of October. The largest part of the shift was because of the white Catholic independents who are the usual suspects due to changes between Republicans or Democrats. The financial situation may have been the factor of the shift. The Wall Street collapse and the government bailouts really affected the white Catholic voting because they believe the economy as an issue is a very important aspect of their candidate of choice. Because of these economic calamities the white Catholics moved their economic priorities in favor of Obama. Another factor was the increasing negative views of McCains campaign. There was a huge increase of acceptance of Obama where as the negative advertising created criticism from the press. A final possibility related to the shift of white Catholics was the enormous advantage in campaign resources. Obama had an abundance of resources which made it possible for him to communicate with many voters an a very efficient way, including the white Catholics.

This interview very much confirmed my own perspective on the way to win the presidential nomination. One really cannot win the hearts of all the people, but who ever wins the hearts of most of the people succeeds in the long run. Just as Nixon won with the southern strategy, Obama won with the support of the white Catholics. I believe this interview was very worthwhile for me. I learned that John Kerry, a white Catholic, did not win the hearts of his fellow population and that may have caused him the presidential nomination. I recommend this interview to everyone in the class.

The Devil’s New Playground: The Shopping Mall
I chose this article because the one I originally wanted to read, which was about which states are most religious, didn’t work. Plus the title of this not only seemed completely ridiculous to me, but also I wanted to know more about who would possibly think that the Devil is at all affiliated with the shopping mall.

So basically this article talked about what happened when states and counties repealed “blue laws” blue laws are when, on Sundays, certain non-essential items like clothes, appliances, jewelry, liquor, cigarettes, can’t be sold. According to the article, when states eliminated blue laws, church attendance actually went down significantly and drinking and drug use increased a lot. Now, 13 states still have selling bans on some products, or leave it up to the local jurisdictions to decide, then obviously mall owners are fighting this because they lose money. So then the article talks about when researchers actually looked at what happened in the 16 states that repealed the blue laws in the 1950s through 1990s and I was absolutely dumbfounded by the results. Apparently church attendance declined, mostly with peple who went to church once a week, plus marijuana use increased, cocaine use increased, and drinking increased. So then the article answered my own question which was why on earth would eliminating these laws suddenly provoke a bunch of people (especially religious people) to do mass amounts of marijuana and cocaine… didn’t really add up to me.. The author said that that’s the million dollar questions, he thinks that keeping businesses open on Sunday means that some religious young people have to work or choose to go shopping which apparently increases their “exposure to sinners or otherwise weakens their resistence to the dark side,” which is completely ridiculous if you ask me. He suspected that “instead of being in church you’re working or shopping in the mall surrounded by party animals”

I just thought it was kind of funny because odds are, if these religious young adults are drinking, smoking pot, and doing cocaine on Sundays instead of church, odds are they were doing all of those things before they suddenly stopped going to church, and the only thing stopping them from doing it on Sundays was because of the blue laws. Something I found interesting was that corporations have spent a lot of money on diversity training programs so that managers are more sensitive to minorities and people with strong religious affiliations, but apparently they failed to eliminate biases or increase minorities in management. They actually found out that diversity training might reduce diversity.. because such programs were followed by a 6% decline in the proportion of black women in management. This article was kind of a fun thing to read, a different perspective that I think is a good thing for people of our generation to read because obviously a lot of us are exposed to the issues of alcohol, drugs and.. well.. shopping malls.. it's not a super long article, so if anyone in the class has free time it's a fun and really interesting read!

I read the article “Can civilization survive without god,” which was an interview with brothers Christopher and Peter Hitchens. Christopher Hitchens was of the perspective that god was not a good thing for society, while his brother disagreed and said that a belief in god was necessary for a civilized society. Chris supports his points with how often a religious empire collapses and is not often replaced, and how secular our society he has become. Chris refers to World War I as the war that ended religion by and large from the world, because it collapsed but the Russia, which was lead by a religiously supported czar, the Ottoman empire, that was lead by the caliphate or leader of Islam, and the First german reich, which was the product of the Holy Roman Empire. His point being, religiously based societies tend to kill them selves off. Peter made the a more individual point, by looking at how much society has been degrading with people no longer being religious. He sites that despite Russia being in partial disarray and dangerous to move about, the people there are still more civil then their counterparts in England.

Going into reading this, I believed that religion did not play a significant part in the morality of a nation. I believed it was the social expectations of the population that caused them to act morally towards other human beings, and not some sort of Devine cost analysis of their actions. I was not persuaded by Peter’s argument very much, because with out any actual evidence to support his claim, it could just be social differences. However, Chris provided an interesting point about how religious empires tend to die off, and secular ones don’t. By limiting the religious wars that a nation partakes in, they decrease the chance of themselves being destroyed. So I now side with the belief that a society without religion would probably be better off.

Despite the lack of evidence, both sides posed some interesting arguments. It was worth my time reading it.

The article I chose was "The Death Penalty Today: Defend it, Mend it, or End it?" because the title really grabbed my attention for a topic that could possibly be intriguing. Also I thought it would be interesting hearing about facts of the death penalty and how it has been used right or wrong throughout history.

The article interviews four different people, Sam Millsap, Kenneth Star, Bryan Stevenson, and finally William Otis. Each one has their own ties to the death penalty, for example Sam Millsap was a district attorney who sentenced a potentially innocent man to death back in 1992. Additionally the article continues to speak on this matter, and he mentions certain principles that "underpin" everything he has to say. I thought the principle number three was quite peculiar, but I enjoy the idea it gets across. "It's better that 100 guilty men go free than that one innocent man be convicted." However when it came down to the last two speakers, Bryan Stevenson and William Otis, they both presented very valid and intelligent statements. Stevenson goes on to speak on the fact that the death penalty makes everything a lot more corrupt in the world. Whether it be the American population, the courts or even the jurors, he believes that the American Population as a whole is generally angry and fearful which is true. He makes a very bold statement that, "Our system treats you much better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. Innocence is not the most useful thing you can take into court; it's wealth. If you've got wealth, you get a different outcome" He than ends his part of the article by saying that we've had a lot of errors throughout history that was undermined by race. So who decides if we get to kill or not? However, Otis then brings statistics into the situation that proves that executions (perhaps conquincidence) have lowered murders in America. Additionally he states that the American population is tired of seeing people like McVeigh and Gacy to not see them gone.
After reading this article I was kind of a roller coaster when deciding if I was for or against the death sentence. At the beginning I thought that we wouldn't want to convict another innocent man to death when he hadn't done anything wrong. However, Otis then made a good point that it's just horrible seeing all these gruesome killers simply sit in jail and Otis posted some numbers about how the death sentenced actually lowered murder accounts in America. Though, in the end I honestly cannot decide if I would want the death penalty in the judicial system because there are very strong arguments on both sides that I can't go one way on. Yes, this article definitely was worth my time because it was interesting seeing the different statements each side had to make and it helped me get more informed on our criminal courts.

The article I chose to read is titled, "Xenophobia on the Continent". I chose this article because xenophobia (the fear of people) is something that we should be wary of. When certain groups fear others, it often results in violence. I also chose this article because Ms. Conway recently referred to xenophobia as the central cause to any military, racial, or national conflict, which I found interesting.

This article was published in 2008 and focused solely on Europe. The writer was hitting on two accounts of xenophobia; the first regarding Anti-Semitism, and the second regarding to Anti-Muslims. Essentially, there are increasing minorities in Europe who fear and/or have a strong disliking for these two groups. The Anti-Semitism is increasing due to the rising support of the Palestinians and opposition of Israel, as well as "anti-Americanism." The writer spoke less of Anti-Muslims, but did say that the amount has risen in the last few years. The article, I believe, was addressing Western Europe mainly.

In terms of Anti-Semitic views, I had no idea that the Europeans felt this way about Israel so I can neither confirm nor deny any previous opinions. I did, however, receive confirmation of the attitudes towards Muslims from other parts of the world. Given our relationship to Europe, I figured they would have a similar stance on various Middle Eastern groups.

I think this was somewhat of a dull article overall, but I think it was valuable in that it gave me a different perspective of Europe. So in that sense, yes, it was worth while.

I chose to read the article "Cupid's Arrow Often Hits People of Different Faiths." I chose to read this article because I think the concept of marrying outside of ones faith is very interesting. Many faiths 'clash' in terms of their ideologies so I thought it would be interesting to read about which are more likely to marry outside of their faiths and what percentage of marriages are inter-faith relationships. The article was relatively brief, but contained many surprising facts and figures. For example, the study concluded that more than one-in-four married Americans are married or living with a partner are in religiously mixed relationships. The study also found that when people from different protestant denominational families are included, nearly four-in-ten couple are religiously mixed. Additionally, the study found that people unaffiliated with a particular religious are most likely (65%) to have a spouse or partner with a different religious background and that Buddhists are also likely to be married or living with a partner with a different religious background (55%). On the other side of the issue, Hindus (10%), Mormons (17%), and Catholics (22%) were found to be least likely to marry outside of their religious.
For the most part, this report was very surprising to me. I would not have thought that so many people married outside of their religion, as it can be one of the basic elements of someones life, contributing to their personality, morals, and sometimes, appearance. I wonder if this is a reflection that religion is a less significant aspect of peoples' lives in America, or if we have become more able to look beyond religion. I also think these findings are very encouraging. We often hear stories of people being very closed minded when it comes to his or her point of view, and these results show that that is perhaps not the case these days. I was also shocked to hear that Hindus are least likely to be married outside of their religion, especially after we just learned that they are (theoretically) very tolerant of other religions. However, I was not surprised to learn that Catholics and Mormons were on that list as well.
I think that this report was very worthwhile to read. It provided with me with some very interesting and poignant facts that reflected not only on religion, but American life in todays times. Additionally, it proved my preconceptions wrong so I was able to learn something new.

I read "The 'Zeal of the Convert': Is It the Real Deal?" by Allison Pond. In the article, Allison Pond discusses the large statistic of people who divert from the faiths of their childhood upbringings. Not only that, but studies show that those who have switched faiths from those they were brought up learning, actually show a greater dedication to the faith they divert to. Apparently, 69% of converters from their childhood faiths said religion was very important to them, as opposed to the 62% who answered on behalf of the non-converters. On top of that, 51% of converters attend worship services at least once a week, whereas only 44% of non converters do the same. 70% of converters claim they pray everyday, as opposed to the 62% of non converters. Of course, these differences are not large. Allison explains that the statistics vary in relation to specific faiths, and even then the differences are not extreme. For whatever reason, people who divert from their childhood faiths and convert to Methodism display a notably higher commitment to their religion compared to the Methodist who have been raised as Methodists. Lifelong Mormons on the other hand, view their religion as being more important than converters do. In the article, there is a chart containing the statistics of converted and non converted people from 12 different religions. For the most part, the chart shows that religion plays a bigger role and is more strongly believed in by people who convert from the religion of their upbringing.
I found this article extremely interesting because these days more and more people are defining themselves as atheists, or agnostics. I myself am an example of someone who has been raised a Christian, but as I've grown, ceased more and more to practice the religion. The whole idea that people are drifting away from religion is hooked to this entire study. Even now, through learning about other religions-mainly only Hinduism so far, but nonetheless-have felt stronger beliefs and agreements towards the religions I'm just now learning about, than the religion of my upbringing. It raises the question of whether or not parents should raise their child to be of the same religion as them. It raises the question of whether or not parents today even believe in the religions that they are teaching their children about. It's understandable that a parent would want to share spiritual beliefs with their child, but if their child grows up not to believe in it anyways, what's the point? This also makes me think about tradition. If a child grows up practicing a religious acts of worship, but for a religion that they don't actually believe in or understand, then it is training them to do things without thinking about the reason behind them. It's teaching them to follow a tradition for the sole purpose that they have been told to, and others are doing the same.
So what now? The fact is, it's doubtful that parents are going to stop teaching their children the religions they practice. Realistically, how are they supposed to teach their children anything but what they know. So is it the job of schools to feed all of the religions options a child has to them? And if so, at what age is a child or person old enough to understand what religion they want to choose to be a part of. Even then, it's not guaranteed that after they have lived many more years and experienced life changing events, they won't change their religion.
Although this is an issue that may never actually be faced because it isn't necessarily harming anyone or detrimentally affecting the world, it does confirm the perspectives of an increasingly large amount of people, including myself. I feel that it stems from a common lack of knowledge of people today. If the truth is that people are believing less and less in religion as time goes on, then that's one thing. Religion can cause bad outcomes, but it can also change people from the better. If practicing religion could help someone who has lost faith in their current religion and has nowhere else to turn, then it should be done. this is getting ridiculously long, and i may be drawing conclusions that are dramatically unrealistic... The point is, all people should learn about other religions, if not to simply better their own understanding of the people around them who practice those religions, for them self.

Arjun Sridhar

I chose the publication called "Religion Among the Millennials" because I thought it was really interesting to read about my own generations views on religion. This article was all about millennials becoming less and less religious. The article discusses that Americans of ages 18 to 29 are much less religious than the older generations of America. The article states that the Millenials, who are born after 1981, are in general less likely to be affiliated with their parents religious faiths. I found it interesting when I read that 1 in four millennials are unaffiliated with any particular faith. The article clearly showed the percent unaffiliated with a religion through a graph that compared our generations to the previous ones. Although the millennials are statistically less religious, this article stressed that the millennials have similar beliefs when it comes ideas such as God, heaven or hell, ect.. When it comes to social and political beliefs, millennials are more accepting of topics such as homosexuality, and the theory of evolution. This report definitely is true to my life and confirmed my attitudes of religion. My entire family is Hindu, and my parents are very religious and go to the Hindu temple on a basis. I define myself as Hindu but I see myself much less religious than my parents and grandparents. This article was definitely worthwhile reading for me because it is all about my own generation and the millennials view on religion. It was very interesting and relevant to read because I find that most of the points the article addresses fit my own views on religion.

I read an article entitled the "The Zeal of the Convert: I It the Real Deal?" I thought it was so interesting to see that those who convert to a religion are stronger practitioners than those who are born into a religion. I think it is interesting too, because they include atheism in the religious categories. The find that more and more people are drifting away from religion, a fact that I could have told you from talking to a group of high-schoolers. It seems to me that the younger generations that used to grow into older practitioners are not starting out as religious as they used to be. I find it interesting to see the statistics on the amount of people who are happier in the religion than they convert to. To a lot of people, the views their parents held were wildly different than those that they themselves believe. I would never have guessed the numbers were that high with the happiness in religion, but it was interesting to see, none-the-less.

I chose a publication titled, "A Portrait of Mormons in the U.S." mainly because I have heard a lot of jokes about Mormons, but few people seem to know about them.
What I learned? Mormons are very conservative and hold very strong beliefs. They are among the highest in percentage of weekly church attendance. They also are shown to have more conservative values than other religions. Only 22% of Mormons claim that they are democrats! 68% say that homosexuality should be discouraged, and only 22% of Mormons say that evolution is the best explanation for human life.
This report has only furthered my fear of Mitt Romney.
I think this report was a worthwhile read. Other than the obvious connection of Mormon and Utah, I hardly knew that there are about as many Mormons as there are Jewish people! However, this report was packed densely with information and I think it could have been better represented.

The article i decided on reading was, "Xenophobia on the Continent." I decided to read this article solely based on the name "xenophobia" meaning fear of people which instantly interested me. In the case of people fearing one another it can only result in the not best outcome, usually in violence. The article was published in 2008 and focused only in Europe. The article focused on two points, the first being Anti-Semitism and the second being Anti- Muslims. According to the article there are increasing minorities in Europe who fear and/ or have a strong dislike for the two different groups. The Anti-Semitism is increasing due to the rising support of the Palestinians and opposition of Israel, as well as "anti-Americanism." The author didn't speak as much of Anti- Muslims, but he did mention the amount has risen in the last few years. The article was mainly addressing Western Europe.
When talking of Anti- Semitic views, I was not aware of the Europeans felt so strongly about Israel nor did I know this is how they felt. I can't agree or disagree with any previous thoughts because honestly i did not have any.
I do not feel like this would be an article I would ever read again, it was not the most interesting thing I have ever read and I'm sure I could have found a more interesting one but i do feel that i have gained more knowledge after reading this article than before.

The publication I read was: “Religion in the News: 2010. Islam the No. 1 Media Topic.” This article detailed how Islam was the number one media topic in 2010 by far, bumping Catholic’s from the top spot from last year. The largest stories that contributed to this exchange in religious media dominance included the 51 Park Place controversy, the burning of the Koran, and remembrance of the 9/11 attacks.

To me, the results of this study are of no surprise. I don’t ever remember a moment from the few times that I watched the news where Islam was not a bone of contention. Whether it was surrounding the Mosque story or any of the multiple reports on the going-ons in the Middle East, Islam was consistently a hot topic. Some interesting facts from the report were as follows: “In 2010, religion appeared as a major topic more often in the blogosphere than it did in traditional media. Religion was among the most-discussed topics on blogs in 12 of the 48 weeks studied by PEJ and the Pew Forum. In three of those weeks, the plan to build a mosque and Islamic center near ground zero was among the top subjects.” Also, “The Tea Party replaced the religious right as the most talked about element of the Republican Party's grassroots support in coverage of the 2010 midterm elections. Religious individuals, groups or institutions were mentioned in only about 1% of all mainstream media coverage of the elections. By contrast, the Tea Party movement was mentioned in nearly one-in-six midterm election stories (14.1%).” I think this represents a shift in the trending political and religious policies and a shift into a new global era.

This report confirmed my perspectives, especially the thoughts I expressed earlier about how Islam dominated the religious conversation. This report was not exactly worthwhile to be honest I don’t really care about what religion is the most talked about in the news.

Dom Frecentese

I chose to read the article "Evolution: A Timeline." This article was not so much an opinion or a subjective view of creation theory vs. Darwin's theory of evolution. It was more of a description of all the important events that have occurred in the battle between these two views. I think that through showing the debate's path in history, this article did a great job of painting a picture of the dilemma. Since this article was basically a list of facts, I also read parts of the article "Fighting Over Darwin, State by State" to give myself a better overview of the issue. These articles were located directly next to each other on the Education home page.

In my opinion, some of the biggest dates noted on this timeline would begin in 1831 with the start of Darwin's five year voyage on the HMS Beagle on the Galapagos Islands. The next important date in my eyes would be Darwin's publication of "The Descent of Man" which outlines humanity's descendence from Apes. The State of Tennessee vs. Scopes (or the Scopes Trial) in 1925 was a trial determining the legitimacy of Tennessee's ban on teaching evolution in high schools. Although those three events were far and away the most important in my eyes, there were many other interspersed events on this topic. Many of the years on the timeline included events that focused around the founding of "think tanks."

I was surprised when I read about the Kansas Board of Education ruling on evolution in 1999, especially since this was just over ten years ago. "The Kansas Board of Education rules that biology teachers can offer instruction in evolutionary theory but that the subject will not be included on statewide standardized science tests." The subject will not be included on statewide standardized tests? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I would say that this report only solidified my views and knowledge of reation vs. evolution, but the information given to me through the article was definitely worth the time spent reading.

I chose to read “The Tea Party, Religion and Social Issues” by Scott Clement, because quite honestly, I’d been trying to ignore the Tea Party for so long. I thought that it was about time to educate myself on their beliefs. I wasn’t surprised, they are extremely similar to the average Republican.
This article summarizes the social issues that the Tea Party supports and why. Tea Party supporters almost always prefer smaller government, think the Government is always wasteful, and think that corporations make a fair and reasonable profit; Tea Part supporters are almost always conservative and critical of Government – not unlike most republicans. Tea Party members are generally conservative on Social Issues as well. 64% of supporters oppose same sex marriage, 59% say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, and 78% favor protecting gun rights over limiting gun owner-ship. In a whole, Tea Party supporters closely resemble the average republican voters on social issues.
According to the Pew research, Tea Party supporters are more likely to say religious beliefs are the biggest influence on their views of same-sex marriage and abortion, meaning TP supporters are much more pious than the average American. White evangelical Protestants are the most supportive religious group, nearly half align themselves with the Tea Party. 69% of people who support the Conservative Christian Movement support the Tea Party.
The report didn’t change any of my own perspectives. In hind-sight I certainly could’ve chosen a more interesting article. I was expecting too much from this article, I had it in my head that there must be something profoundly different about this party, because they’ve been making so much noise! However, they are just conservative Republicans who enjoy bringing guns to political rallies.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this article to anyone. It’s a lengthy, statistically heavy article that could’ve summed up their point in one sentence: Tea Party supporters are almost always conservative and support heavily conservative issues.

I read the article "Evolution: A Timeline". It was about the theory of creation versus the theory of evolution. I was very interested in this debate and in its developments, and this article did a perfect job of explaining the major events that have happened in this conflict. It perfectly described where the issue arose from and where it as at right now. This article laid out the debate on a timeline which made it very easy to follow.

The first major event on the timeline was Darwin's creation theory and his publication of the article "The Descent of Man". This article outlined how humans descended from apes. This article was met with a lot of controversy when it was first written, and that controversy has hardly diminished over the years. Another major event on this timeline and in the debate between creation and evolution is the Scopes Trial in 1925. In this Trial, John Scopes was originally found guilty of teaching evolution, which was against the law at that point, but that decision was overturned and he was never brought back to trial.

Before reading this article, I was, for the most part, aware of what it talked about, but it did a good job of explaining the debate in greater detail. It pretty much reinforced how I felt on this debate.

I read the interview with Christopher and Peter Hitchens on, "Can civilization survive without god." Both brothers had different opinions on whether god was necessary in our society. Christopher argues that god is a bad thing for our society while Peter argues god can help our society. Christopher tries to argue that we're not affected by religion as much as we used to be because of World War I because it caused our world to slightly fall out of religion because of it's collapse. Peter argues that while society has started to forget about religions and he feels as though it's just not as important as is used to be.
I was excited to read this because I strongly agree with what was said in this article. I grew up in a family where religion played no role in my development and in my opinion, it's helped me become a more realistic and mature person to understand that religion doesn't need to play a role in order to keep the world going. After all, 95% of war has to do with religion. I also agree with Peter when he says that he feels as though religion is fading out as our history progresses. It may be my biased opinion but i agree that religion gets less and less popular every year in our country. This may not be true in other countries but it's how i feel towards ours.

The article I read for the Pew Research independent assignment was about the “Sikh-Americans and Religious Liberty”. This article was posted December 4th 2009, and the main issue of this article was the discrimination towards Sikh-Americans. For example some forms of discrimination would be simply by their race or their appearance. For Sikh’s, “under the five articles of the Sikh faith, believers must carry a kirpan -- a small, curved sword meant to remind them of their responsibilities to protect the weak and promote justice -- and men are required to keep their hair and beards uncut. Men are also required to wear a turban to cover their hair. In the United States, many non-Sikhs do not understand the deep religious significance Sikhs attach to these symbols of faith, and they find the distinctive appearance strange or perhaps even threatening.” From this article they say that Sikh’s were targeted after 9/11 because of their appearance.
Another issue that this article talks about is school-related conflicts involving Sikh-Americans. Like many schools, including MPA, students aren’t allowed to wear a hood or hat during the school day. To some this might be a religious issue. In several states, including Oregon, there are laws that prohibit public school teachers from wearing distinctively religious clothing. In Sikh religion the saying of carrying a kirpan is necessary, but in school and other places—this is a violation bringing a weapon.
However, regardless of the discrimination the Government is trying to make any special efforts to accommodate the Sikh communities religious needs. As a safeguard for Sikh’s, the Title VII says that employers need to make reasonable accommodations for the religious needs of employees. This is just a small example of how the United States is trying to improve the life of Sikh’s in America. Ultimately, this article was very interesting. It was straight to the point and it’s quality of facts was very good. When reading this I found a strong correlation to my Hmong culture, simply because Hmong people go through, some-what, of the same thing.

I chose the article "Gay marriage Gains More Acceptance." I chose this article because it has been a huge social issues in presidential races and the United States in general. It has been a huge issue in our country and gotten tons of attention on if it should be legal or not. I felt the need to read this article and speak about it because my parents have always taught me that if you love someone you should be able to marry them if that is what your heart desires. It was something that caught my eye because i hope and wish that one day gay rights do pass so this article caught my attention.
The article speaks about the raising support for gay marriages. It talks about how race, religion and political views seem to affect a persons stance on the issue. The article was published on oct. 6th 2010 at it starts off by saying the percentage of people that are in favor have risen. It seems that 42% of adult are in favor of gay marriages this year, opposed to the year before it was 37% in favor. The article then moves on to conducting the same survey but with different ethnicities, religions, and political views to see how the results varied. The results showed that the raise in support for gay marriages occurred in many different demographics. The survey showed that those born later seemed to be bigger supporters than those born earlier. Democrats have a majority in support while republicans have the majority of non supporters. But in this survey it showed that support for gay marriage rose in the independent party. The survey showed that more whites are in favore whereas blacks seem to appose the issue. It also showed that while Protestants and Catholics have become more accepting on the issue. This article also talked about how in this years upcoming election the issue of gay rights seems to be on the bottom of the list with the economy and job, and other social issues such as abortion are over shadowing gay rights.
I would say that this article didnt change my stance on the issue of gay rights but i dont think that was the point of the article. I was more about how the statistics are changing on the issue. i have always been in support of gay rights and i am glad to be seeing that times are changing. I have always believed that in my life time we will see gay rights pass, and this just made that beliefe stronger with the rising stats.
Was this article worth my time? Yes i believe it was, it is on a very relevant topic in todays society so i was worth it. With the upcoming election i think it is a big topic in the eyes of the younger generations who seem to be in more support of gay rights. So i would recommend this article to all my classmates.

The article I read was Presidential Preferences of Religious Groups: Early Polling. The reason I choose this article was because I was curious if Romney being a mormon would effect how people viewed him. I does effect how he is viewed by some people of different faiths but over all he is leading.
This article was all about faith and politics. Personally I think fait has no need to be in politics but that's just me. The person it is mostly concerned with is Mitt Romney. He is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in other words Mormon. Him being a mormon has had a a little bit of a effect of him but not much he is still in the lead over the others. The main religion of the others is protestant. Romney is less likely to receive votes from white evangelical Protestants 1/3 less likely. Even so a poll showed that Romney still had a lead even ahead of perry who is an evangelical Protestant.
This didn't really change my view on anything. I wasn't a real fan of the GOP candidates anyway. The only thing it changed is what I now know about Romney being a mormon.
It wasn't really worth the time but it's kind of interesting. I didn't see Romney being a mormon as a big deal, but some people do. Religion can be a touchy topic for people sometimes. I wouldn't really recommend this article unless they are really, really into the GOP candidates.

Can civilization survive without a God I read this because I thought it was an interesting point, can we live our lives without preaching or praying to god. The report was about the speaker’s experiences or knowledge of areas where civilization was at its most fragile moments. They talked about lawless zones, belief in old fallen religion beliefs and moments of dramatic change in urban settings. What this report has shown me is that civilization is stuck between a rock and a hard place. With religion there will be conflict in name of that religion. People will live their lives devoted to the point of insanity in some cases. The other is without god without direction. Religion gives us a standard or moral compass that steers us away from lawlessness and destruction. I found it a so-so piece a little hard to follow at points but both pointing at if we can’t stay within reason civilization will end up destroying itself.

skrikava
WARNING: THIS IS KINDA LONG...

I decided to choose Public Sees a Future Full of Promise and Peril
Life in 2050: Amazing Science, Familiar Threats. This one caught my eye because I often find myself worrying about the future and this article so happens to talk about the future. The article focused on the future of the United States and had optimists and pessimistic statistics about where the United States would be in the next forty years or so. There were two main sides to this article: a bright, successful future or a dark future filled with nuclear weapons and a crumbling climate. The article included technological probabilities and or advantages/disadvantages. In terms of scientific, medical and technological advancements, it looks like the future of the U.S is a bright one there for 81% say that computers will be able to converse like humans, 71% say that there will be a cure for cancer, 66% said that artificial body parts will outperform real body parts (sad…) and a little over half believe we will be able to travel to space on a daily basis. (I'm not exactly sure how may people were surveyed, because that does matter in this sort of statistical analysis, however it says that the information is from the Smithsonian Museum so hopefully it's somewhat accurate…these stats come from 2010). The optimism in the med, tech, and sci field doesn't surprise me because I do agree that those particular areas are making huge, and fast, progress. As for the environmental issues, there was about a 50/50 chance that the environmental issues of today will or will not improve. (half say no, a little under half say yes…) And most think that the earth continues to warm (about 66%. That number went down since 1999 about 10 pts). Sadly, 60% of the population think that the oceans will be less healthy than they are today. (Umm…maybe we should do something about this…I don't know about you, but i love the oceans….and so do the animals that live in it……..hmmm…) and only 32% believe that the oceans will be healthier…hmm. BUT this part was taken right after some accident in the Gulf so… On the social studies/humanities level, more than half the population envision a world war III with nuclear weapons (kinda…) around 58% see it…Another 53% think that there will be another terrorist attack on the United States. (Scary….) And, not to my surprise, another 72% think that there will be an energy crisis for the world in the next forty years.
I find it interesting that most Americans are optimistic about the success of their individual lives, and the race relations of the U.S. (68%) This is good. Also, it's interesting to see that 89% think that a woman as president is probable as well as a Hispanic-American. Yaya for race and diversity!!!! Healthcare is looking okay. It's a fifty/fifty split whether it will be more or less affordable. What shocked me was in 1999, just 36% said healthcare will be affordable.
For the most part, people in the U.S think that short term projects, but not so much for long term…In 1999, 66% of the population thought that public education would improve, now it's down to 49% in 2010. Lots of Americans think that the role the U.S plays in the world will be less significant than it is now, and about 40 some percent think that China might surpass the U.S as the world's superpower, while another 40 some percent don't see it.
As for the rich and poor gap, 58% think the gap will have grown a lot by 2050, which is a little less than in 1999 (69%). Nowadays, only a third think the gap will become smaller.
It looks like we're in for some rough times America…and the world. This report didn't really change my opinion on many things…I guess I kinda think that yeah, the earth is warming, and it might be a good idea to pay a little more attention to this now then later…I do love trees, oceans, animals, and oxygen…And I also agree that the sciences will continue to advance at a more rapid pace whether it's medical sciences or technological sciences (like robots and communications). However, I was pretty surprised that people were so optimistic about healthcare. For a while, I wasn't because I was hearing all this negativity about it, but I guess things are looking up a bit. I don't like being a pessimist, and I don't like just sitting around complaining about the world and doing nothing. So if there's something I don't like, or I'm worried about it, I think I'll try and do something about it.
This was definitely worth my while! I found this useful, and helpful in looking at the future!

* Did the report change or confirm any of your own perspectives?
* Was this worthwhile for you? Why or why not?

For this assignment, I chose to read an article titled, "Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites." I was initially interested in this article because it seemed to be the only article in the database (as far as I have seen) that applied to my life directly.
This article focused mostly on the results of a recent study that found that about 69% of teens would say that people on social networking sites are mostly nice to each other. The article then continues to provide further information, including statistics of teens that have witnessed cruelty online and the results of similar studies done on adults.
For the most part, I didn't find anything surprising about the results of these studies. As a teenager myself, I can confirm that people are generally respectful on the internet but I can recall an instance in which someone was being cruel. The data simply confirms these widely accepted notions that the internet isn't necessarily unsafe, but that it can be.
I didn't find this particular article to be worthwhile. The information was redundant and the majority of the article was commentary and the authors speculations about the internet and social networking sites. However, it is a good article to refer to if you would like to strengthen an opinion or battling another regarding teenage cyber-behavior.

I chose to read Gay Marriage Gains More Acceptance. I was interested by this article because I feel strongly about the situation regarding banning gay/lesbian marriage. The article basically gave statistics concerning who, based on religion, race, location etc. favors or opposes gay/lesbian marriage. I found some of the statistics interesting; it was intriguing to see the different races and religions and their views on the issue. The article said that white mainline Protestants and white Catholics have become more supportive of gay marriage, though most of those who have changed their views don't attend services regularly. 60% favor and 30% oppose allowing gays serve openly in the military. Those are great numbers considering it used to be 52% favor and 45% oppose in 1994. There were also stats about the race and gender gap. In 2010, just 30% of non-Hispanic blacks favor gay marriage while 59% are opposed. From 2008 to 2009, 28% of blacks favored same-sex marriage and 62% were opposed.

I believe that there is no difference between "gay love" and "straight love." Love is love, and if you love someone you should have the RIGHT to marry that person, no matter what gender they are. I am happy to see that more people are favoring gay marriage, I don't know why anyone felt the need to ban it in the first place but at least there is an improvement. I don't think it is up to a complete stranger (you or me) to decide whether or not a gay person should be allowed to get married. It doesn't affect you or anyone against or for gay/lesbian marriage if they get married. It has no affect on anyones life so I don't understand why people want to ban it. This article has not changed my perspectives on the issue, it just makes me have more hope that someday gay/lesbian marriage will be legal.

I read the article "Slight but Steady Majority Favors Keeping Abortion Legal" I chose to read this article because I believe that abortion remains a very controversial issue within society. It is a very personal topic but I know I feel very strongly about my position on the legalization of abortion. In this article, the public showed tendency to favor the legalization of abortion. A big role on the position people take has to do with their religion. It was found that those who attend religious services at least once a week are significantly more opposed to abortion than those who attend worship services less often. In this article, evangelical Protestants stand out in their solid opposition to legalized abortion with 62% saying it should be illegal; with the split views of black Protestants on legalized abortion.The Pew Research Center poll from 2006, for instance, found that 73% Americans believe that abortion is morally wrong. I find that shocking because if so many believe abortion is morally wrong, I don't understand why it is not illegal in more states. In "2005 Pew Research Center analysis shows that the public supports abortion when the physical or psychological health of the mother may be in danger, or when the pregnancy results from rape or incest." After reading that statement I researched and found that only .5% of women actually become pregnant from rape/incest, proving how most abortions are not resulting from rape or incest. This article stated that many disapprove of abortion when the circumstances relate to economics, life choices or a personal preference not to have a child. In my opinion, I believe that this is why birth control was invented and those that are not ready for a child should either be on birth control and use caution or not have sex. It is not right to for people who cannot support a child to be careless about having sex. Thus, I find that this article did not change my position on being pro life but it more so confirmed my strong belief that many are just absentminded about what repercussions could happen and that such a minuscule amount of pregnancy's are caused from rape or incest.

I read the article, "Can Civilization Survive Without god?". I chose to read this one, because I personally feel that religion in society is a detriment, not a positive addition. In addition to that, the title really appealed to me and was relevant to some of the things I learned in topics this year so that was an extra plus. The article was about two authors debating whether or Civilization can or cannot survive without god. One argued that civlization will be uncivilized without religion due to his experiences in Mogadishu and in Russia during the cold war. He states that while Christianity is not required for a civilized society, it is an extroidinairy combination that produces results and sends the message of self reliance. The other author states that religion is a corruptive and false using his example as WW1 where the empires on the side of America and Britain used religion and god as their reason for going to war when it is obviously isn't.

The article didn't confirm or solidify anything with myself. It just gave me another point of view to look at my own opinion from. It didn't particularly shift me from one point of view or the other. In fact, the author who argued that religion is needed to be civilized almost sort of skipped over my head due to my disagreement with him.

The article was worth it and at the same time, not. I found that some of the ideas were hard to cope with and as a result sort of went in one ear and out the other. On the other hand it did give me insight from the other point of view of the arguement while also giving me another point of view inside my own arguement. Overall the article was a good read and I found that it only improved my insight on the topic, but not really shifting my point of view.

I read the article “Why Americans Use Social Media”. I read this article for two reasons, the first being that it was more relevant to me than many of the other articles. The second reason I read this article was because I recently realized the power social networks can have in doing good. After witnessing first hand how quickly Mr. Meacock was able to find a life saving donor I realized that social networks can serve a much more important role in our society.

This article discussed statistics about the main reasons people use social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn. The reasons were not very surprising, but it was interesting to see how the majority of people use these modern methods of connection. Of those surveyed, 91% (67% major reason, 24% minor reason) said “Staying in touch w/ current friends” as a reason for using social networking, 87% (64% major, 23% minor) said “Staying in touch w/ family members” was a reason, and 86% (50% major, 36% minor) said “Connecting w/old friends you’ve lost touch with” was a reason. Some of the other reasons included making new friends, following public figures, and even finding love or dating partners. This article confirmed many of the ways I thought social networking sites are used. For that reason, it probably was not to valuable to read; however, I would be interested to see if the reasons, or percentages changed for different generations.

I chose the publication "Continuing Divide in Views of Islam and Violence."
This topic is interesting to me because I'm interested in learning more about stereotypes, and specifically their inaccuracies and effects on people's opinions.

The article begins by telling of a poll that Pew Research conducted regarding the American belief that Islam is "more likely than other religions to encourage violence among its believers." It was found that 40% of Americans find this to be true. The article also shows that over recent years there has been an increase in this opinion. It is found that certain demographics also tend to hold this belief more than others. For example, those over the age of 50 think that Islam is more dangerous than their younger counterparts. This article gives the the impression that there were many more people with distorted views of Islam than I had previously known or expected. It comes to no surprise to me that certain groups report higher percentages that others, but the one that does is the discrepancy in age groups.

I found that the article does not take much of a stance on the topic, simply discussing the information it collected. It was interesting though.

Which publication did you choose to read? Why?
Please provide a brief summary of the most important and/or relevant information you found in the report.
Did the report change or confirm any of your own perspectives?
Was this worthwhile for you? Why or why not?

I read the article "Public Opinion of the death penalty" because I was interested to see how the recent death of Troy Davis had affected peoples views on capital punishment.
The article states that 62% of the population still agrees with the death penalty while 30% think it is wrong. public backing of capital punishment peaked in the 1990's with more than 78% of the population supporting the death penalty and only 13% opposing it. The study also found that the majority of white protestants(71%), evangelicals(74%) and catholics(68%) supported the death penalty while less than half of black protestants(37%) and hispanic catholics (43%) support the death penalty. Opponents of the death penalty are more likely to cite religion as the main reason for their opposition.
This article didn't really change my opinion on anything because it more or less just stated a bunch of facts. It was interesting that so many white people agreed with capital punishment while a significantly lower amount of black people agree with it. I would have guessed that more religious people would be opposed to it but apparently I was wrong. This article was worthwhile and provided a lot of information but the title was misleading because there was no information about Troy Davis at all so I was a little thrown off...

I chose to read Muslim-Western Tensions Persist. I chose this article because it sounded very interesting and is a topic I am very interested in. The article talked about how, although the perceptions of many Westerners and Muslims have changed of each other, they remain for the most part negative. Western cultures have a much more favorable view of Muslim cultures, who seem to not have changed much of an opinion since 2006. The opinions change on Christian faiths though. The majority of Muslim cultures have a positive view towards Christianity, partially because many Christians live in Muslim areas. Jews, on the other hand, have had a universally negative perception from all Muslim areas, with most under 10% positive. The report for the most part confirmed all of my perceptions. While it is getting better, I assumed there is still tension between the nations. I was surprised at how negative opinions of Jews were, though. I found this article worthwhile, because the tensions is still very applicable to all of us today.

Pew Research 2
World Religion
Jude Hull

I chose to read the article: Brides, Grooms Often Have Different Faiths. I chose this because I had recently visited a different religious wedding that I’m used too and it drew my attention.
After taking statistics from the religions: Buddhist, Mainline Protestant, Jehovah’s Witness, Orthodox, Evang. Protestant, HIst. Black Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, Mormon, Hindu and Unaffiliated. It showed that Buddhist and Unaffiliated were the most likely to marry spouses that were of different religious affiliation. While Mormon and Hindu are most likely to marry spouses of the same religious affiliation. This was interesting to me and I did not think that this many religions were so faithful to the same religion. I felt that spouses were more diverse but I guess I was wrong.
Yeah I think this was worthwhile and changed my perspective on religion and marriage

I chose the article "Public Opinion About The Death Penalty." I have never researched the death penalty or new much about who favors it and who opposes it so i found this article very interesting. I found that there are relatively modest differences in support across religious groups, with majorities of white evangelicals 74 percent, white mainline Protestants 71 percent and white Catholics 68 percent favoring capital punishment. But less than half of black Protestants 37 percent and Hispanic Catholics 43 percent favor the death pen alty. I also thought an important part of this article was the church's/religion's influence on how people felt about the death penalty. For example i found that about one-in-five Americans 19 percent with an opinion about the death penalty say that religion is the most important influence on their thinking about the issue. Another thing i found interesting about this article was how opinions change overtime. From 1996 people who favor the death penalty has dropped from 78 percent to 62 percent . That is a large drop in only 14 years. In that same time span the people who oppose the death penalty have increased from 18 percent to 30 percent. This did not change or confirm any of my perspectives because i am not very religious. That is i don't follow what other religions believe in so the statistics didn't surprise me in anyway because i really did not know what to expect in the first place. This article was very important in my opinion because statistics like these i have never seen before. Seeing the numbers of different race and religious groups about something as controversial as the death penalty is fantastic.

I chose to read, “Public Opinion on the Death Penalty,” from September 23, 2011 because the topic of the Death Penalty is an interesting subject to me and I wanted to read more about it. A Gallup Analysis showed that the peak of support for capital punishment was in the 1990’s dating back to the 1930’s for all Americans. In total, 62 percent are in favor and 30% are opposed.

From this data, we see that the Protestants, Catholics and Unaffiliated all voted in favor of capital punishment as a whole. However, when their top influence was Religion instead of other, the vote was only 45 percent in favor, showing that if Religion is the main influence, you tend to oppose the death penalty. If a different influence was the top influence, 73 percent were in favor. It is also interesting to look at the different sub groups for the different religions and their views on the topic. While White evangelical Protestants are 74 percent in favor and White mainline Protestants are 71 percent in favor, whereas Black Protestants are 37 percent in favor and 49 percent opposed to the death penalty. Also, in the Catholic category, White Catholics are 68 percent in favor and 26 percent opposed, whereas Hispanic Catholics are 43 percent in favor and 45 percent opposed.

This section of the article shows the influence of Religion on the opinion of the individuals of different affiliations and if the Clergy openly speak out about the death penalty.

This report didn’t really have an effect on my opinion because Religion and politics don’t play a big role in my decision making on these kinds of topics. I do think that this article was worth my time because it shows me the different perspectives of the different religions in the report.

For this, I chose to read an article entitled, "The Devil’s New Playground: The Shopping Mall". This is quite the claim, and I guess the title intrigued me into reading it.

This article talks about how back in the day we had "blue laws", which is when things like liquor and clothes and things like that cannot be sold on Sundays. Apparently, when most states got rid of these laws, the amount of churchgoers in America dramatically decreased. Although only 13 states still have some bans, malls are fighting hard to get rid of these laws and up their profit. Then the article discusses research that looked at a group of 16 states that appealed the blue laws between the 50's and 90's. The results were pretty remarkable. With people who went to church once a week, church attendance declined, and apparently marijuana use, cocaine use, and drinking increased (which I'm still not quite sure how they measured). The author explains why he thinks this happened, and says that keeping businesses open on Sunday means that some religious young people have the choice to do what they want to do, which increases their “exposure to sinners or otherwise weakens their resistance to the dark side,” He surmised that “instead of being in church you’re working or shopping in the mall surrounded by party animals”

I found this whole thing to be really dumb. If drug use reportedly increased on Sunday once the law was taken down, I'm pretty sure that the people that did them don't just do them on Sunday, and the fact that the stores are open isn't really much of a connection to drug use to me. Since when did increased drug use have anything to do with malls? I think that if someone doesn't want to go to church, let them do what they want.

This also really annoys me, because our nation seems to have a continuous problem with the idea of a separation of church and state. No religion should not get in the way of our economic freedom, and I find laws like this kind of pitiful, trying to basically round up people that would rather apparently be somewhere else. I think that once you reach the point where you feel the need to make laws that force people to have less things to do (such as shopping, or apparently drugs in this case), then you yourself have a problem. The fact he views people's free will as 'exposure to sin' is rather frightening, and his judgmental assumptions of youth in general is sad.

I chose "The Supreme Court to Take Up Case on Church Employment Disputes"

On Oct. 5, 2011 the Supreme Court started hearing oral arguments in a case that centers around a legal doctrine known as the "ministerial exception", which could help determine how much say religious organizations have in making employment decisions about clergy and others who perform religious duties. While the Supreme Court has never ruled on the doctrine, lower level federal courts have used it to exempt religious organizations from anti-discrimintation laws and other statutes concerning employee treatment. The case with which the Supreme Court is concerned involves Hosana-Tabor grade school in Redford, Michigan. The school, which closed in 2009, was operated by a congregation affiliated with the Lutheran Chuch-Missouri Synod. The case arose after teacher Cheryl Perich a "called" teacher (that is, called by the church to perform religiously important tasks or roles) at the school was asked to voluntarily resign from her position because of "concerns about her health" due to a diagnosis of narcolepsy. Perich, having received the "OK" to start working again from her doctor, refused to resign, and later her "call" was rescinded. Perich took the case to court citing wrongful termination under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. While the ruling has not yet been made, the implications of the potential rulings vary.

The favoring of the rulings might range from a very from a broad definition of ministerial exception and applying it to all relevent parts of the ADA, which would imply that the lower courts would defer more to the church's interpretation of whether an employee is "ministerial", to a siding with the government and Perich, which would shrink the scope of ministerial exception.

The report changed my perspective because I did not realize that religious organizations are allowed legal exceptions in employment, though it makes sense now that I think about it.

This article was really interesting. It's cool to think about how this case right now could change the law and the way religious organizations work, to an extent.

I read "The Paradoxical Relationship of Religion and Science". I Chose this article because I think the way science and religion operate in (and out of) tandem is fascinating. The article highlighted examples of times when the two acted as opposing forces; The Church's criticism of Darwin's theories and other scientists thoughts on religion, like the book "The God Delusion" by biologist Richard Dawkins. The report indicated that scientists are more likely to be less religious than the general public.
The article also brought up some points when science and religion worked well together. For example, many scientific studies where funded by religious institutions and many well know scientists are men of the cloth (Copernicus, Mendel and Lemaitre who proposed the big bang theory) or just religiously devout (Newton, Galileo, and Kepler).
Another thing this article talked about, was what the general public surveyed by a Pew research poll showed that 32% of people fully embrace Darwin's theory, 22% believe evolution is guided by a higher power and 29% believe man has been as he his since the beginning. One interesting statement the article made was that majority of people will not believe scientific theories that contradict their religious beliefs.
This article did not really change my opinion on anything because it was meant to only inform of the history of science and religion together and what it is like currently. I do think that science and religion can work together well and would like to see a partnership more in the future. I think the article was worthwhile, but it barely changed my perspective, just added a little bit of information on the general public and examples of times of hostility and partnership between Religion and Science.

The publication that i chose to read is called "U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey". This was something that caught my eye immediately when glancing at the list of publications. I knew it would interest me. The article is a survey, so there are many statistics and numbers to look at. What I found to be interesting was that Atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons were some of the highest scoring groups on a Religious Knowledge quiz. They were able to out preform the Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of leading world religions. The survey found that Mormons and Evangelicals know most about Christianity, while atheists, agnostics and Jews have more knowledge on the worlds religions. The people who do well on the general knowledge questions also tended to do well on the religious questions. This survey didn't really change my perspective on anything. Although, it did make me realize how much people do not know. Things that seem like such common sense to me many people in the US simply do not know. It has opened my eyes a bit, and was definitely worth my time reading it. I liked to see everything broken down in numbers/percentages.

The publication that I chose to read was titled "The Death Penalty in America" I chose to read this publication article because when I was scrolling down the list of publications to read this one read stood out and caught my attention. This was because when I saw it I immediately thought of the Troy Davis case and situation/story that just took place not to long ago. We discussed it in another class I had and I became very interested in it and cases of that sort, so when I saw the title it just struck me.

The information that I found most important was how it has become an argument of the death penalty being too cruel and unusual, to the right thing as a punishment and that argument being between The U.S. Government along with the 37 states with the death penalty statutes and religious communities. Both arguing very strong and substantial sides. Using the case of Braze v. Rees, which took place back at the beginning of 2008, as an example for the debate on whether lethal injection which was currently preformed in most states was cruel or not, etc...

Surprisingly for the most part my whole opinion and perspective on the whole thing stayed the same. Because of the fact that both sides had very good arguments and some very important, relevant and interesting facts were laid out i still feel the same way about it and what not.

Yes I would easily say it was very worth while for me. Because I've become so interested in this topic over the last year and I was able to take quite a few things away from it that allow for me a better understanding of some of the earlier controversies over this whole topic rather than more recently brought up problems revolving around this. I was also able to take away from it some very interesting information as well.

Like Shane, I read "The Paradoxical Relationship of Religion and Science," which proved to be very interesting coverage of, well...exactly what the title states. It begins with the obvious view of religion and science as "enemies," or, at the very least, conflicting sides to one issue. This is not always the case. Galileo Galilei was tried by the Catholic church upon his scientific discoveries 400 years ago, and Darwin is obviously infamous for directly challenging the very first story of the Bible, but there don't always have to be such hostile feelings from one side to the other. It doesn't surprise me that when the Pew Research Center conducted a poll of scientists in May and June 2009, 51% of them believed in God/a higher power, compared to the 2006 95% belief rate of the general public--I feel like scientists, whose work surrounds so much that defies religious beliefs, would be much less prone to have strong religious convictions. But there have been many instances of the two "sides" working together: many, many early (and modern) scientists were religious, and believed that science was a way to "illuminate God's creation" (which I think is beautiful!); and many scientists, instead of feeling animosity towards religion, simply view it as something distinct from science with different questions to answer. I loved the Albert Einstein quote "science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind." I think this is a VERY fitting remark, because they do often collide (in a positive way). The other part of the article focused on the conflicting opinions on things like stem cell research and evolution, which didn't really cover anything I didn't already know--except this stat: in 2009, Pew polled the public to find that only 32% of the general public really welcomes Darwin's major theory. So basically, I found that I had never thought about religion and science as truly separate issues, covering different ground. I like that idea; it helps me settle my own personal debate a bit. This was a well-crafted, informative article that opened my eyes, and I hope can open others' eyes--whether they agree or not--as well.