Hello from no longer Fall break :/ Not that break was even that much of a break. I don’t have Thursday classes anyway, so really I just got Friday off. What ‘break’ I had wasn’t all that interesting. I mostly stayed home and pretended that I was going to get around to the long to-do list I made for myself (as if :P). I did, however, read two more books! I wrote up the summary-ish things last night, so you can check out the Etc. section if you feel so inclined.
Also not very interestingly, next semester’s class list went up yesterday, so I had some fun planning out what classes I wanted to take (is it weird that I have fun planning out my schedule?). Looks like I’m going to be getting up very early very often, but I couldn’t avoid 8
a.m. forever.
I almost didn’t have any Questions for this week (thanks for that, guys :P), but Anna Beth saved the day (somewhat unintentionally). And then Jill sort of joined her. But not really. So Anna Beth wins by default this week! Plus I did actually like her second Question.
I wonder if anyone’s actually going to get enough points before the year runs out. Anyway, here’s this week’s (rather bereft) Question Tuesday!
Anna Beth:
Why are there no questions?
Haha, now you have to write something random and interesting just like the rest of us try to do. Good luck ;)
… You realize by asking this question, you negated your following statement, right? :P
There are no questions because my friends don’t like me :(
Jk, everyone just seems to have forgotten, and I was too lazy to badger you guys about it :P
Actually, I stumbled upon this video, so my “question” is more of a prompt. Respond to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_embedded&v=3Csjr8bXvPw#!
So,… that was kind of strange. If you didn’t watch the video (it’s a bit long), it was basically asserting that Doctor Who could be its own religion. So, my thoughts on that:
First of all, the religions it was citing weren’t all… religions. Buddhism, for example. Buddhism can be divided into two major forms. There are Buddhists who believe that Buddha is a god, and those who believe that he was just a wise man who taught people a lot of smart stuff. They have actual names, but I’m too lazy to try and remember them. Mahayana and Theravada, maybe? Anyway, the first form is Buddhism as a religion, while the second is merely Buddhism as a philosophy (there are actually people who combine Buddhism as a philosophy with their own actual religions, like Christian Buddhists and so forth). So, the Buddhism the video references, with Buddha as merely a teacher, is not actually a religion.
So, although Whovians get really excited and into Doctor Who, and they often can learn life lessons from it and stuff, I am failing to see how that makes it a religion. Now, that’s not to say that people couldn’t make it into one. Back to Buddhism, it in its earliest stages was just the philosophy, but over time some people started to consider Buddha as a god, turning the philosophy into a religion. People could do the same thing with Doctor Who if they really wanted to- start to believe that the Doctor is real and choose to worship him as some immortal deity and look to him for moral and ethical leadership.
But in this way, Doctor Who is in no way unique. People have been doing this since time began- like when the Israelites made Aaron construct a golden calf for them to worship. Even today, if we choose to put something above God and center our lives around it, we are creating our own deity, our own religion.
In summary, Doctor Who is not, in and of itself, a religion, though that is certainly not to say that people could not turn it into one if they felt so inclined. Anything could become the center of its own religion, it’s just a matter of the import people place on it in their lives.
Jill:
Did anyone send you Questions this week?
Yup! No freeby points for you :P
So, that’s it for Question Tuesday! If you want a blog of my typical length, you’ll have to give me some actual Questions for next week. Unless, of course, you don’t like reading and prefer the brevity. Then I guess you shouldn’t ask me anything.
Love you guys!
Sara
Also not very interestingly, next semester’s class list went up yesterday, so I had some fun planning out what classes I wanted to take (is it weird that I have fun planning out my schedule?). Looks like I’m going to be getting up very early very often, but I couldn’t avoid 8
a.m. forever.
I almost didn’t have any Questions for this week (thanks for that, guys :P), but Anna Beth saved the day (somewhat unintentionally). And then Jill sort of joined her. But not really. So Anna Beth wins by default this week! Plus I did actually like her second Question.
I wonder if anyone’s actually going to get enough points before the year runs out. Anyway, here’s this week’s (rather bereft) Question Tuesday!
Anna Beth:
Why are there no questions?
Haha, now you have to write something random and interesting just like the rest of us try to do. Good luck ;)
… You realize by asking this question, you negated your following statement, right? :P
There are no questions because my friends don’t like me :(
Jk, everyone just seems to have forgotten, and I was too lazy to badger you guys about it :P
Actually, I stumbled upon this video, so my “question” is more of a prompt. Respond to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_embedded&v=3Csjr8bXvPw#!
So,… that was kind of strange. If you didn’t watch the video (it’s a bit long), it was basically asserting that Doctor Who could be its own religion. So, my thoughts on that:
First of all, the religions it was citing weren’t all… religions. Buddhism, for example. Buddhism can be divided into two major forms. There are Buddhists who believe that Buddha is a god, and those who believe that he was just a wise man who taught people a lot of smart stuff. They have actual names, but I’m too lazy to try and remember them. Mahayana and Theravada, maybe? Anyway, the first form is Buddhism as a religion, while the second is merely Buddhism as a philosophy (there are actually people who combine Buddhism as a philosophy with their own actual religions, like Christian Buddhists and so forth). So, the Buddhism the video references, with Buddha as merely a teacher, is not actually a religion.
So, although Whovians get really excited and into Doctor Who, and they often can learn life lessons from it and stuff, I am failing to see how that makes it a religion. Now, that’s not to say that people couldn’t make it into one. Back to Buddhism, it in its earliest stages was just the philosophy, but over time some people started to consider Buddha as a god, turning the philosophy into a religion. People could do the same thing with Doctor Who if they really wanted to- start to believe that the Doctor is real and choose to worship him as some immortal deity and look to him for moral and ethical leadership.
But in this way, Doctor Who is in no way unique. People have been doing this since time began- like when the Israelites made Aaron construct a golden calf for them to worship. Even today, if we choose to put something above God and center our lives around it, we are creating our own deity, our own religion.
In summary, Doctor Who is not, in and of itself, a religion, though that is certainly not to say that people could not turn it into one if they felt so inclined. Anything could become the center of its own religion, it’s just a matter of the import people place on it in their lives.
Jill:
Did anyone send you Questions this week?
Yup! No freeby points for you :P
So, that’s it for Question Tuesday! If you want a blog of my typical length, you’ll have to give me some actual Questions for next week. Unless, of course, you don’t like reading and prefer the brevity. Then I guess you shouldn’t ask me anything.
Love you guys!
Sara
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