Fourth quarter

Questions Of The Day

Most happy families communicate effectively. Comment.

In the sense it’swritten, I understand that families that know very much about each other bycommunicating effectively are the happy ones.

I disagree, becauseknowing the person well isn't technically the same thing as being close to theperson. Biographers aren't close to the person that they're making a biographyof,but they still deeply know about the person being written about.

I also think that happy familiesdon't exist, because families can never be happy. They can stay, but not be. (the Englishlanguage fails to deliver the essence in the differences between the words “stay”and “be”, in Portuguese, the difference between those two ideas are clearlyexpressed: “ficar” and “estar”). Families have its ups and downs, sothey cannot be happy, as people say. However, Ithink that those "happy families" are the families that don'thave any feuds between members, or something like that.

The relationshipbetween family members are not only made by the amount of information they knowabout each other and the amount of communication. Forexample, the relationship between women of the same family have been observedin primates. In chimpanzees, for example, the females notably bond with femalesof the same family, than females from other families. On the otherhand, males were observed spending time with other males from other families.

When was the last time you apologized (or should have) for somethingserious? How did you feel, how do you think the other person felt?

I think should have apologized to all the peoplethat I judged. For example, on the last Saturday, I went out with my friendsand I started talking about a girl that I really despised. I really feel badfor doing this, because I said that she was “stupid, because she repeated thewhole year”, and that “(bad word) ugly”. The problem is that I didn’t considerthat she was different from me. Once, she came up to me with her Twitteraccount opened on her cellphone. She asked me: “is Yuri mad at me?”. When Iasked her why, she said that “I’d talked to her some minutes ago, and she putthis on her status: ‘that was our last conversation. Bye forever.’ I think shedoesn’t want to be my friend anymore”. I automatically said “moron” in my head.However, I didn’t consider that she, maybe, had difficulty in feeling acceptedinto a certain group of people and she was afraid of being rejected. Orperhaps, she had some childhood trauma about social relationships. I stillcannot tolerate people that don’t read, at least, 5 books in a year/never heardabout Flaubert or Orwell/like One Direction/don’t know the difference betweenyour and you’re/etc. (I am so judgmental). However, I know I have to tryharder, and I know that I have to keep the judgments away and love the personthe way he is, but I can’t help it! It’s automatic!

Finally, this is something serious,because if I keep on judging people, I will never get over my prejudice againstthem, and I will never be able to love someone beyond their fails.

(if you don’t know what Twitter is, it’sa social network, where you upload whatever you feel like posting. However,many drama-queen-teenagers put statuses saying how sad they are/how they hatesomeone/how mad they are by putting sentences directed to an anonymous personcalled “you”, just to get stupid attention from other people and be asked ifthey’re angry with someone. The classical models are: “you stink. Go away. *badwords*”, “you *bad words* think that you’re better than me? *bad words*”, oreven “you *bad words*”. In spite of the flooding of annoying teenagers’statuses, there is another tool to judge the users. The number of followers,that is. Followers are as friends to Facebook, or better, subscribers toYoutube. If you have more followers than people you follow, they said that you’reeither cool or hacking people’s accounts. But if you have more people youfollow than people following you, they say that you’re lame or just laugh atyou.) 

Every man’s work, whetherit is literature, or music, or pictures or architecture or anything else, isalways a portrait of himself. Evaluate.

I think very much that this is true,because Herman Hesse, a German writer, used the German language, quite theopposite of French, to write such texts, such expressions that delivered theserenity in the philosophy of Buddhists. In spite of his obstacle made by hismaternal language, he managed to express the calmness and the grace of aculture with whom he fell in love. So the portrait of himself is his writingstyle, his wide and wise choices in the vocabulary, and of course, the subjecthe talks about in his books.

The big "bowl"; one conspiracy claims the "bowl" is
full of corruption. May be true. 

Another justification are the buildingsdesigned by Oscar Niemeyer, Brazilian architect and designer of Brasília. Oneof his buildings is the big “bowl” in Brasília, located right in front of theNational Congress. His constructions are made of very curved lines. When he wasasked why he took such daring steps for both engineering and architecture, heanswered: “It’snot the right angle that attracts me, neither does straight lines, hard,inflexible, made by men. What does attract me is the free and sensual curse,the curve that I found in the mountains of my country, in the winding paths of itsrivers, in the waves of the ocean, on the body of the loved woman. Of curves ismade all the Universe.” Since he is portraying his ideas, and ideas are what really defines a person, he is making a portrait of himself. 

Should overweight passengers be charged more? One economics professorsays yes.

I think that it is a good idea, butit would be very polemic. It would encourage people to lose weight, so they canpay less. But it's also because smaller people have a higher chance ofsurviving a place crash. Children, for example, have smaller mass, which means,in physics, a lower change in momentum (velocity x mass) than those with biggermass, the adults. The change of momentum can also be described as the impulse. Thebigger the impulse, the longer the force will take to stop in an area free ofobstacles. However, if there is a big obstacle strong enough to stop thetraveling object, the force of the collision will be big. Fatally big.

Nevertheless, I think that this is apretty unethical. If we go on with this philosophy, we should differentlycharge people in the taxi, in the subway, in hotels, etc. Also, some obesepeople have gone through tough situations. I watched a program where obesepeople had undergone a weight-losing plan. In the selection process, manypeople told stories that I found quite justifiable to be obese as they are, andI thought I’d probably do the same thing. They’re not fat because they want to.They’re fat because they found no other way out for their sufferings.

My position in this, finally, is a no.Prices should be the same for all.

Should kids pick their own punishments?

I think that they should only whenthey're mature. Because my mom used to do that too when we were much younger.My mom would ask me how many times I thought I deserved to be hit with a littlewooden stick. Then I would timidly lift a finger and look at my mom with the"humble angel" look. I knew that I did wrong, but I knew that itwould hurt. So zero was too little, and two hits was too much and it would hurtmore than one hit. So I would say “one hit, mommy”. But now, my mother alreadypunishes me with her interminable complains. That annoys me very, very much, andshe gives me no other alternative than stay calm and hear each of the words andagree with all the things she says. That is enough punishment for me. So I am akind of choosing my punishments.

Ghandi's 7 dangers to human virtues:Business withoutethics.

Choose one and comment using your thinking with examples

↑ infamous ironic CEO of
A&F

I’ve accompanying the news aboutAbercrombie & Fitch, a clothing company that stamps their name on each oftheir clothes. I’ve read that they hire attractive people in their stores, evenif they don’t have any experience at all. Therefore, an ugly person that sellsproducts very well won’t even have a chance to get a job there because of theirappearance. Another point I have against them is the advertising they do. Likeyou, Mr., see on the school, the company’s name is written on each of itsclothes, or at least, the symbol; a moose or the silhouette of a seagull. So webuy their clothes and they use us as a billboard; a billboard to go aroundadvertising for them, giving them the profits. They make customers be anadvertising tool to spread their miserable name to everywhere. Thirdly, theyemploy almost-slave workers to make their clothes, just like Nike did someyears ago, just like Gap, and many other multinational companies that enslavepeople from poor countries to take maximum profit by having low costs in theproduction of their products. The CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, whose name Idon’t remember, is using a new marketing “strategy”, or as I call it, a dirtycheating strategy (I’m calling each of his “marketing strategies”). He cut theproduction of XXL and XL sizes on their clothing, because he wanted to promotethe idea that only “cool” people wear their clothes. This is similar to whatChanel and other famous companies do: only “rich” and “cool” people have theirproducts. But Chanel, for example, revolutionized fashion in the 20^th century,and also did Dior. On the other hand, A&F just followed the trends theyplanted until now. The company didn’t do anything relevant to the industry offashion.

If I am not mistaken, a company called Hermèsonly auctions its products, because the workers, or artisanal masters ofhandbags, use fortified waxed thread, high-quality leather, and atwo-hundred-years-old secret technique to carefully sew the leather to producehandbags since the 18^th century. Besides, the artisans study threeyears in a specialized school for hand bag makers in Italy, and they spend afew years learning from the senior workers in hand bag companies. But A&F,again, don’t use high-quality ingredients, neither qualified workers. So thisidea of implementing “cool” people using their products won’t work at all.

Conclusively, this is not immoral, butunethical. I would like to stop using their clothes, but they’re at an accessibleprice and better than clothes made in here.

Should there be stricter rules about how coaches treat their players?

I think that a coach's job is totrain and motivate their players. But these boundaries of being no longermotivating, but discouraging or irritant should not only be applied to coaches,but all people.

Coaches are also people, and theycan do wrong too.

But I don't think that there should bestricter rules, because the rules are enough. They cannot hurt physically orpsychologically their players.

If they start to be mean, theplayers will get demotivated, and they will play not for training, but for revenge, whichis not good for the athlete.

Whatshould be done? (news about the 12 y.o. kid who killed the father of hisfriend)

I think that what the judge did wasright, but it will be detrimental for the child. According to the Jewishtradition, children are responsible for their own sins when they reach the ageof seven. Before that, their parents are responsible for them. If I am notmistaken, they believe that a child’s conscience is fully formed at 7, and hecan start behave for his own thinking. Likewise, I agree with them. We see, forexample, a child hiding a toy he/she broke, because he knows that it was notright to break a toy. Unlike other people that say children don’t consider the consequencesof their acts, I believe that they know what they’re doing, and they know thatit’s wrong, but they just don’t have the strength to avoid doing it, the strengthto hold themselves from doing something.

The bad side of the story is that thekid won’t live as every other kid should have lived. By entering a prison, thechild will make acquaintances with little drug smugglers, other fellowmurderers, and may be introduced to crime, drastically changing the path hislife was taking before. Also, he won’t have happy memories as we have. He won’thave any memories about a frustrated plan of staying up the night in asleepover with friends; the birthday party in which the cake wasn’t reallygood, but you ate it just because it was your party; the nervous waiting behindthe curtain of the school auditorium curious if your parents showed up to seeyour play; the awkward man-to-man or the woman-to-woman talk; the parent’sgrounding; the begging for a new cellphone that “everybody” in school has; thefrustration after parents don’t let you go for a party “everyone” is going; thetriumphant moment of “I am proud of you”…

Whatmakes a hero?

A hero is, in the first place, a personsupported by the media (social criticism in here!). For example, the man whosename I don’t remember that saved three girls from the Cleveland “monster”, was heavilysupported by the media. When I checked CNN, I read in the home page the mainnews in the biggest font on the site: “I am no hero”, and right up theheadline, a photo of him giving an interview to the reporter. This is obviouslysending subliminal messages that the news agency supports him; both the titleand the photo.

On the other hand, a person can easilyturn into a villain through the media. For example, Dilma Housseff, presidentof Brazil, and her left-wing political party, PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores,Workers’ Party) are ALWAYS being thrown bombs at by, perhaps, the biggestmagazine in Brazil, Veja, by Editora Abril, in which one of the authorities inthe publishing company is the cousin of an affiliated to PMDB (PartidoMovimento Democrata Brasileiro, Brazilian Democratic Movement Party), amoderate political party and the biggest in Brazil. They’re always attackingPT. For example, one of the most shocking actions of theirs was last year’scover: “Tentacles of PT”. Last month, they published “Dilma Stepped on theTomato” on the cover, about the sudden high pricing of the tomato. But I mustsay that their criticizing is turning ridiculous, crossing the boundaries ofrespect. At last once in an edition, they put some article talking about Serra’sor Alckmin, that they visit some poor village and make a lot of contributionsthere, or that they’ve done very many things. It’s simply ridiculous! I’m notsaying that I’m defending PT – they’ve been involved in various politicalscandals, like the Escândalo dos Correios – but this is turning into a bigsensationalism, a big childish fight. I cannot stand that the biggest magazinein Brazil is making a foolish picking on the rival. As the biggest nationalmagazine and the most widely read in national territory, they have theresponsibility of informing the people, and not convince them that their rivalis evil!

What is the best job in the world?

I don’t know what is the best job in theworld, because I’ve never worked before.

However, as many people say, is the jobyou enjoy having. I would agree only if it made sense. As the lecturer thatcame in the Brazilian university fair, we don’t know what we like, because wenever worked!

I would like to place an objectionagainst what some people said in class about being a mother. I think that beinga mother is the most graceful, praisable job in the world, but not the bestjob. You just stress yourself because of your children’s education, theirgrades, their friends, their relationship with you, their actions, and theirfuture. Not that I don’t want to be a mother, but I just find it too hard toreally want to be one.

To what extent do youthink the behavior of your parents is predictable?
I think that my parents are quite well predictable. I’vebeen living with them for almost sixteen years! How can’t I supposedly not havea sense of what they’ll be doing? Well, my mother is very predictable. She’lleither complain to herself in a loud voice so that everyone can hear herirritatingly complaining about all the things that I have done, or she’ll justsit silent and look annoyed, but she’ll end up complaining anyways. However, I can’tpredict what she will say. Always when I have an argument with her, I can’tplan my sentences very well, because she always says such good arguments that shedoes actually win it. But that’s because my Korean is not good as hers, too. Andwhen my brother uses arguments found in the internet, and that we can’tactually object to, my mother always finds a way to answer it and knock-out mybrother.

To whatextent do you think the behavior of your friends predictable?
Well, I can’t generalize, because I have a lot ofdifferent friends, but I’ll take an example. Barbara is quite predictable, too.And her thinking is predictable too. She gets pretty mad when people come up toher in the finals week or near a test just to get information from her. If I hadto plan a surprise party for her, I think I would be quite successful. She’salso very predictable because of her mechanical schedule. I can’t remember ofthem now, but she has a defined schedule for her week, a homogenous weekly routine.It’s so surprising how she manages her time so well! I sometimes think: “I guessshe’s probably doing her homework now” when I’m procrastinating on theinternet. When she arrives home, she has her stretching therapy for her slightlytwisted knee, then she goes have some snack (two little bottles of Yakult, I think),then she either does her homework or plays a little with her computer. She hasher almost-fat-free dinner, if she didn’t finish her homework, she goes do it.Later, she goes to take a shower (washing hair in alternate days), and goes tosleep by 11. I just got surprised of how much I know about her. Mr., I think I knowtoo much of her. I am totally creeped out. I am writing this with my eyes frightenedand widely opened. I AM SCARED. But I probably know this because she tells meand we had sleepover a couple of times.  

To what extent do youthink the behavior of yourself is predictable?

I think that I sometimes can’t predictwhat I will do. For example, in very nervous situations, I plan my speech likeone of those talks of cliché movies, being heroic and charismatic and intelligent.But when I go say it, I say something totally different from what I planned,because I get too nervous. However, for some other occasions, I think I canpredict myself when it comes to laziness. I can tell that when I get home, thefirst thing I’ll do is not open my math notebook and finish my homework, butturn on the computer and either surf on the internet or play games. I know I shouldn’tbe doing that, but (sigh) can’t help it!

Is it ethical for doctors and nurses to force-feedhunger strikers at Guantánamo?

I’ve read a book from aChinese missionary during the dictatorship, and I read that the guy was fastingand praying, but the guards took him and force-fed him.

In this case, I think that it is not ethical, because the hunger strikers are demanding something legitimate. They’re complaining about the absence of trials for them, something that cannot happen in a self-proclaimed democratic country. They should be force-fed if they were trialed and condemned to prison, because it was concluded that they did something wrong and they have to pay for it, but they haven’t been trialed. That’s a violation of a citizen’s right, being proven if what he did was right or not. This cannot take place on a democratic country; these things only happen in totalitarian governments, like in “1984”, and like in Brazil in the 70s. How can the head-country of UN, the biggest protector of human rights, commit such crime to the diplomacy and foreign people? There is, of course, a big chance that the people imprisoned in there are actual terrorists, but still, it’s their right to be judged, because they are actual people. 

One authorput it well: “instead of using things and loving one another, we now lovethings and use each other”. (Article about run-away moms)

I don’tknow about the past, where people were friendlier, more prudent, lovable, that everyonetalks about, but I think that this is VERY VERY true.

Once, agirl came up to me asking for my glitter skirt that she saw me wearing at ourmutual friend’s birthday party. But the problem was that she didn’t talk to me,or anything; just an acquaintance. I’ve tried to talk to her a couple of timesthrough the phone messaging, but she would ignore my messages. I would try tobefriend her, but she just wouldn’t let me! And now, she was texting me askingif I could lend my skirt to her, being really friendly and sending a thousandsof “hahaha”s through texting; pretending to be a real friend. So I justpretended I didn’t know about the skirt to make her embarrassed and stop askingfor the skirt, but she wouldn’t stop. So I started giving a thousand of excusesto not lend it to her. Finally, she asked “hey, you don’t really want to lendit to me, right?” for some reason, I said “yes”. So she just said sorry, but I insisted:if she wanted the skirt, she could take it, but I wouldn’t be doing it because Iwanted; I would be doing it because I wanted to be polite. So she just saidthat it was okay, and that she didn’t want the skirt anymore. But on the nextday, she texted me: “hey Debbie, can you lend me your skirt?”. At that moment,all my blood came up to my head. I seriously got irritated. But I ended uplending her the skirt. And it wasn’t even for her; it was for her sister, withwho I didn’t even greet. Since that day, I really don’t enjoy being near her,but I am friendly to her in order to be polite, and not to freely go aroundmaking enemies. 

Mr, don't mind about the "And I copied and pasted the all the bullet points from deborah's notebook.", because I recently gave my blog's link to a person, but I know had suspections of this person giving up herself to the sin of sloth. So what I did was hide little crediting guarantee for myself hidden in my works, in case this person just copies and pastes everything that I did with my own efforts. And I'm not mentioning who this person is, because you'll know when you check their work.

At what age should se education begin?
This is a very awkward topic, but a very fundamental one to prevent further problems. I think it should be briefly mentioned until when the child is twelve. And if it's a girl, it'd be good to talk about it when she turns into a woman. Anyways, I think between twelve and thirteen is a good age, otherwise it'd be too early and, in some occasions, too late.
On my other school, I had sex education in biology class. But the biology teacher was a an

What would your dream home look like?
It's a hard question, because I'm not even 16, but my dream home would certainly be filled with books. OH YEA BOOKS! I dream of having a room full of books, a library, that I can seek refuge whenever I fell like and spend hours reading. I would put some sofas in there so that I can be comfortably reading books. I would also like a big house/apartment (I don't really care if it's an apartment or house) to invite friends and have a party. So a house would actually be better. Well, I would also expose a lot of artworks and collect them, because I want my house to be like a museum (I love going to museums).

Every hour you spend with others, you become more like the people around you.
There's a Korean kind-of-long-proverb that says exactly the same. There was a teacher and his students walking around the market. There was a chord

 

Resumées

 pages 146-147 

3 bullet points

• Becauseof the Original Sin committed by Adam and Eve, we learned and earned sin fromthem. They disobeyed God, looking for freedom and not trusting in him as hetrusted them. This sin alienated them from God, from themselves, and from thecreation.  And I copied and pasted the all the bullet points from deborah's notebook. However, God’s eternal love for us, wretched humans, did not end. Inthe Old Testament, many stories of people being unconditionally loved by Godare told, showing that while us, wretched humans, were unfaithful for him, hewas faithful for us all the time. So he sends Jesus Christ, his famous onlyholy son, to save us from all the sins.
• Thereare many words to describe sin in the Bible in Hebrew (but it’s all the same inEnglish: sin), in which the most common words are “hattah”, “pasha” and “awon”.Hatta means “missing the mark”, meaning that we miss the target, the realpurpose of our humble lives, which is to love the neighbor. In other words, usebad to do something good. Pesha means “rebellion”, that we are ignoring theauthority of our powerful god. It can be linked to word slike adultery, pride,disobedience and ingratitude. Awon means “guilt” or “iniquity”, to describe theself-damage done by the sinner.
• Sin alienates us from God, because we lose theimmaculate grace in us, and distances us from God. Death is a consequence ofsin. Sin alienates us from ourselves, because by committing sin multiple times,we stop being guilty and ask for God’s forgiveness and love each other, whichis the main purpose of our wretched lives. Finally, sin alienates us fromothers, because since everyone has a relationship with someone, we hurt eachother.

pages 149 and 150

3 bullets

• Sin is defined by the words lawlessness, injustice, falsehood, and darkness in the New Testament. The main aspect of the sin is the refusal of God’s love. So to not sin, we need to commit ourselves to Jesus and the Kingdom, changing the way we live.
• Jesus hated sin, because it distanced people from God. However, he forgave it by turning into flesh, getting out of the womb of a woman, and by being tortured until he died on the cross. With his blood, all the committed, being committed and to-be committed sins was washed out of this wretched world. Jesus approached the sinners, prostitutes and lawbreakers to spread God’s love.
• Jesus once forgave an adulterous woman, and forgave all the people in Earth right before he died. He said that we have to follow three things that he said: repent for our sins, to believe in the Gospel message and that we live Gospel.

Page 166 - 174

5bullet points

• Since God loved us, wehave to love him back. There are three commandments that orders us to love God,and other seven are about loving the neighbor. Obeying all the Ten Commandmentsis not optional, and it must be strictly obeyed. Breaking one law may break allthe other laws, so by loving our neighbor, we are demonstrating our love toGod.
• The first commandment is “Youshall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve”, in other words,to accept the one true God of love in our hearts. To show that we accept him,we must worship him.
• Faith is a theologicalvirtue that empowers us to say “yes” to God. It enables us to believe and seewhat was revealed to us. Because we have our faith tested many times throughour lives, we should strengthen it by reading the bible, praying, celebratingthe sacraments, studying our faith, associating with and listening to people offaith, putting our faith into action and avoid temptations and sins thatthreaten or destroy the gift of faith.
• Hope is a virtue relatedto faith. It makes us believe that God is all-good, all-loving, all-just,all-merciful. Hope gives us confidence that God will keep all of his promises. Eventhe promise that he will exchange our good actions for a happy after-life unitedto Jesus and the Holy Spirit. There are two ways that we can violate hope:despair, losing hope that God can save us, and presumption; believing that wecan save ourselves without God’s help and that Gold will automatically bemerciful even if one does not repent.
• Charity is the mother ofall virtues. Charity is the understanding of love that is the bedrockfoundation of a Christian life. This type of virtue is also called love, and asJesus calls it, the type of distributing love to everyone. Because God is love,we must also love and love him over everything, our neighbors and ourselves. Wecan learn how to distribute this love by obedience, reverence and sacrifice. Wealso have to root all the sins, like indifference, ingratitude, spiritual laziness,and pride. 

Page 175 - 178

10 bulletpoints

• The virtue that was given by God is the religion, which includes adoration, prayer and sacrifice. Adoration is acknowledging God as the loving creator and savior. Also, we need to offer ourselves in adoration, thanksgiving, supplication, contribution, communion, make promises or vows, and celebrate sacraments.
• To live the first commandment, it’s needed to avoid some not virtuous things, like the deviation of our faith. For example, idolatry is condemned by the first commandment, the worship of false gods.  Idols are not only those of other religions, but also things in life, such as money, power, popularity, pleasure, etc.
• Focusing on other things that aren’t God, for example money, may cause us to ignore other people’s needs. Also, being an extremist can cause people to sin, like the mother of Ed Gein.
• Superstition is a religious practice that consists on believing that the presence of certain objects or actions can influence the outcome of the situation. For example, the four-leaf clover, the horse shoe on the front door, etc.

• Divination is uncovering what God wants to be covered. These actions make people fail to trust in God and disrespect him. For example, calling up the power of Satan and the demons, conjuring the dead, palm reading, playing with Ouija boards, etc.
• Magic is the trick to harness occult powers to gain an advantage over others. For example, black magic tries to get advantage using the power of demons. Also, spiritism consists on evoking dead people and spirits. Those practices are dangerous, because it may lead to fascination with evil spirits.
• Irreligion is an offense, because when we ask God to prove if he’s true, we’re tempting him. It’s the same thing Satan did to Jesus. Sacrilege disrespects the virtues, the sacraments, and all the things made to God. And I copied and pasted the all the bullet points from deborah's notebook. Simony is the buying or selling spiritual goods. God’s forgiveness of our sins cannot be sold or bought, just like the Church did in the Middle Ages.
  
  
• Atheism is the denying of God’s existence. Atheists say that his existence cannot be proved, and therefore, not true. An agnostic from the agnosticism decides not to take any part, just to reply “I don’t know” when asked what they believe in.
• Modern atheism has many forms like humanism, which has an anthropocentric view of the world. Marxist communism says that the economic and social order is the source of human freedom. Freudianism claims that God is only a little imaginary god. Materialism claims that there are no other dimension where spiritual happenings take place.
• Atheism also says that God ends human freedom and dignity. But God actually protects human dignity. Not believing in one God may result on a Jack-of-all-trades of religions. Also, atheistic philosophies made people be enslaved or destroyed, just like when the Church burned women on a stake accusing them of practicing “witchcraft”. 

Pages 179-182

5bullet points 

• The secondcommandment is “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain”. Thename of God, “Yahweh”, was revealed to Moses, and later, to the whole world. Weonly have to say his name in important occasions, as well as Jesus’. Also, thesecond commandment involves our given names in baptism. Also, each time we makethe sign of the cross or anything related to God, we have to consider that it’sholy.
• The offensesagainst God’s name can be breaking promises made in God’s name, when we break apromise in his name, we make him be a liar; blasphemy, cursing God and othersacred people or objects; taking the Lord’s name in vain. One notably usedmodel is “I swear to God I didn’t”, or “Oh, my God!” or “Jesus Christ!” toexpress, depending on the situation, astonishment, surprise, pain, etc.
• The thirdcommandment is “Remember to keep holy the Lord’s day”. It means that we have tocelebrate God’s creative activity and God’s covenant with his people, likegoing to mass. In the book of Genesis, God created all the world and rested onthe seventh day. We have do to so too. We should take a break from all the workwe do to earn money, which is not a godly objective, and think about God.
• For Jewishpeople, Sabbath is on Saturday, on the end of the week. But for Christians,Sabbath is on Sunday and begins the week. On Sunday, Christians do thanksgivingand celebrate the Paschal Mystery of Christ’s love. For Catholics, it is aserious matter worshipping God. They should go to mass, and if they don’t, itis mortally sinful.
• Catholics goto mass to give and receive. They encourage fellow believers, must payattention, and receive God in the Holy Communion. Some arguments used by peoplethat do not go to mass are that only hypocrites go to mass. But since everyoneis a hypocrite, it becomes the norm, and they go to be spiritually treated byJesus. Also, they can worship God in nature, but they go to mass too in orderto meet people that go there. 

Other Works

Importance of the three commandments

The first three commandments are “I am the Lord yourGod: you shall not have strange gods before me” “You shall not take the name ofthe Lord your god in vain” “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath”. In my opinion,the Law was made to keep order and harmony in civilization, to bring progressto the people who constitute it, rather than set restrictions as the most prioritizedpurpose. 

The first law, whose objective is to stop people fromtaking idols, would be helpful for believers. If settled in their conscience,it would at least make them uncomfortable and guilty when they disobey it,consequently making them repent. And by repenting, they would be accommodated inthe divine serenity again. The first law would also teach them faithfulness, justlike when sin taught them betrayal.

The second law commands believers not to take the nameof God in vain. This would be conserving the virtue and holiness of the sacredname. I believe God’s name is not as holy as it was before; for too much timeit was spoken, and consequently, it lost its essence. People, even atheists,say “Jesus Christ!” as a word, not realizing they’re violating the secondcommandment. The prohibition would also symbolize that not even God’s namewould be less holy than himself, and therefore, all the things related to himwould be considered extremely divinely holy.

Finally, the duty to keep at least one of the daysholy, as it’s said in the third commandment, finalizes the laws related to him.By dedicating at least one day of the seven weeks to God, people would rememberof him, worship him, and partially remind themselves of why they keep on believingin God. In addition, the dedication of time would be a kind of sacrifice,because the congregation would be investing time on worshipping God.

Conclusively, I think that all of them have a single objective,which is to keep God from fading away from people’s lives, as it happened withother religions. Since the believers are prohibited to worship other gods, makeGod’s name holy and focus on him at least one day a week, they don’t reallyhave many opportunities to stop carrying on with their religious lives. In theend, the importance of the three laws is preserving God’s existence on people’sminds.

I would like to comment that this system of laws wasvery ingenious, because if one does fulfill all three, he won’t have any chanceof discontinuing what he was doing before.

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4 denifinitons of the green box

Stiff-necked hard-heartedness = stubborn and arrogant

Missing the mark = missing to achieve our main purpose of life – love God and each other

Iniquity = gross immorality or injustice

Rebellion = disobedience to God

Which of the 4 terms is the most related to each attitude? Why? Which of the attitudes do you think can be considered as not being sinful?

I think that options 1 to 3 are about stiff-necked hard-heartedness; 6,8,9 for missing the mark; 4,5,7 for iniquity; and 10 for rebellion.

I don’t think the last one is a sin. It’s the person’s wish if, for example, he uses a gift someone gave to him. I can choose if I will use the shirt my friend gave me as a birthday gift. Not using it wouldn't be a sin.

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Select two themes from "Jesus and Forgiveness: A Scriptural Search" and answer questions.

1. Penitent woman (Luke 7:36 - 50) - Simon the Pharisee thought that Jesus was not a prophet, because he let a sinner touch him. The point is that Jesus loves the bigger sinner more than the people that sin a little.
2. Lost sheep, lost coin (Luke 15:1 – 10) - Jesus was being criticized, because he received sinners and ate with them. Because he has found his lost sheep.

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Exercices 1 to 9

1. The root of all sin is from the Devil. 
2. The Original Sin is the sin committed by the first couple created by God, Adam and Eve. Personal sins resemble the Original Sins by the disobedience and lack of trust in God. 
3. Concupiscence is an incilnation toward evil caused by Original Sin, or the "rebellion of the 'fles' against the spirit". Drugs at parties, lying to parents, fighting with friends. 
4. It's a failure to love God above everything and our neighbor as ourselves. 
5. While venial sin is one that weakens but does not kill our relationship with God, mortal sin involves a serious matter, sufficient reflection, and full onsent of the will, and it results in total rejection of God and alienation from him. 
6. We need grave matter, full knowlege and complete consent. 
7. Killing someone, because nobody can kill anyone, only the creator and the holy and graceful, etc. God. Committing adultery, because you broke the promise you made to God of loving a single person for your entire life. Homosexuallity, because God created men and women and we have to obey him no matter what happens.
8. Situations where you didn't intend to do what just happened. 
9. The effects are loss of charity, sactifying grae, and friendship with the absolute Lord.  

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Exercices1 to 3

1. Penance is the acknowledgement of the sinners that they are indeed sinners and that they want to turn from their sins. Confession is the owning up to our sins and that we're truly sorry for them and that our faith is in God's mercy. Finally, the reconciliation is the mending of the relationship with God. 
2. It is a deliberate refusal to accept God's mercy through repentance, a total rejection of the Lerd's forgiveness and the salvation the Holy Spirit offers to each human being. 
3. Examine your conscience: ask the Holy Spirit to help examining one's own life. Contrition for sins: sorrow for not loving, for causing harm in one's relationship with God, others or self. Confessing: being able to own up to one's sins. Absolution: is the priest's words of absolution, announcing God's forgiveness. Penance assigned: some assignements to help someone in the conversion process. 

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Modern Day Prayer
God, thank you for all of the gifts you gave me, including the gift of my life. You're my wall in the dark hall like in my home, so I can walk without seeing; you're my handrail in the stairs. You guide me when I don't know what do to, and you hold me when I am falling. You guard me against enemies, my fears, and my problems. You guide me to the side of yours.
PS: mr.. I don't know how to pray... I'm not Christian, but I tried it :D

School Ties Notes & Comments

There’s a guy driving a car and goes to a bar. There,he meets his friends, but some jerks go ruin everything. He goes to picksomeone up in what looks like a coal factory.

David Green. Jewish boy that goes to a richpeople’s school with sport scholarship.

Before going to the school, his old footballcoach tells him some things has to be kept hidden. It’s the fact that David isJewish. Love yourself! Don’t hide it!

People in there are friendly to him, and makesfriends quickly. But he discovers they’re anti-Semitic: “I jewed it down”. Heis working as a waiter in the school dinner or school’s lunch or something likethat. It’s because he doesn’t have money, and working as a waited would probablygive him some.

DYLAN IS LIKE A BLONDE TAYLOR LAUNTNER WITHSHIRT. They’re so ugly.

Because David is Jewish, he has to make aprayer or something in the school’s chapel, because the school is catholic. David(I think) has to rest in the sacred day, but he doesn’t and goes play football.So he goes pray on the chapel, and the schools’ director comes in, and makes apolite insult. David is just like… okay.

Dylan confesses to David how pressured he is togo to Harvard or other Ivy League school, because all his generation thing thathis grandparents and parents went to Harvard.

There’s a ball in the school, with the boys andgirls from another school like theirs. Dylan brings a girl, Sally, andintroduces her to David. However, his unintentional mistake was making themfall in love, like any other American cliché movie. HAHA teachers go aroundsupervising the distance between the boys and girls while they dance. Theywould probably faint if they saw the type of dance they have now.  

Awwww, they’re so sweet!! “You’re pretty” and “youlook like an angel” were so romantic. I hope I hear this one day from a guy. J

Sally smoking?!?!? WHY, and HOW? She can’tsmoke! Their lungs aren’t prepared for such intoxication. I can imagine herdying in the hospital regretting the days that she smoked.

Dylan goes mad at David, because he threw himagainst a guy from another team to protect himself and win the game, andbecause David got all the credits.

Once, the boys are all at a formal party. Romance is in the aaaair. Sallyand David are having their romantic mood out in the garden, when Dylan goes toget Sally for a dance. Dylan says “Hey, thanks for taking car’a ma gurl” butSally says “I’m not ya gurl” and dumps him. OUCH. Apply cold water to the burnedarea. Dylan gets mad and goes to the bar, where some old people are hanging out,and Dylan discovers that David is Jewish. And his face goes like “MWHAHA”.

LOL naked butts in the shower… awkward…

The boys are all taking a shower, when Dylanstarts to mock David for being a Jew. Everyone in

After Dylan tells everyone David is Jewish,they start to bully him. In the dinner hall, when David is serving the boys athis grade, a guy with glasses say “AJoo!”, an unfunny pun for “achoo!” and “aJew”.

David enters his room, and there’s a swastikadrawn in a piece of cloth and it’s written “Go home, Jew” right on the wall. Davidgoes mad and sticks a message in the hall message board. It reads “whoever didthis, go meet me at … in front of the …” but no one shows up. And he just goeson screaming and all the boys are looking at him through the window in therain. His face screaming is funny haha.

Students sign an honor code saying that theywon’t cheat, and if they see someone cheating, they have to give him away. TypicalAmerican cliché movie. If they did this in Chapel, and everyone actuallyfulfilled the promises, probably more than half of the class would be givenaway. Unfortunately.

Dylancheats on the History test, and a fellow student whose name I don’t remembersees him cheating but doesn’t give him away . He lets the notes fall from thedesk without noticing and the teacher discovers someone cheated.

Thosemorons go discussing who cheated, and don’t check the handwriting. Freankinmorons.

David Greengoes to talk to Sally after she knew he was Jewish, and she was ignoring him. Sally,you *****. She dumped him only because he was Jewish. David, you deserve so much better. WHAT IS THE PROBLEMWITH YOU, ANTISEMITIC PEOPLE? They’re rich, because they know how to spendmoney and deal with business. They’re wise with money. Money will flow into thepockets of a wise owner, as said in the book “The Richest Man In Babylonia”. It’snot their fault if you don’t know how to handle your own money, dammit! Theydidn’t steal your money! They just made it with their efforts! Jewish peoplehave been prosecuted and prejudiced by you, “good” and “honest” people. You prohibitedthem from having a surname, vandalized their holy places, destroyed theirhomes, burned them, and force-converted them. I’m not talking about the horrorsdone in the Holocaust; I’m talking about since the Middle Ages. Isn’t a guy goodenough by being handsome and nice to you, telling that you look like an angel,Sally? Go smoke some more cigarettes and find the perfect jerk, you prejudicialmean idiot!

After theteacher tells everyone that had the history test to make a reunion and decidewho really cheated, all of the boys go to a little kinda library room and startdiscussing who cheated. If they don’t the teacher will fail the entire class. Buthistory is such a wonderful subject! Why do they have to cheat?! David goestalk to Dylan and tells him to say that he cheated before they go to the room. Everyoneis basically accusing David of cheating just because he’s Jewish. The blondeguy with glasses starts insulting David for him being Jewish. The guy who sawDylan cheat gives a short speech. David and Dylan make a telepathicconversation and Dylan stands up to tell, in David’s prediction, that he didactually commit the big crime. However, unlike David’s predictions, Dylan tellseveryone that David actually cheated.

The guy whosaw Dylan cheat is undergoing a tough situation, and is suffering a lot becausehe doesn’t know if he should tell the director, or just keep quiet. If I washim, I would just go to the principal and secretly tell him that it wasn’tDavid. Or maybe, I would tell everyone individually and secretly that I sawDylan cheat. Those people in movies are so stupid, even though they go toHarvard & all.

In the end,the guy who saw Dylan cheat gives him away to the director of the school beforeDavid goes “confess” (because he didn’t really cheat) to them, and saves him. However,Dylan gets really mad at David. He gets expelled of school, but Dylan says “I’mgonna go to Harvard”, but if he’s anti-Semitic, he shouldn’t go there, becausehe’ll be surrounded by “dirty Jews”, and will get stressed out. But YOU DESERVED IT, Dylan.

School Ties Reflection 

            Very manymoral issues were present on the movie “School Ties” that we watched. A Jewishboy goes to a Catholic private school, and is bullied because of his religion.David Green, the Jewish boy, makes a lot of friends until some boy got mad athim and discovered he was Jewish, so he told everyone he was a Jew. From thatpoint, he got bullied and even dumped by his girlfriend, and accused ofcheating on a test that could fail everyone in his class. In the end, it isrevealed that he didn’t really cheat, but the boy who got mad at him did, andis expelled from the school.

            The moral issue in here is the fact that his “friends”are discriminating David because of his religion. He was good and nice toeveryone, and his friends did like him, until they discovered he was Jewish. Anti-Semitismlooks like a trend between the students. Nobody had apparent reason of hatingJewish people, and consequently, no reason of hating David Green. The movieshowed that David had a good character, and he had many reasons to be liked,even beginning a romance. He was good, nice, romantic, intelligent, andhandsome. However, because of the unjustifiable anti-Semitism that began fromnowhere, David suffers bullying from his “friends”.

            This reminds of last year, when I went to my friend’ssleepover birthday party. With some five girls or so, we had dinner, sang happybirthday, and at bedtime, our feminine traditional gossip circle began (it is atradition of girls to talk at bedtime. No one knows why we have this naturaltendency of gathering around a speaker and discuss other people’s privatelives). I remember how all of them had loose pajama pants, each one admiringother’s pajamas. All gathered in a shape resembling a circle, some seated, andsome lied down with their still-growing chests touching the smooth mattressesbadly aligned to each other; it was not time to sleep yet, time for sleep wouldcome naturally, when the first girl would cover herself with a blanket and notanswer to the shocking news delivered by one of the speakers. I don’t exactly rememberwhat we were talking about, but it was something about a new boy that arrivedon my last small school. Since it was small, a newbie would be the subject ofconversation for a very long time. Everyone, including me, who briefly glancedat him at my ex-classmates’ graduation, was discussing his face; I don’tremember the whole conversation, but when a girl said his pimples looked creepy,everyone agreed. I can clearly remember the face on the birthday-girl. A facesupposed to be happy was covered by a grim expression, of hesitation, agitationand nervousness. She kept trying to change the subject, but the girls wouldn’tlet; everyone still had different opinions about his attractiveness (I think).

            Suddenly, she started to cry. “Girls, please. Stop it” isone of the few speeches I remember from that conversation. Delicately, everyoneasked her why with the millennial tradition of patting and rubbing one’s backwith the palms. She told us how she felt pressured to like boys, to discusstheir fleshly attractiveness with everyone. She said, “I’m a lesbian” sohurriedly that I, including some other girls, thought we listened something wrong.There was a terrible silence. The only thing I could hear were her sad hiccups,and the cry of her soul. She told us how afraid she was of her parents, strict Christiansand that she would hear them talk horribly about homosexuals in front of her.Also that she wanted to tell her parents she was one, but what if they told herto never take a step again in this house? Nobody dared to talk. Nobody. It wasjust her and her dropping twin waterfalls from the eyes.

Ifelt that I needed to break it. An urge came up to my head to make it less tensioned,so I just laughed. I laughed joining the mourning of a dying lie. The lie shewas straight. The other girls joined me, too. Suddenly, the whole bedroombecame an ocean of tears. Six girls, all crying, affectionately hugging eachother. When our eyes were so swollen that we couldn’t cry anymore, I said that Ididn’t really care if she was a lesbian, for she was our friend, because shewas nice. Then, all of us complemented her, strangely taking no overlaps at all.All of us slept hugging each other that dawn.

Buther revelation wasn’t successful at other places. One of her “friends” toldeveryone in her swimming classes that she was a lesbian, and they did someterrible things that I won’t mention in here. Well, I’ll mention one thing. Once,they threw all of her things from her locker to the pool, including her clothesand her towel, dumping all her shampoo and her conditioner in there, becausethey “didn’t want a dirty lesbian” with them, as she told me falling into tearstwo months ago. Once, my friend told me that a bunch of self-proclaimingChristians that loved God and Christ and all calmly went up to her. Theystarted telling her how Adam and Even were created with the stuff she alreadyknew, perhaps, deeper than they did. They ended up shouting at her, that she wasliving in the wrong way, that the Devil had possessed her and her family wouldbe cursed forever. I actually found out about this when one of my friends toldme. She was listening to everything when they were speaking these awful words.

Withinthe small community she lives in, of Korean-Brazilians, there are, what herparents consider, rumors about her sexuality. I once heard my mom talking aboutthe supposedly homosexual friend. She didn’t speak bad of her, she just said itwas a pity, because her parents were good people, and that they didn’t reallydeserve to go all through this. But those are just rumors, and they’re probablygoing to stay just like that until my friend’s birthday, November 5^th,when she’s decided to tell her parents about her real “rumor”. 

10 Commandements Poem 

These tenI command

No falsewitness stand

No other’smoney in your hand

No other’swife in your bed

No neighbor’swife in red

Noneighbor’s money in your head

Noparents’ honor shred

No Lord’sname in vain

Not actlike Ed Gein

With noother god your faith halve

And theSabbath have

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Chart

1.    I have to be perfect in everything I do.	Never
2.    I have to be right all of the time.	Rarely
3.    I can’t laugh too often (or share my hopes and dreams), or others will think I am foolish	Never
4.    I need everyone to love me	Rarely
5.    I expect other people to change to please me	Never
6.    I can’t allow anyone to see me cry or they’ll think I’m weak	Rarely
7.    I don’t reveal my true feelings for fear someone will reject me	Never
8.    I don’t like trying new things for fear or failure	Rarely
9.    I need to be first in everything, or I’ll consider myself a loser	Never
10. To be happy, I need to be free of conflict	Never

4/6
Exercices 2,3,4,5
2. Children owe their parents respect and honor. The children have right to be loved unconditionally have protection under their parents.
3. Parents owe their children unconditional love and protect them.
4. Governments owe their citizens' money. They owe security, stability, order, and the three pillars of the French revolution: liberté, egalité, fraternité.
5. We have to respect the Law, pay taxes, respect the Government and other citizens, help the government keep order. Also,we have the responsibility to overthrow their own government when they're unhappy, as Rosseau said. Mh