doing unreasonably well for school so far this sem. just got back a term paper with an 'A'. no comments, no feedback, just a pencil scrawl saying 'good point', and an 'A'.
it was the religion module. the term paper question i picked was this: "One's sexuality/sexual orientation should have nothing to do with one's religiosity. Discuss with reference to at least two major religions."
I had alot of difficulty understanding this question, and my tutor was not helpful in this area. not intentionally unhelpful, but we didn't seem to be speaking the same language. the problem was that i interpreted the question very literally, as i always do. firstly, the phrase "nothing to do with" is all-inclusive, which makes a 'yes' answer difficult to support. secondly, the phrase "nothing to do with" carries no connotation of value judgements, right or wrong, but is more of a statement regarding the scope which religions have over the adherent's life. thirdly, the word "should" carries value judgement with it, implying that there is a right and a wrong as to whether religion should affect one's sexuality. fourthly, the wording of the question "sexuality/sexual orientation" is very open to being defined as broadly or as narrowly as i like.
i guess it was the third point that troubled me the most, and the one which me and my tutor couldn't seem to agree upon. the problem, as always, is that right and wrong are contingent upon one's own set of beliefs. in the end i ignored the point, choosing the convenient position that religion will have as much authority in a man's life as he allows it to, and that i should focus my study on how much authority it tends to get.
i also took umbrage with the "at least two major religions" bit. from what we've learnt in our course so far, the only thing which has really proven true for all religions is that none of them are monolithic, none of them consistently practise and believe exactly the same thing, and that the variation within each major religion is almost as great as that between different religions. therefore, it made no sense to me whatsoever to pick examples from any religion, since you could probably find contradictory statements everywhere.
i had quite alot of fun writing it, since i took what i considered an utterly outlandish stand. i basically said that everyone has some sort of religion, whether or not they consider themselves religious. atheists and agnostics have clearly defined statements of belief. americans treat their Consitution like a sacred text. Vegans treat animals as 'sacred', by certain textbook definitions. furthermore, i posited that all the conventional religious labels are entirely useless in defining a person's belief systems, since one's beliefs are affected not only by religious organisations, but by personal experience, what we hear in the media etc. Simple statements such as "Milk is good for your bones" are statements of belief, ingrained in us through the media and the education system. Each individual's belief system is a potpourri of different influences, a hodgepodge mix of aphorisms and catchphrases, and this constitutes a personal 'religion'.
spending two-thirds of the essay defining terms, i finally embark on my argument, which is basically a one-liner. it is impossible to perform any action or make any decision without reference to certain beliefs, and hence nothing can be considered fully independent of religiosity. and since the essay clearly wasn't long enough, i arbitrarily added in examples from Christianity and Buddhism to support my points in various locations, to hit the minimum word length.
and of course, all my arguments are well-supported with the writings of various sociologists and authors, most significantly a guy called mircea eliade, who basically made the same argument - he called man homo religiosus, and said that no man is truly irreligious. also thomas luckmann, who coined the term 'invisible religion', which is basically all the other things like individualism and familialism and stuff which takes the place of religion nowadays.
someone pointed out to me that in most argumentative essays, one should present both sides of the argument, and say which one you prefer. the problem is, with the way i defined the terms, no counter-argument exists! my definitions were all-inclusive, and i took advantage of a narrowly-defined question until there was nothing else to be said. so i was really rather nervous about that, and i thank God for an 'A'. but truth be told, this is one of the things that annoy me about Christianity sometimes... sometimes it seems to me like the doctrines have been structured such that there's no way to logically disprove it, no way to argue that it is flawed. beyond a certain point, the 'perfect God' trump-card eliminates all basis for argument... but i guess that's just me exalting logic higher than it should be. and i guess that's why faith is a pre-requisite.
i'm just rambling here 'cos i can't seem to sleep tonight.
