Fast Food versus Good Food

I guess I’m still on the Earth Day theme. I think I need to write about this though, since it is perplexing to me. And I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks about these issues. (I have been thinking about more science and religion based posts, Mandy. So I’ll get to those soon.)

On Sunday I went birding with my professor and student/classmate. The birding was good and I made a significant start on my lifelist with 78 new birds. You can see the results at my new birding webpage. It’s very simple and I didn’t proof read it.

At one point we started talking about fast food and Walmart. If you’ve seen the “No War: Nebraskans for Peace” sign in my car you might imagine which side of the debate I came down on against these two Californians. Humanitarian issues aside, why would you want to buy crap just because it is cheap so you can afford to buy more crap? On a certain level I can understand the appeal if you are poor. Fast food and Walmart do make things very cheap and I can’t argue with that. But I make $6000/year and somehow I can afford to buy whole wheat bread. Sure I could buy two or three loaves of white bread for the same price but I guess I would prefer to eat less food of a higher quality, and I’m not starving. In the long run it might save money in health costs. Seriously, why should I go to Del Taco to eat some flimsy little taco of questionable appeal and support some millionaire CEO when I can eat the delicious Pablo special at Maria’s and support the local entrepreneurs?

Is there anyway to instill a since of pride in someone’s life?

PS. On a similar note, I would recommend to everyone to use compact florescent light bulbs instead of the incandescent bulbs. They may cost twice as much but they will save you about $200 in electricity over the 8 year life of the bulb. In the same amount of time you may need to replace an incandescent bulb 10-15 times so really you are saving quite a lot of money by using the compact florescent bulbs.

Happy Earth Day!

Today is Earth Day. I hope it is good for you.

Here are some picture of the earth that I have taken.

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These are some more pictures I took of the Loma Linda Hills last weekend. The hills are in real danger from real estate developers.
















































We should remember that we are not independent of our environment but depend on the earth for our lives. It is more important than ever that we recognize the impact humans are having on the earth. In 1850 there were 150 glaciers in glacier national park in Montana while today there are only 35. Sea rise will effect the 70% of the worlds human population that lives on coastland.


Religious obligations
For those of you who are SDA and going to church today. I hope your pastor is giving a sermon about the importance of respecting God's creation.

It is the belief of the Seventh-day Adventist Church that humankind was created in the image of God, and is thus to represent God as His steward and to manage the natural environment in a faithful and fruitful way. Nature is a gift from God.

...

Seventh-day Adventists advocate a simple, wholesome lifestyle, where people do not step on the treadmill of unbridled consumerism, goods-getting, and production of waste. We call for respect of creation, restraint in the use of the world's resources, reevaluation of one's needs, and reaffirmation of the dignity of created life. (Statement on Stewardship of the Environment)

Many of the things we can do to protect air and water quality have direct influence on our health as well. Here are some suggestions of ways you can be responsible.

Be involved

• Purchase your food from local markets. Try making your own meals rather than buying processed foods.
  
• Recycle your old cell phones with Sprint.
  
• Simply print the pre-paid mailing label, put it on a box with your phone and mail it.
• Vote and be involved in your local and national government.
  
• Recycle as much as you can.
• Compost your kitchen waste rather than using fertilizer in your garden.
• With gas over $3/gallon it will save you money as well as your health to drive less this summer.
• Consider riding a bicycle and/or public transportation
  
• Economize your travel by making fewer trips
  
• Consider buying a fuel efficient car
  

Education

• Take a tour of the earth with environmental and climate lessons on Google Earth. If you don't know about Google Earth, it's freakin' cool, and free.
  
• Or watch videos about why polar bears should be on the endangered species list or melting glaciers in Everast National Park.
• Learn more about responsible living at the EPA webpage

Here are a few more pictures.

New Shoes!

I bought some new shoes yesterday.


They are the same as the ones I had before except that they are red and have about 500 fewer miles on them. There were also on sale because New Balance has changed the design. I'm hopeing they will give my feet more cushion so they will stop hurting.

Sunflower

Religious Confirmation of Science

Here is a paper I wrote last week. I got a good score so it might be worth posting here. If you find it thought provoking, please comment.

Introduction

Science and Religion are two epistemological disciplines claiming to provide true knowledge of the universe. Science claims to ascertain the truth through observation while religion approaches it through a system of beliefs.

Study of the relationship between science and religion can be approached from at least four different perspectives. They are, in roughly chronological order of development ("The relationship between religion and science", 2006), that the two are; in “conflict” and directly oppose each other, in “contrast” and simply have nothing to offer each other, in “contact” and influencing each other, or that religion “confirms” science encouraging its existence (Haught, 1995).

I agree with Haught’s (1995) opinion that religion has “confirmed” or encouraged science. I think it does this by; using religious language that encourages scientific study and by awakening inquiry in its followers and providing ideas for new directions in scientific research.

Counter Argument

The conflict perspective is most directly in opposition to the confirming perspective. Proponents of the conflict thesis claim that religion and science are completely at odds. They claim that religion can not back-up its claims or that science has robbed society of its values and meaning.

Those that depict science and religion as a battle have many examples of hostile acts to support them in the form of warfare and executions. They also claim that pollution and depletion of our natural resources are direct consequences of science.

But these are difficult arguments to understand because science generally does not deal with issues of morality. Additionally, science is not responsible for our actions or what we do with our knowledge; it is simply a tool for discovering truth.

Most people do not fault Einstein for the development of the atom bomb and nuclear weapons, even though he discovered quantum theory which made it possible.

My Argument

Religious Language

I think religion awakens scientific inquiry in individuals through the language that it uses. It has encouraged a basic interest in science at the level of natural observation for thousands of years.

Thousands of years before the dawn of modern science, there was encouragement from religion to make observations of the natural world. Numerous examples in the Bible invite us to observe nature. The Book of Job, which is considered the oldest story in the Bible, asks, "Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn? Do you count the months till they bear? Do you know the time they give birth?” (Job 39:1-2 New International Version). Today, many have called nature “God’s second book’ and we are encouraged to enjoy nature as an acceptable way to observe the Sabbath.

Inquiry

I believe religion awakens inquiry in our minds and gives direction to our scientific studies.
Some cutting edge science has been motivated by religious beliefs and a desire to understand the miracles related in the Bible. Recently, a group of physical oceanographers were interested in how Jesus may have been able to walk on water. They concluded that it was physically possible for ice thick enough to walk on to have been formed in the Sea of Galilea at that time (Nof, McKeague, & Paldor, 2006).

Conclusion

In conclusion, I reassert that religion does encourage a mentality of creativity and observation by using language that encourages its followers to observe nature and be scientists and by seeding minds with ideas and questions to test.
In the future I propose that we increase education in both secular and religious schools about the true relationship between science and religion. Often we discover that the most staunch opposition to one or the other discipline comes from people that are mostly ignorant to the respective subject. We can also encourage our religious leaders to facilitate tolerance amongst religious congregations towards science, in our churches and at religious functions.

References

Haught, J. F. (1995). Science and religion : from conflict to conversation. New York: Paulist Press.

Nof, D., McKeague, I., & Paldor, N. (2006). Is there a paleolimnological explanation for 'walking on water' in the Sea of Galilee? [Electronic version]. Journal of Paleolimnology, 35(3), 417-439.

The relationship between religion and science. (March 23, 2006). Retrieved April, 4 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Relationship_between_religion_and_science

"Sometimes you do take your life in your hands going certain places and it's very unpredictable, but that's thrill of it, the excitement of it all."

Ceri has been told that San Bernardino is at the top of her list for places to move to. She may have some statistics on her side as far as weather goes but overall it's not that great. I had to take the test for myself to see what kind of misleading questions could possibly suggest that anyone would want to live in San Bernardino. Maybe they don't know there aren't any orange groves here any more.

My results were a bit surprising. I never really thought of myself as an easterner before, but 9 of my top 24 cities are in New England. Perhaps that wouldn't be so bad considering the universal health care plan proposed for Massachusetts. I would qualify for free insurance because I'm am so poor I can't afford to pay attention. Actually, I'm poor enough that they doubled my tax return. Sweet!
Also, 11 of my cities were in common with Ceri's cities including my top 5, meaning it's not completely hopeless for us to live in the same city. I had completely expected to have no cities in common with her. I kind of think their database of cities is small enough that some of them have to overlap just because we both chose living by a university as a requirement.

Here are my cities. Try it for yourself and see if you are living where these people think you should be living.

1. Hartford, Connecticut
2. Sheboygan, Wisconsin
3. Eugene, Oregon
4. Danbury, Connecticut
5. Corvallis, Oregon
6. Providence, Rhode Island
7. Johnson, Vermont
8. Portland, Oregon
9. Medford, Oregon
10. Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts
11. Brattleboro, Vermont
12. Albuquerque, New Mexico
13. Salem, Oregon
14. New Haven, Connecticut
15. Worcester, Massachusetts
16. Charleston, West Virginia
17. Reno, Nevada
18. Eau Claire, Wisconsin
19. Oshkosh-Appleton/Neenah, Wisconsin
20. La Crosse, Wisconsin
21. Fayetteville, Arkansas
22. Elkins, West Virginia
23. Little Rock, Arkansas
24. Middlebury, Vermont

Urgent News!

My Gramma sent me an email with some information that very urgently requires your attention, at least for those of us that feel cheated if we forget to watch our odometers rollover on certain milestones. Soon we will witness the passage of 01:02:03 04/05/06. This will probably never happen again for Christians and those who believe in a "tropical year". But there is good news, if you convert to Islam within the next approximately 603 years. Then you might witness it twice.

"Man has always assumed that he is more intelligent than the dolphin..."

For those of you that liked Milk Gone Wild.

Consumer blunder

I've needed a new bottle of imitation syrup for about 4 months and today I decided to buy some. Some syrup bottles have a nice spout that doesn't drip and I was contemplating getting the Stator Bros. brand for $1.50 which has that spout when I saw this Log Cabin bottle. I've never tried Log Cabin and I thought, "Well with the dollar off coupon it would be only $0.50 more. It doesn't have the nice spout. But I should try Log Cabin brand and see if I like it." Notice how the coupon is still on the bottle. I hope it is good syrup.

Save the Trees

Large trees seems to be disappearing from campus.

















I thought I should take a picture of this one before it's gone.




There was once a giant edable fungus on this tree. I think someone ate it.