Describe one time when your beliefs/ideals were challenged. What was the experience like? How did you react? What was the outcome?
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My beliefs and ideals were challenged during the controversy of building the mosque. I believe it should be built but other people may feel that it’s disrespectful to the families and victims of 9/11. Therefore all those people are saying that all Muslims are terrorists when that’s not true because that’s not the definition of a terrorist; that person can be White, Black, Hispanic, etc. I hope the result of this feud is positive. If I was in their shoes I would feel the same way because I didn’t cause 9/11 or had anything to do with it so why should I be punished for it. If America is really a country of freedom, there should be no problems with this. Instead of persecution Americans should use this situation to learn that the Islamic teaches peace and not violence.
ReplyDeleteSamantha Miller
ReplyDeleteEng.-125- PQ1
Prof. D’Amato
Assign. #1
8-29-10
The Horrible Dress Code
One time my beliefs/ideals were challenged was in my former high school when they gave us a dress code. This was a very horrible experience because I am very into fashion and I love to dress in my own unique kind of way and now that I was force to dress like everyone else I was not happy at all. I was even more upset when I seen the uniforms, I wouldn’t have minded as much if the uniforms were cute but they were very ugly especially the colors. So a bunch of others who also didn’t like the dress code and I decided to make a protest by getting as much people as we can to go on strike refusing to wear the uniform. We stressed that we deserve freedom of expression and we even tried to get the parents on our side by mentioning the high prices for the uniform and the fact that we are already in a recession. As a result our principal took away our going out for lunch privileges and even threatened to give us all detention but she did give the parents a discount on the uniforms so we finally gave up and just dealt with it. Many of us including me decided to bring our regular clothes that we want to wear with us and change in the bathroom once school ends or wear our regular clothes underneath our uniform and take it off once school is over.
Inexplicable disturbance
ReplyDeleteSince human found and reported unidentified flying objects throughout the world, I believe UFO is existed in outer space. As a result, I was interested in reading about the mystery of UFO for a while. Many years ago, I remembered one day when I concentrated on reading a mystery book about UFO in school cafeteria, one of my classmates passed by my side and saw what was I reading. She stopped in front of me and said she didn’t believe in the existence of UFO in this world. Also, she said that the discoveries of UFO were fictional. It was a lie which make up by the lunatics. Therefore, I shouldn’t believe the existence of UFO. I looked at her seriously without any words. At that moment, I felt extremely baffled to her judgment. Although I disagreed with her point of view, I didn’t argue with her about the differences of our beliefs, because she disturbed my reading. In addition, whatever I believe in was my own business. I didn’t need her to judge my belief and I had my right to ignore her challenge. As a result, I didn’t say any words to her and continued my reading.
As Individuals in this country our morals and ideals are the foundation of who we are and what we are to become. Over my life there have been many obstacle that have crossed my path that have pushed me to the brink of forgetting who I was as a person and individual in society but nevertheless I stood for who I was and was to become. One of those times was when I faced with a decision. This decision involved my choice of friends. As an individual with strong Christian beliefs my selection of friends have to be tailored because I have a standard to uphold and neither do I want to be mixed up in anything contrary to what I stand for. During the past year my best friend has become an example of what I did not want around me. This person began to become involved in gangs and drugs. As a friend it was my obligation to inform this person about their deeds but at the same time I could not change their mind. I was forced to relinquish our friendship in order to save myself and create a barrier for success for myself.
ReplyDeleteIzamar Gallardo English 125 PQ1 Professor D’Amato Assignment HW 1 8/28/10
ReplyDeleteLess than a month ago I remember standing in the train station with my girlfriend, my hand around her waist, laughing at something she was saying when I was surprised to see an African American man standing only about a yard away from us with an incredulous look on his face. He walked over to us, took off his hat and opened his bag, next he said “Sisters, let me tell you something very important; God has sent me here today to save you.” The moment I heard that, I knew what was coming. I am an atheist and therefore do not appreciate being preached at, especially by individuals who have hardly any knowledge on their religion whatsoever. Yes, I am an atheist, but I am an atheist who studied her previous religion (in this case being Catholicism, which I also tough Confirmation for at a church) before coming to a conclusion. The man retrieved a bible from his bag while explaining to us that we were sinners and must immediately change from our evil ways, at this point I spoke: “Homosexuality is not a sin.” The man stared at me, almost as if seeing me for the first time, from the corner of my eye I saw my girlfriend smile; she knew what was coming. “Why, sister, of course it is, here let me show you. There’s a passage here, Sodom and-” I sighed and shook my head, “Sodom and Gomorrah” I finished for him. A common misconception, I attempted to explain to the man, was that God had punished the “sin” of homosexuality in the city which was not true, the sin, I told the man, was greed. He insisted in converting us and would not let us leave the station, after what felt like years I warned the man that if he did not leave us alone I would be forced to walk away from him, which I did not want to do, for I felt this to be quite rude from my part. However he kept insisting at which point I took my girlfriend’s hand and said, “Let’s go.” That was one of the many times in which I had to defend my own believes, this one specifically, and although I am aware of the fact that there are many people out there who might disagree with my choices, with my believes, I feel that if I am respectful of theirs then it is only just they be respectful towards mine. Unfortunately this isn’t reality and therefore it is important that I know how to defend my own side of the argument and thereby, my believes.
Tanvi Dutta
ReplyDeleteEng-125-PQ1
Professor Damato
Assignment 1
Date- August 31, 2010
How one experience can completely change your beliefs
I still remember those depressing mornings, and those cold nights when my aunt laid in bed suffering every moment. She had cervical cancer, which had spread throughout her body, eventually causing her to go into coma. All I had with me was my faith and trust in God. I prayed to god at every moment to bring my aunt back to normal, to perform a miracle with his great powers, and demolish the cancer. The doctors had told us there was no hope, yet I had faith in god, and truly believed everything would be back to normal. This was surely a challenge to my beliefs, and I had full confidence in them. The experience was awful. I wouldn’t let myself cry because I felt like that would just be accepting the fact that she will leave us, and I was not ready to accept that. The worst part was telling everyone “it will be okay, nothing will happen I know it”, but in the end my aunt passed away, leaving us all behind. I was in deep shock and cried like I’ve never cried before. My aunt was gone forever, even after all the prayers, hope, and strong faith we all carried, nothing could save her. She left three kids behind who were now mother less, the youngest only nine years of age. It made me question the existence of god, and my beliefs were proven wrong. From that day on to some extent I lost faith in god.
I remember there was a time when I believed in God so bad, that everyday the first thing i do when I wake up is pray. I was born a Muslim, my father and mother are both muslims but I consider myself a Scientologist. The reason why is because as a kid I use to have absolute faith and hope in God, when I needed something I'll pray to God when my gradmother who I love so much was ill I prayed to God; when my grandfather was ill I also prayed to God but after awhile I realized there is much this praying will do. It was then after my grandmother passed away that I truly lost faith on the being called "God", it was then that I noticed if you want something in life don't wait or hope for it you have to chase it. That time moment was when my belief had been challenged and had turned me into a changed man forever.
ReplyDeleteMy beliefs were challenged when I was about to join a boxing gym. Around that time I began to believe that you could achieve any goal you want through hard work. It didn’t matter how far away it was, as long as you put enough hard work it could be accomplished. When I told my father of my plans to join the gym, he told me that boxing would be something I couldn’t do. Having glasses, being overweight, and being slow were his reasons to why I wouldn’t be able to do it. To me joining the gym would become more of a mental challenge than a physical one after hearing what he had to say about it. I look up to my father, since he’s a man who has earned everything he has now through hard work and determination. His words made me doubt my beliefs for a while. What if it was impossible for me to do? I thought about it for a second and realized that pushing through doubt was also part of hard work and perseverance. I told him that I didn’t care whether or not I could do it, and that it was just something I wanted to do. The next day I joined the gym and after a year I achieved most of my goals. Now my decision to join the gym after having my belief challenged further strengthened my belief in dedication, determination, and hard work.
ReplyDeleteI have always felt that everyone deserves a second chance in life. This ideal of mine was challenged when I was asked my opinion on whether to put the man who had shot me in prison or allow him to get mental help. This was a tough decision for me to make since this incident had caused both physical and mental trauma to me. But I sympathized with my shooter who was a victim as well that felt justice was not being served and decided to take justice into his own hands. I however, decided to give him a second chance by sending him to get mental help. I knew he had made a mistake and was probably willing to change his life and make up for it if he received help. I feel that I stayed true to the ideal of mine by not letting my emotions get the better of me.
ReplyDeleteI always had this idea that the big guys in the gym were mean. I mean the way they walk as if they are ready to punch someone; everyone will make sure not to annoy them. But one day as I was working on one of the machines in the gym one of them approached me. All that went through my mind was “what have I done this time. If he needs this machine I would just give it to him and move to the next one.” But I was surprised when he did something else. He began to teach me how to work the machine in the right way. I was using it wrongly that was what it was. In the end I learnt the right way and since then, he has become my friend. In addition to that all his girlfriends say “hi” to me because they see me with him sometimes. Sometimes when I look back I laugh at myself. These guys shouldn’t be judged by their size but what’s in them. But I’m not saying that every big guy you see in the gym is nice. Be too smiley smiley and you never know when a punch might come your way.
ReplyDeleteDuring the course of my life I have being raised in Catholic beliefs. Since I have use of reason and understanding I learned about different theories, for example evolution. When I first heard about evolution few years ago I was shocked and confused because all my life I have believed that God created us. Evolution said that human developed from monkeys while I believe that God created us. I was so interested in that theory that I search for more information about it and found that not even today that theory is prove. Even though, the experience of knowing this theory and science point of view might be wrong, scientist still looking for more data to prove their theory. One reason I always keep my belief in me is that if humans evolve from monkeys why they still exist today. Meanwhile, scientists are trying to prove that humans developed from monkeys my belief will still strong and that theory would not change my thoughts. This controversy between beliefs and evolution will last for a long time.
ReplyDeleteObaid Naseem
ReplyDeleteEnglish 125 – PQ1
Prof. D’Amato
Assignment 1
8/31/2010
Faith?
There was a question which occurred to me quite awhile back which challenged my religious beliefs to a certain extent. I woke up one day asking myself what’s the point? The question I was asking myself was not exactly directed to me. I was in a way asking why God made this world if he knows everything there is possible to know about. Why did he make poor people? Why did he make murderers, rapist, and terrorists? Why would he allow there to be corruption and oppression? I was committing a sin of disastrous proportions by doing so, but so many questions arose from the original thought that it was too difficult to drop. I thought for quite awhile, and the conclusion I arrived to was that there’s a reason why that is the forbidden question of Islam or almost any religion for the most part. God cannot be seen nor will he ever be seen till Armageddon in Islamic beliefs, so that is a question which I believe any or every person of religious beliefs might have asked themselves one time or another. This led me to think about miracles and people who's prayers have been answered which includes myself. Essentially the everlasting has a reason behind everything, and me being an eighteen year old I don’t believe that I could possibly fathom the answer of such a question.
I believe that people should have the right marry whoever, whenever they want. Whether gay or straight there should be no controversies on whether or not gays should marry. I brought this up in a conversation my friends and I were having, I stated that if two people love each other enough to spend the rest of there lives together it shouldn’t matter if they were straight or gay, the others in the group stated that it was morally wrong for gays to marry. I reacted by asking, “ if two gay people were getting married right in front of you. Would it have an impact on your life?” This gave me the chance to realize and experience how people who are my age react to the thought of gay marriage happening. I could not have changed their views on the situation at hand but I can change their point of views on the situation. The way I see thing are that if it doesn’t effect my life then why should I allow it to become apart of my daily conversation and/or train of thought.
ReplyDeleteAzikiwe Albritton
ReplyDeleteEng-125
Prompt 1
During the summer of '09 I was turning 18. I believed that since the law considered me an adult, I was an adult. I believed that I could do what I wanted to do. Howver my mom had a different agenda. She felt I needed rules and a curfew. I thought that was unfair. So,we bumped heads on that dispute for weeks. Then one day I missed curfew and she locked me out. From that day on I decided I no longer wanted to live there if i was going to be getting locked out. I then moved in with my dad. Throughout that year I did a lot of thinking and realized my moms rules werent so bad. Now im living with her and i follow all her rules and curfew.
Fahim rashid
ReplyDeleteEng125-PQ1
Prof .D’Amato
Aug 31
My Health was something I had not been taking seriously for a long time. I used to believe that I wouldn’t have to worry about that until I got older. Recently though I’ve been very concerned with my health and the amount of exercise I’ve been getting. The reason for this change is because one of my very close friend who is not much older then me had suffered a stroke. It was alarming because he showed no signs of bad health. This made me realize that even at a young age bad health can be harmful for me. As a result I’ve been putting more thought into choosing my meals and I’ve tried to add more cardio into my daily routine. I hope this helps by keeping me in good shape so I can appreciate the benefits of good health.
Since I was thirteen I would watch my older cousins go out and have fun with their friends. I remember wanting to be their age so bad so I too could experience the freedom and excitement they were experiencing. Being that my parents are from the Caribbean they tend to be very strict when it comes to having fun. At the age of fourteen I could not do the simple activities that teenagers like to do such as having slumber parties with my friends or even going over to their house for a little while during the day. Once I turned eighteen I knew that I did not want to have the same restrictions like I did when I was fourteen. I believed that I was older and more mature and could now understand certain responsibilities that I would have to take on. However, to my parents being eighteen did not matter at all. As far as they see it I was still a child. So when the time came for me to go out to parties and enjoy myself. I noticed that every single time I wanted to do something I would have to beg and force my parents to let me go, especially my father. It came to the point where I was extremely frustrated and could not tolerate the restriction any longer. I did not respond well to this treatment. I would constantly give my parents attitude and I began to resent them a little. This also led me to be rebellious and lie about what I was doing or where I was going. My friends started to notice the change in my attitude and they asked me why I was acting unusual. So I told them what the situation was and they told me that I needed to talk to my parents and explain to them how they were making me feel. I knew that it was not going to be easy but I had to tell them. After I explained to my parents how angry and sad I was, they didn’t give me a hard time like before. They are still strict, but now it isn’t as bad as before. So now I am able to spend time with my friends and have fun without being stressed. I know they want what is best for me, but at the same time they have to let me grow on my own and make my own mistakes.
ReplyDeleteLove, learn to love someone who abandon me when I was four years old was the biggest and the most grateful challenge in life. My mother made many mistakes in live, but one was leaving me little back home in Brazil. During many years I built anger against her because she left behind. Seventeen years later I had a chance to know her better when I decided to move to New York. The first years were hard and all did was judge her acts. Many judgments happen because I could not accept and love someone who left me. On my mind she was a miserable person. After much growth from both sides, we were able to accept each other with all the mistakes we have made. There was a long and heartbreaking process from both sides, but was worth. Learn the real forgiveness let me today enjoy my life at whole. Forgive, accept and love my mother is the best gift I could ever had.
ReplyDeleteSara Martinez
ReplyDeleteEnglish 125
Section PQ1
Prof. D'Amato
1 Paragraph
08/31/10
The Day I Found Out My Me
I believe that I have a unique philosophical view on life that allows me to maintain a fairly positive attitude and an open mind. I try to be always conscience of my surroundings and myself but I wasn't always this way. I'm not saying I was a horrible person to begin with, but I was just floating through life not really thinking for myself just going along with whatever I was told the right thing was. That day that everything changed was nothing big in particular. That day there wasn't any explosions or fireworks, life threatening moments, lost of love ones, or an appearance of a significant other but nevertheless it was a special day for me. I had just finished another day of eleventh grade class and decided to go on a walk that day which was a little unusual for me. I was walking and recalling a passage I had read in English Class, which isn't my favorite subject, about how everything and everyone is connect but still separate. It made me start to think as I was walking and suddenly a gust of wind blew beautiful crimson, orange, and gold leaf in front of me and as they slowly glided down I started to cry. I had never felt this way before it was so powerful and overwhelming. I saw the world as a place where the order of things was no order. I concluded that life don't necessary make sense but going the way it is suppose to.
Kristian Lani
ReplyDeleteEng 125
Prof D’amato
A.1
9/1/10
Disputed Beliefs
My belief is that affairs are morally incorrect. This belief of mine was challenged by one of my friends. He thought that if both people agreed to the affair its fine to do. I had told him that even if they both agreed to it a woman with two kids living in a household with her husband and her husbands close friend while the husband’s close friend that the kids call “uncle” out of respect they have for him it is morally incorrect for the two to have an affair. My friend believed that if the guy is single and the mother is agreeing to it and asking for it, then there is no reason why the guy living in the household shouldn’t agree to it. Even if the woman wants to be a home wrecker you have to be the bigger person and think about the kids that are teenagers. The experience felt as If I was having a full-blown debate with one of my friends that I'm close with and our opinions and ideals on the topic were so different that it had surprised me. My reaction on my face was shocking. I asked myself how can a person I'm so close with can think so differently, so irrationally. In the end we came to the conclusion where it is morally wrong and that it shouldn’t be occurring and happening but at the same time, if a girl is throwing yourself at you no matter the situation you’re in or she’s in, no guy will ever say no.
Esau Rahim
ReplyDeleteEnglish 125
Prof. Damato
8/29/10
Beliefs or ideals were challenged
The time my belief or ideal was challenged was when I was in high school and I believed that it was more beneficial for me personally to read out loud instead of to myself quietly. The teacher and I were debating whether or not it is more beneficial. The experience was rather interesting because not only me but other students agreed with me as well. I as well as my teacher were calm and just discussed the topic. But in the end the outcome of our debate was that in my classroom, half agreed that it benefited them more reading out loud and the other half benefited more reading quietly.
My Beliefs and Ideals are constantly challenged. One memory of my ideals being challenged is by my parents mainly my mother. I am the youngest of 3 and the only girl. I believe that I should have the same set of rules and allowances that were given to my older brothers. However this was not the case with my mother. I was not allowed to date whereas my brothers were I was not allowed to go away to college and my brothers were. To me these restrictions were unfair and unjust. I am not given as much slack as my brothers, I know that this is coming from a good place she wants me to be a strong independent woman however it has caused much conflict in our relationship. I am happy with the Position I am in today but I know that when it is time to have a family I will be a bit more flexible with the rules and restrictions imposed upon my children both boys and girls.
ReplyDelete