Of the options given in the Final Q; I would classify time, the number three, patriotism, god, morality, science, market capitalism, and war as entirely human constructions. I decided to put these all in this category because I believe them all to be purely human constructed ideas. Only humans have the ideals of time, morality, god, market capitalism and patriotism, and only humans use the number three and science to delineate amounts and describe things. Finally war is a purely human creation because no other species engages in war as we use it. They will defend their territory against invaders but they will not turn invaders themselves as humans do.

Those things only partly humanly constructed would be in my eyes music, the color red, the electron and apples. Personally I think that music is mostly not a human construction because it is there in the world and we merely define what’s there and create our own at times. Red is not something we created we just named it when we started the concept of named colors; therefore it is only vaguely a human construct. The same is true with electrons and apples. These things existed before we discovered and named them. We have since manipulated them to our uses but we did not create them.

This leaves nothing in the entirely not human constructions category. This does make a measure of sense to me because in a manner everything is at least somewhat a human construction because we have defined and named all those things which we interact with in our lives even if we did not actually create them.

Music

As the article assigned states there is much argument surrounding what constitutes music over the years. Personally I go with the idea of the types of music musica universalis, musica humana, and musica instrumentalis. I think there are different levels of music. That produced by the world around us or musica universalis from birds, wind, running water or manmade things, that produced by humans or musica humana either by humming, clapping or singing, and finally musica intrumentalis or that produced by instruments such as piano, violin, etc.
Personally I enjoy all these to varying degrees. I think they are all parts of what music is in our world. I don’t think music necessarily needs a rhythm to be music. Some things are more pleasing to the ear than other but pretty much every sound in this world is part of the music of life. From the ticks of the clock to the solos of a saxophone in a jazz club to the sounds generated by the various fauna of our earth some of which can be very bizarre.

Patriotism

I found the thoughts of Robert Jensen very interesting.
He boils down one definition of patriotism to "We were attacked. We must defend ourselves. The only real way to defend ourselves is by military force. If you want to be patriotic, you should -- you must -- support the war."
my reaction to this definition was refusal. i think that people should be allowed to voice their opinions and not get harassed as 'unpatriotic'. i don't think that force is always the response needed. don't get me wrong i support our troops and wish them all good health. but i also wish them a safe and quick return home. i don't claim to keep close tabs on the situation but i think that surely there could have been more done before we got into the situation we are now in. it relates back to Jensen because he talked at length about how the United States of America needs to accept the things we have done. we cannont be on a pedestal. we are not better than other humans on this planet. we have caused much mischief all over the world which we need to call ourselves to task for.
He also shared this quote by Emma Goldman: "Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others."
i think that the US is perhaps the most guilty of this form of pratriotism i do not pretend to be at all an expert on american or world history but our country has done some inexcusable things in my opinion and tried to suppress disagreement with the threat that we are not patriotic if we argue. this is rubbish. if we have to use the word patriotic i do not think this is the right way and that we need to rethink how we view the concept drastically.
America needs to revise it's view of itself in relation to other societies.
he sums it up well when he says:
"I believe there is a light shining out of September 11, out of all that darkness. It is a light that I believe we Americans can follow to our own salvation. That light is contained in a simple truth that is obvious, but which Americans have never really taken to heart: We are part of the world. We cannot any longer hide from that world. We cannot allow our politicians, and generals, and corporate executives to do their dirty business around the world while we hide from the truths about just how dirty that business really is. We can no longer hide from the coups they plan, the wars they start, the sweatshops they run."

Relevant Article

This is an article which was in the USA Today newspaper today march 10th. I think it quite coincidental that it should appear while we are currently engaged in a discussion religion in class.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080310/cm_usatoday/americanfaithaworkinprogress?loc=interstitialskip

Agnosticism and Atheism

The readings this weekend have caused me to give some thought as to where I fall in the spectrum of faith. Having been raised in the Episcopal Church I would say I have ingrained in my upbringing a certain level of faith in the existance of God. However I have never been an extremely devout Episcopalian. I have a frivolous liking for certain seasons in the church season over others based merely on the hymns sung then. This is one reason i'm not sad to have been here at school during the lenten season which always depresses me hymn-wise and also why i'm glad that the Easter season falls over spring break as that is one of my favorite times in that regaurd.
I think the reason my favorite part of church is the hymns is because I associate good memories with many of them. On the lake where I spend my summers we hold something called hymn sing on sunday nights in August. It is quite informal with only a few set memorial hymns sung at the beginning and a few closing ones reserved for the end. Otherwise people can call out whichever they wish to sing. It is here where I truly feel the closest to God. Surrounded by the mountains and lakes, with the hymn punctuated by the occasional loon call. The community spirit that encompasses the gathering never gets old and a good time is had by all as we move through the church season in whatever order occurs. They are all given attention with the younger kids enjoying christmas and easter while the adults provide selections from other sections of the hymnal. Hymn sing is one of my fondest memories and I always look forward to summers spent with friends and neighbors singing for the joy of it. Many hymns are memorized now because they have been part of the tradition since before I was born, while occasionally a visitor will present a new option to the group which is sung with the same amount of gusto and the beloved favorites.
I seem to have rambled some. My main point is that people exercise their faith in different ways and on different levels. Personally I have always felt that there is a God even if I have not always been the strongest believer. If I feel closer to that God when I am at Hymn sing in the summer than church during the year than that is just the way I happen to live my faith. Others may get more out of elaborate services and prolonged readings of sacred texts, that is ok too. Everyone is entitled to their own faith and level of it, be it prodigious or minimal.

passing of time.

the old saying "time flies when you're having fun" holds alot of truth for me. i often find that time does go by very fast when i'm doing somthing that takes up all my attention i pay very little attention to time and the next time i look up it's hours later.

a prime example of this is when i am at the lake where my grandparents live in the summer. when i'm there i totally lose track of what day it is and what time. the days pass in a blur of swimming, sailing, etc before i know it te summer is past and it is back ot the set and clock regulated life of school. i wrote a short story about how much time in my life has been devoted to time at the lake and it always seems like not enough.

we percieve the passage of time in different ways depending on our environment and how we track time. also there is almost always some discrepency in clocks in different places. this affects how we know where we are supposed to be an when. my old highschool recently fixed the spazzing clocks so now people will have to pay more attention instead of depending on not being late to class because the clock on the other side of the building was earlier.

overall time is a matter of point of view. different people follow time in different manners . some are strictly by the clock, some are more laid back. it's a pretty fluid thing.

One question that I had in relation to the perception of time is how do those who have lostthe sense of sight percieve time? They cannot see the physical representation in clocks, sundials, the position of the sun, time of day, etc. Do they have a sharper sense of internal time?
Also why is it that some peoples internal sense of time appears to be sharper than other peoples? I cannot think of any concrete reason for the phenomena.