My own sermon

Always be prepared for the consequences for every action you take. Sin is an ultimate ticket to hell that it’s impossible to be cleared off of. As one committed a sin such as killing, stealing and lying, he or she will face the wrath of God and suffer in hell for eternity. We are all born to be sinners, bearing the sins of our ancestors, Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden apple. However, it’s because of them that make us different from all other animals that we obtain intelligences to praise and recognize the existence of the Almighty. We shall pray every day to express our gratitude to God that the sins we bear from our ancestor are cleared away by our savior, Jesus Christ. Therefore, we shall live according to moral rules and live a good life by not trying God’s patience. Once one committed a sin, one earns a one-way ticket to the raging fire of hell where one burns in pain with outcry of devils and sinners echoing in his or her mind. Be calm my friend, that these thing will never happen to you if you never commit a major sin such as ending one’s life. It’s morally right to end a life if there’s a justified reason behind it, such as defending yourself during a fight. However, always be prepared to bear the consequences. Be strong, don’t hesitate, keep on moving and never stop or else death will end you. Live a happy life and remember the teaching of God that God will never forgive you if you are to make someone else or even yourself suffer for the action you take.

Respond to Edwards

Jonathan Edwards, who gives you in the name of God to condemn everyone as a sinner? Are you a messenger from God, or even perhaps Satan? I agree with you that people should express their gratitude to Jesus and accept him as all mankind’s savior. However, just because people didn’t say “Jesus Christ, I believe you to be the savior of all human beings!” in front of a group of witness, you are implying that they will all end up in hell? How will you know what’s hell like? Perhaps you have visited hell yourself? If not, then you are just a hypocrite who pretends to be pious and a true follower of God. You are creating public fear among people by implementing a vision that everyone is condemned to hell for disobeying God. I know you are just trying to make people follow rules, however who gives you the right to do such heinous speeches. It sounds like you are actually the true sinner who has experienced the wrath of God and miseries in hell. The God I believe in wouldn’t tell his messenger to terrorize his sons and daughters. Instead, the messenger should help leading God’s daughters and sons into the right path through calm and encouraging methods. I appreciate your method that fear is a strong motivator. However, it makes you look arrogant that you are never a sinner and a mere human being like you can command others with no proof that God has instructed you to do so. Jonathan Edwards, you are truly an imposter from hell.

Sin

What exactly is sin? According to the Merriam Webster’s definition, sin means “an offense against religious or moral law.” Simply put, it means to do something that is against either your own or society’s moral laws. To commit a sin can be very serious. For example, everyone will agree that murdering other living beings will be consider as a sin that is against any moral laws. However, is it a sin to eat pork? For Muslim, it’s a sin to do so. However for most people in the world, it is perfectly fine to eat pork. We can BBQ pork, add them in hamburgers, pasta, noodles, and basically anything we eat. To me, sin is something specific to themselves that varies among people’s religious and moral beliefs. For vegetarian, they may say that it’s sinful to eat meat because we are killing lives. However, for me, to survive in this world means to sacrifice others, including plants, animals and other organism. It will be illogical to say that it’s a sin to kill things for food. However, it’s sinful to kill things for the mere purpose of entertainment.

 Also, is it sinful to avenge your love and murder the killer? For most people, we will consider it as sinful because killing others is morally wrong and it’s wrong to be consumed by vengeance. However, for someone who have just lost someone whom they dear the most may consider it even more sinful to sit around peacefully and not to avenge for the dead. For them, it will be justice for them to kill other human beings. People varying with different religious background and experiences may have different interpretation for the definition of sin.

Fear as a motivator

I believe fear does indeed work in some cases and often times motivates people to do thing. Fear is a great tool that ancient empire such as the Roman Empire often used to control people. An example will be public execution, which its purpose is to implant fear in people by making an example of a criminal. Fearing of cruel death, people tend to follow the law and try to prevent from committing a similar crime. However it isn’t such a great motivator because some other greater motivations can cause people to act. If fear is such a great motivator, why do people still fight with war and battles that causes great casualties? It’s true that countries try to negotiate with each other to prevent wars from happening, but battles and violence are inevitable once a single violent event erupted. Forgetting fear, people are willing to fight, risking their life, to protect their pride and carry on their sense of justice. They could also act due to vengeance or mental disorders. Fear is a strong tool that prevents one from acting a certain way. However, often times, the effect of fear as a motivator only lasts temporary when people forget the fear in it. For example, if people are not reminded all the time that more than a thousand people died a day in the world from car crashes because they didn’t wear seat belt, people often time forgets the importance of wearing seat belts while driving.

Church?

I have never really entered a Christian or Catholic Church. I remember I only visited some grand cathedral in New-York or England where it’s intentionally for tourist to visit. However, I often visited the special Taiwanese Daoist+ Buddhist temple. I think it’s in Taiwanese culture that we said we believe in Buddha, but in reality we did most of our ceremony like Daoism. Anyway, I visit temples during holidays such as Chinese New Year or before important events such as SAT tests.

        The first thing I notice when I enter the temple is this strong distinct incense smell. With the smell, the whole temple turns sacred as if I have entered into a new world. You will soon realized that you are surrounded by people who have one or two incense stick in their hands who tries to bypass you to get in front of the Buddha or Daoist god statue. Often time people will accidentally burn each other with their incense. The statue is often placed inside glass container to prevent thieves and shined with bright light to show off its golden brightness. It seems like the statue is emitting light itself as if it’s alive. Kids like us are told to follow our elders, mimicking procedures such as closing our palms, praying to the statue, saying wishes and expressing gratitude to the god. Being not a really pious kid, I often time joke around during praying that I play with the incense smoke and mimic my grandparents saying “ A Mi Tofu”  I always get scold by my dad, but I guess he isn’t really that pious either because he is just trying to follow rules of the temple.

        I imagined being a monk for the temple must be extremely hard. You have to get your head shaved and live in a simple life. You will be extremely pious to the teaching of Buddha because Buddha will be watching and protecting you at any time.

Motivation

In the Scarlet Letter, characters in the story are mostly motivated by their feeling of guilt and sin. Hester is motivated to do charity work due to her sin of committing adultery. Bearing public humiliation by wearing a scarlet letter A on her chest, Hester wanted to show the kindness side of her by donation and actively participating in the community through charity. On the other hand, Dimmesdale is motivated to torture himself because of his guilt and being unable to confess. Dimmesdale whips himself and goes on fast because he wanted to simply punish himself for his evil acts. In Roger Chillingworth’s case, he is motivated by vengeance where he wanted to torment Dimmesdale for having an affair with his dear wife. Chillingworth is driven so bad by vengeance that eventually he loses his humanity and becomes a devil with a burning red eye.

        In “Burning down of our house”, Bradstreet is mainly motivated by her religious beliefs. She believes that the true treasure lies in heaven where earthly possessions are useless. Her puritan beliefs help her to withstand depression and sadness by allowing her to let go the feeling of losing a house. A person like me without strong puritan beliefs couldn’t have survived after losing something precious. For me, earthly possession is the most important thing in the world, without it, I’ll die.

       

Compare and Contrast: Bradstreet vs Sor Juana

There are many similarity between Sor Juanna's sonnet World in Hounding Me and Bradstreet's poem Here Follow some verses upon the Burning of Our house, July 10, 1666. Yet there are still some differences between them.

       Sor Juanna’s sonnet theme is basically saying that people should cherish insights more than superficial value because all superficial value fades away. On the other hand, Bradstreet’s theme is saying that earthly possessions aren’t important because the true treasure lies above in heaven where things will never age and fade away with time. Both share an idea that possession or physical value of things will fade away as time moves on. However, Sor Juanna states that the true treasure lies in our mind, not in the mind of setting to win any possessions. In Bradstreet’s poem, she still values possessions, but just not those earthly ones.

        Both poems use the key word “vanity” in their texts which plays an important role in demonstrating their theme. In Sor Junna’s sonnet, the word vanity means to pursue possession and superficial values. She thinks people shouldn’t throw their life away in pursuing the “vanity”. Instead people should set the vanity aside and search for greater insight values. On the other hand, vanity is used to mean crying over the lost of  earthly possessions. Bradstreet states that the very thought is all vanity, and she should think in the other way that the real treasure lies above in heaven. Both of them wanted to throw vanity aside and search for other values, either in heaven or insights.