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Show Into Darkness, the best Star Wars movie OPINIONS Evolving Faith A4 Beam me up, Scotty. It's a new way to tell the story )f) By Josh Wartena Opinions Editor joshua.wartena@gmail.com No, that's not a typo, I said Star Wars. First off, if you haven't seen Star Trek Into Darkness, go fix that problem, then come back. Ok, did you like it? Of course you did. J.J. Abrams' second Star Trek film is amazing, and not just because there are 100% less lens flares. The story is engaging, the characters and relationships matter, the cinematography is beautiful and the actors do a great job. You have people the audience cares about, tension, rising action, learning and conflict, secrets and resolution. That all being said, I never at any point thought I was watching Star Trek. Star Trek, regardless of the series or movie, has always been more about the technology and universe in which the story takes place than the story itself. The characters and plots were sometimes good, but they were never the driving force. Leonard Nimoy, the original Spock, explained once in an interview that the Star Trek series tried to stay up-to-date on what NASA was doing. They wanted the science to be as real as possible. Hearing Geordi La Forge take 30 seconds to explain the ships status report was common. Many episodes focused around the warp drive and the proton-antiproton reactions that powered the ship. You knew what warp speed was and how it was supposed to work. You knew how long getting through Starfleet Academy took, and you could quote the prime directive like the Lord's Prayer. In short, Star Trek was science fiction in the purest sense, and a geek paradise. You won't seen any of that is Abrams' Star Trek. Now bear with me. Why do you like Star Wars? Yes, of course the original trilogy, not the embarrassing prequels. You like it because of the characters, the story and the emotion. None of us knows nor cares how the Death Star laser works. But, our heart goes out to Princess Leah when it blows up Alderaan. We feel the disturbance in the force! And all we know about hyperdrive is that it makes the stars look like lines. Hans's 12-parsec Kessel Run boast in A New Hope? A parsec is a unit of distance, not time, but we don't care! This is Star Wars! It's science fantasy, not science fiction. That's the difference between the two series and the perfect definition for the new Star Trek Movie. That's why Into Darkness is the best Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi. Spock doesn't waste our time explaining what his volcano box does, other than freeze the volcano. Ancient cryogenic super soldiers? Who cares, I just like space Sherlock Holmes, but hate him at the same time. The science is dumbed down enough that anyone can understand it. You Can't Remain Stagnant or Retreat in Your Belief By Nick Boyer Staff Writer elijahboyerl3@gmail.com Evolution. That is the key to survival. Species get it. Companies get it. Churches get it. Conspiracy theorists get it. The Republican Party is slowing relearning it with reaching out to the ever-growing minority population that votes. It seems apparent to me that life keeps going based on a simple truth that you must adapt to the changing tides. We're not still in caves, we don't still have slaves, women can vote, children aren't in factories, there is less violence in the world, there is more powerful technology, etc. But, evolution doesn't always mean progress; it just means sustainability. That is why we still have wisdom teeth and poor eyesight. That is why kids today text poor grammar and may not know how to track a wild boar. We don't let evolution get rid of the weaknesses because our strength is compassion and empathy. We know we're greater collectively than individually. Also, our weaknesses may just be weaknesses for that time period because me not knowing how to track a wild boar isn't really necessary for my survival. But, who knows? It might be necessary in some sort of postapocalyptic world. Anyway, I used to struggle as a Mormon with the incompatibility of Evolution with the Adam and Eve story. You can probably throw open the scriptures in most places and find incompatibility with the knowledge we have of the laws of physics or history, the flood, the creation, the DNA of American Indians, the talking animals, and the miracles. There is always room for doubt. But, for believers there is always an evolution of faith. In early stages we may have simply believed simple explanations, but as we evolve we need more complex explanations to reconcile the walls of belief, which science keeps making taller and taller. From that early stage, we see that to survive, our faith must become durable to outside forces and may even need to grow legs to run away from the elements of doubt. How often has science been replacing God as explanations for cause and effects of our world? We can trace the beginning of the universe to a theory of a Big Bang, but then we can ask what is before that? There is always a trump card of faith that God is beyond our rationality and understanding. As our understanding progresses, our God is retreating. The idea is called the "God of the Gaps," which isn't talking about a fashionable deity, but a God that becomes less relevant with each new peer-based review that lessens God's hold on our beliefs. Our faith is always on the run. If we want to keep it, we need to find ways of keeping it relevant for our lives. We are in a transitional time. A time when to choose faith is a clear-cut choice because it is perfectly reasonable to not believe in complicated dogmas. Memberships are decreasing rapidly in organized religions, even among Mormons with the streamlined Missionary program. But, people aren't less "spiritual," whatever that means now. People still believe in doing good by what they think is right and always will. The concept of what is "Good" is what evolves. People still have faith in various forms. We need spirituality that is rooted in communion with our place in the universe. We all need to touch that thing called existence and feel like we have a purpose. Many people, disavowing the miracles of Jesus, still love Jesus as a teacher of morality. For me, I love Jesus' teachings and feel a kinship to Him as an actual person. I may never truly know if the Jesus I know is who really was, but the Jesus I know, I love. The God I believe in, I love. The God I believe in may not be the same as what other Mormons believe in. Jesus taught surrendering our pride to a God, which to me, means surrendering what we think we know for a higher law or purpose. I believe this helps us to be happier individuals, as we focus on the greatness of the whole, rather than the pettiness of its parts. But, for other Christians, Jesus may be a Bill O'Reilly-like figure, a culture warrior who sends hurricanes to punish gays. I don't believe in that God. God for me has evolved into an ideal rather than the normal Zeus-like figure out to get you. Right now, what I need for my faith is moral guidance and love. I don't need intolerance or debatable historical claims. I don't need to know what exactly Joseph saw or what Boyd K. Packer has said about feminists, gays, interracial marriages, or scholars to believe in my God. Perhaps I'm taking too many liberties with my faith as I'm making it work for me instead of me for it. But, at this point, that is as close as I can get to God. I can't accept that God lets suffering happen as merely a test. That feels too abstract for me, but it is comforting to know that there is a God that cares about your suffering. I can't accept that we are only here to obey rules, but I do accept that God likes us to avoid darkness. I can't accept that there are a chosen people and others are simply screwed in terms of salvation, but I do believe in a God of mercy for all. I can't accept that the faith of others is meaningless in what God will accept, but I do accept that God can be specific. I can't accept that anyone in this life is doomed for eternity. That doesn't make any sense to me, that we are eternal beings, and in this blink of eternity we can make a mistake that will ruin our existence forever. I've learned that I can always be wrong, but I can't give a pass to what I feel is wrong because of my inability to know everything. I will never truly know if the things taught in Sunday School really happened the way the leaders of the church have the manual cur- rently written. But, I'm a believer and trust in what I think is right. What separates me from a devoted militant member of Al-Qaeda? I have chosen a God that doesn't ask me to be a terrorist. I've chosen an ideal of love and compassion, not of revenge and intolerance to others in any degree. That is the only God I believe is worthy of worship. In a way, I may not even be Mormon, if being Mormon is defined as accepting everything the leaders have said as truth. I may never know, and don't see merit in many of the rabbit holes of faith. I consider myself Mormon because it's the source I use primarily for connecting with my God. We talk boldly in the Mormon Church. We sell ourselves as the only true church or the only people who really know what's going on with God. To me, there isn't merit in that confidence. I only see that as a source of pride in the sense of having a bumper sticker that says, "My God can beat up your God." Which is childish to me. So, there are always flaws in faiths, which might be one of the requirements for it to be considered a "faith." Jesus said "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." For me, that freedom comes from the understanding that there is plenty of unknown and at some point you just have to choose which way you want to live, what you believe in, and accept the limitations of that choice. At some point, your faith has to come to terms with the environment it's in or it will eventually become extinct. Tongue-in-cheek humanitarianism The hidden hypocrisy of "Fitch the Homeless" By Alex Sousa Managing Editor @TwoFistedSousa The clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch has come under some heat recently after Robin Lewis, co-author of The New Rules of Retail and CEO of the newsletter The Robin Report, made some damning statements about the company's business model when speaking to Business Insider. Lewis, who has more than forty years of experience in strategic operating and consulting for the retail and consumer product industries, told Business Insider that Mike Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, "doesn't want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people." Lewis went on to say, "He [Jef- fries] doesn't want his core customers to see people who aren't as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they're one of the 'cool kids." Ashley Lutz explained in her article published May 3 that the retailer doesn't stock XL or XXL sizes in women's clothing in an attempt to promote its idea of "conventional beauty" and appeal to "cool kids." This report sparked controversy that spread throughout social and traditional media and drummed up a statement that Jeffries made to Salon in 2006. "That's why we hire good-looking people in our stores," Jeffries said. "Good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, goodlooking people. We don't market to anyone other than that." "In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids," Jeffries continued. "Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely." In light of this, one Los Angeles local, Greg Karber, took it upon himself to end the elitism of Abercrombie & Fitch. While other people might have been content to simply no longer patron the retailer, Karber rounded-up all the Abercrombie & Fitch clothing he could find in local thrift shops and proceeded to redistribute it to the homeless living in LA's "Skid Row," or the Central City East area of Downtown Los Angeles. In an attempt to rebrand Abercrombie & Fitch as "The World's Number One Brand of Homeless Apparel," Karber went viral with his mission and put out a call to arms. Urging everybody to help him on his crusade by donating any Abercrombie & Fitch apparel to their local homeless shelter. He's gathered a lot of support as seen by the hashtag #FitchTheHomeless. People all over the country are jumping up to support the movement. They're quick to defend the plus-size ladies around the globe and stand-up for the unpopular kids who aren't cool enough to wear Abercrombie & Fitch. And they're doing it by making sure the soon-to-be-urine-stained sweatpants of the homeless have "A&F" emblazoned across the backside. I don't have a problem with any of that. If somebody wants to make a statement and take on a major corporation, they're welcome to it. If they want to stand up and defend the weak, great, I'm behind that. But, it's important to understand what is being said by the statement one is making. In the video that Karber posted, he makes mention that the homeless people were hesitant to take the clothes. It's very clear that the homeless people aren't quite sure how to react to some guy being followed around with a camera and eagerly approaching them. There's a very simple reason why that is: They aren't sure what he's up to and don't want to be mocked. Of course, that's exactly what's happening, however subtle it might be. There's a twisted sort of hypocrisy that's being spread around by this campaign. I know, it's meant to prove a point; it's meant to ruin the elitist name of a major clothing brand. But, in turn, it's pointing out that the homeless are society's lowest common denominator, that they ruin things, and that they don't count. In attempting to "rebrand" the image of Abercrombie & Fitch by giving the clothing to the homeless, the campaign is blatantly assuming that homeless people are icky and they ruin things. It's exploitative and dehumanizing. It's essentially taking Jeffries' words to the extreme, and in an attempt to weaken them it's only drawn a much bigger and more poignant line in the sand. Of course none of that is the intended message of the #FitchTheHomeless campaign, but it's undoubtedly a byproduct. I'm not the altruistic kind and I don't care about being politically correct, but in this economic climate— where areas are reaching Depression Era-levels of poverty —maybe mistreating the homeless with tongue-in-cheek humanitarianism isn't the best thing we can be doing. Mike Jeffries understood exactly what he was saying back in 2006. He knew who he wanted to shop in his stores and he didn't care about turning people away — that's the real difference between the two. Mike Jeffries knew he would offend and he didn't care, while Greg Karber further alienated America's downtrodden by making them the butt-end of what is essentially a big joke. 11111U,Lf, . _ Abercromf+ie &Fit ch SCHEDULE YOUR INTRO FLIGHT a TOUR 1-888-901-7192 1 WWW.Fly1111U.COM AVIATION U V U SCIENCES ""1"/ UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY 1 LAURA FOX/UVU REVIEW The Fitch the Homeless campaign is exploitative and dehumanizing. |