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Show Views&Opinion Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2009 Page 12 Utah State University • Logan, Utah • www.aggietownsquare.com OurView AboutUs Editor in Chief Patrick Oden Our Aggie legacy News Editor Rachel A. Christensen E ven those of use who are not College of Agriculture students should celebrate Ag Week. After all, at Utah State we are Aggies and shouldn’t be ashamed of our institution’s agricultural history. In 1888 when the school was established, it was called the Utah Agriculture College. From then the name changed to Utah State Agriculture College and finally to Utah State University in 1957. USU began its legacy of research in 1980 when it opened its Utah Agricultural Experiment Station. The station’s Web site states it “supports hundreds of research projects that promote agriculture, human nutrition and enhance the quality of rural life” and it provides information that “assist people here and in every state in the nation.” Need more reasons to be proud to be an Aggie? According to USU’s Web site, more than 637,000 students have enrolled at the institution since it began. That makes for a lot of alumni and a lot of people out there with USU pride. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who has helped USU get funds for agriculture-related research, said, “Utah continues to be a leader in agriculture research as a result of the innovative work of Utah State University.” And yet, we sometimes tend to downplay the agricultural legacy of our institution. Big Blue, that plush and lovable, yet still fearsome, bull that encourages the crowd at sporting events obviously has agricultural roots – it’s a bull for heaven’s sake. According to the USU Traditions Web Site, Big Blue started out as an actual bull that was painted blue for school activities. Big Blue’s hooves damaged floors, and the red booties they made for him didn’t help, so he was no longer used. Big Blue made a comeback in 1987 when a cheerleader wore a $750 royal blue suit with real animal horns worn. Big Blue has evolved since the ‘80s but he remains a staple to Aggie spirit. Even with Big Blue’s historical significance to the university, opposing fans at sporting events use the fact that our mascot is a farm animal to joke and jest. So our mascot is a blue bull and admittedly that’s not the coolest mascot out there, but it could be worse. Take Xavier University’s Blue Blob, for example. He is literally a massive blob of blue fabric, big eyes and a white, fluffy nose. And Providence College’s Friar mascot doesn’t exactly invoke terror in an opponent’s eyes. Or how about Syracuse’s Otto the Orange? Big Blue is much, much cooler. And besides, he can rappel upside down from the jumbotron and that, my friends, equals greatness. Utah State University is agriculture. Just accept it. I Assistant News Editor Catherine Meidell Features Editor Courtnie Packer Assistant Features Editor Greg Boyles Sports Editor Assistant Sports Editor Graham Terry Copy Editor Mark Vuong Photo Editors Pete Smithsuth Tyler Larson Ask Miss Jones Dear Miss. Jones, I have a dilemma. I’ve been dating my boyfriend for more than a year now, and we’ve gotten pretty serious. We’ve talked about our future and even marriage. I have been planning on living the rest of my life with him, but he’s sort of taken another course. He decided that he is moving to China to start up a business. These business plans are indefinite, and he’ll most likely be in China for many years. He has not asked me to move out there with him and honestly, I don’t want to go there for him when I don’t have a ring on my finger. I love him and want to be together, but I need to know that he is planning to have me in his future. What do I do? We discussed breaking up but he hated the idea and didn’t want to go on a break. I don’t understand what he’s thinking. HELP. Ringless Dear Ringless, You’re not alone. For years female scientists all over the world have been looking for the answer to your question and they have yet to come up with an answer. No one knows what males are thinking, and I doubt anyone ever will. Here is my suggestion for you and it may seem harsh at first but in the long run I think it will pay off. Let him go. Don’t have one of those high school “DTR’s.” Just let it happen. I think that as he’s in China, starting up his business, he’ll realize that he left the one thing that he needed: you. It reminds me of one of my favorite ‘90s soap operas, “Boy Meets World.” In season As a matter of faith n June 2001, a pudgy, fuzzyhaired, goofball of a kid entered the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) in Salt Lake City and signed four years of his life away. That kid was me, I was still in high school and looking for direction in life. Paying for college on my own wasn’t possible, and I felt a deep yearning to do more with myself than sit around on the couch playing video games between boring jobs. What better way to be productive than serve my country in the Army? There I was, after a day of waiting in lines to piss in a cup and do squats in my underwear, I signed the dotted line and ended up serving a total of eight years including a tour in Iraq. My life now had some certainty and purpose and I was nervously content with my world. A few months later, on the anniversary of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, I was getting ready for school watching the same boring news show my mom loved for whatever reason. Suddenly it broke to show fireballs raining dust and debris over downtown Manhattan. Whatever certainty my life had collapsed and burned away with the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon. Just after graduation my boots hit the hot sands of Fort Benning, Ga., where I entered basic training. My class learned the invasion of Iraq was imminent. I spent the following year watching the invasion from Korea on the Armed Forces Network. One night I was stirred awake by a strange dream. I saw a little white telegram sitting on my laptop. I opened and read it in the bathroom light and learned it was my turn to go. Living Tim Olsen in Iraq was a bad episode of the “Twilight Zone,” going from oven like heat to freezing mud and living in military rigor while watching a bunch of kids play in a landfill. My outlook on a lot of things changed at this point in my life. I realized I was not alone, millions were deeply affected by this latest incarnation of violent religious fanaticism. This issue has bothered my heart my entire life, but it was my time in the Iraq War that brought it home for good. Religion has inspired the greatest art and civilizations, but how does that weigh against the wrongs and suffering it can also bring about? Would the victims of the Crusades, witch trials, slavery or genocide really be consoled by pretty buildings and nice books? This seems to be an ace in the hole for the New Atheists I’ve met, who claim that religious faith and human reason are utterly incompatible. I think nothing would conflict with reason more than condoning, let alone glorifying, such atrocities, and religious faith seems the most common sentiment in driving such actions. The issue of faith and reason then appears to be at the core of this dilemma, one that’s kept me up more nights than I can count. Is faith so detached from reason that these evils, in the name of the divine, are merely inevitable? It’s an old question, Lawrence Hemming’s recent lecture here at USU didn’t help matters either, but I’ll get to that later. I’ve always believed faith and reason must coexist. It’s actually something I’ve seen practiced in many of the world’s religions. Pope Benedict XVI gave a speech last year pro- four, Cory’s older brother, Eric, convinces Cory that girls have cooties, which naturally causes Topanga and Cory’s relationship to fall apart. For a few episodes of that season Cory and Topanga are officially split up (which is ridiculous because we all know how perfect they are for each other) but they get back together a few months later when Cory follows Topanga to Disney World to win her back. Now imagine you’re Topanga and your boyfriend is Cory. Both of you are old enough to make decisions and both of you are busy enough to be OK for a little while, but eventually Cory will be drawn back in to the sweet temptation of Topanga. Obviously the two of you are great together, dating anyone for more than a year is quite the accomplishment, and I congratulate you for that. I think that this is the part of your relationship where you have to put a little bit of your faith chips on the table and call out to Allah, Jesus, Tom Cruise, Muhammad or whoever you worship to for help. Here is my last piece of advice: after you drop him off at the airport, go to your nearest video store and buy Kim Kardashian’s “How to fit into Your Jeans by Friday” DVD. Whenever you get depressed thinking about him you just work out with Kim’s “QuickPaced Workouts for a Beautiful Backside” and think about how much he is going to w a n t you back next time he sees you. claiming that all manners of faith should work with reason if they are to participate in the “dialog of cultures” and be a part of the tapestry of human civilization. The ancient Greeks, which he mentioned in his speech, were also highly religious, whose concept of the divine was grounded in reason, in understanding the reality of the world and eternity. Islam, which has been stained with the workings of terrorists including the Sept. 11 hijackers, also works to this end. In mosques men on the floor are not allowed to gossip or goof around because it violates the sanctity of the room. The worshipers can only speak of things that provide education or insight, be it philosophy, mathematics or science. But is it always enforced? Probably not, but knowing so many brilliant Muslim scientists especially here at USU, leads me think it’s working somewhere. The problem of violence in the name of God has endured since the beginning of time. The laws of the temple didn’t stop the insanity of individuals. Saint Thomas Aquinas, a great theologian, believed faith and revelation should work alongside human reason and be filtered by human conscience. This idea calmed my fears for some time. Certainly then these horrors were the results of mortal beings becoming confused by the doctrine of their faith, unable or unwilling to be reasonable. Unfortunately, Hemming came here to speak, and in his brilliance, he tore my world asunder. In a nutshell, he stated human reason should be kept distant from the likes of faith and revelation because it is too much of a fallible human method of control. It pretty much shoves words into the mouth of the divine Good luck and remember: “With as many times as Miss Jones has been around the block, her directions must be good.” E-mail your questions to be answered by Miss Jones to statesman.miss.jones@ gmail.com in an attempt to justify doing something. It wasn’t confusing to me, it made too much damn sense. What else is Islamic terrorism or witch killings in Africa but someone taking matters of divine will and rationalizing them into bloodshed? How else does man forget his spiritual place except by thinking his own power supersedes that of God? Most religious violence occurs with some individual or group proclaiming their will to be divine will and this is usually how it comes to be. But does it also mean we can say nothing about their proclamations or actions? I haven’t slept or eaten well since Hemming’s speech, often lying in my dark room looking at the ceiling searching for answers. Granted, fanatical violence seen by factions in some religions doesn’t merely materialize from thin air. It often occurs due to a variety of socioeconomic and environmental circumstances that can engulf faith. Even atheists have Jonestown and Stalinist Russia. Perhaps the problem lies in the human condition. Individuals, through confusion, greed or some other vice, find ways of violating divine and moral law to dangerous ends. I don’t want to tear reason away from faith, but it should be a guide toward divinity not just another of method of justifying abominable actions. Will Holloway is a senior majoring in philosophy. His column appears every other Wednesday. 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