How can I make it through this class?/This makes me sad

[Sheenar]

Hey guys, I have a couple of things I would like some advice/feedback on. I'm going to make 2 separate posts though.

1. In the Spring semester, I have to take Animal Reproduction (I'm an Animal Science major). Now I can handle a mature discussion about sex and the info in this class will be useful in the future (want to work at a zoo/sanctuary), but there are many guys in my department who make really awful jokes.
Also, there will be some things we'll have to do in lab that will just be awkward. (Sticking my arm up a cow's rectum to see if she's pregnant is one...others are worse if you can imagine).
I struggle with keeping my thoughts pure. How can I keep the sexual thoughts out of my mind when the guys are joking about it and the class deals with it (and the labs have you watch stuff like AI)? Any advice? I'm just worried that I will backslide into old ways with all the sexual content.

[Sheenar]

2. I read one of my friend's notes on Facebook and it made me really sad. I'm not sure how to respond.

"So I’ve been thinking about writing this one for a while now. I told somebody I would write it so now I am. Today’s note isn’t a rant or a rave. There’re no laughs to be had. It’s a serious note about something I generally loathe talking about. Religion. More specifically, my own.

Up until last year or so, I considered myself to be atheist. I tried the whole Christian thing a couple years ago and it just didn’t work out for me. Now, however, I claim to be agnostic. That is to say I don’t currently believe in any sort of deity, but I’m withholding judgment until further evidence presents itself. To be honest, I don’t expect that evidence to ever appear. There are plenty of reasons why I take this stance, but the number one reason is basically because I don’t have faith. I CAN’T believe in something when there is absolutely no concrete evidence to back it up. This is a problem when a prerequisite to most religions is faith.

Another big reason is that I can’t find a god that I’d like to believe in. Actually, I take that back. I wouldn’t mind believing in the Greek pantheon, but in this day and age, it would just be silly. I’m not a huge fan of the Judeo-Christian God for two main reasons. One is that I’m not okay with the idea that someone died for my sins without any input from me. I never asked anyone to do that for me and I never would. My sins are my own. There’s a story called The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by William James. It’s about a paradise city where everything is pleasing. The problem is that the good fortune of the city depends on a child that must be kept miserable. When the people find out about this, some of them leave, preferring not to live in a paradise if it means an innocent must suffer. I could never be happy knowing that someone else, an innocent, had to suffer for it. Secondly, and this is a little out there, I know, if we assume God exists, we can assume He caused the great flood. The one that lasted 40 days and 40 nights. Well, if God did create this flood, it means he MURDERED a whole lot of cats (tigers, lions, cheetahs, etc.). And anybody who knows me knows how I feel about cats. If it came down to me driving and I had to hit a person or a cat, well, the person is fender ketchup. So I could never love a God that would do that, let alone believe that he is just and loving.

The last main reason I don’t believe in a higher power is that I just don’t need to. I’m perfectly content with not knowing why I’m here. I just like being here. And maybe I’m just incredibly fortunate, but I’m completely content with life. I don’t need a relationship with any god. Furthermore, I know that I couldn’t be satisfied with one in which I speak but receive no audible or visible response.

But what of hell? Some would argue that I have nothing to lose and everything to gain by having faith. That is to say, I should have faith just in case there is a hell so I can avoid it. But doesn’t that seem like a poor reason to have faith? Would it not be insulting to any god to say, “I believe in you, but only so you won’t send me to hell.â€

[mechana2015]

To a degree I wouldn't worry about the peoples reactions in the AR class necessarily. I go to highly agricultural school, and know a lot of vet students, and I got the impression that there wasn't much in the way of anything attractive when they took that sort of class. One of the classes ended up with most of the people crying because... well... jokes are one thing, and actually doing a lot of the stuff or seeing it demonstrated in real life is quite a different thing. Especially when the animal can hurt you.

Vet students are the bane of meals at our school though, since the innocent question of, "how was your day (or class)" usually turns to sick animals, mud, or medical details about some of the *ahem* aforementioned topics.

[Mr. SmartyPants]

D: Get a tough guy friend to beat them up. XD

Seriously though, I can relate to your experiences of having to deal with phenomenally immature brats who like to crack sex jokes all the time. Although since I'm a guy I was probably more... "tolerant" of it as opposed to you. Regardless, it was still incredibly annoying.

I really don't know what else to say, but you're in my prayers.

[termyt]

Cracking jokes about one's occupation is a way to deal with the less attractive aspects of it. Some jokes go over the line, and that's an unfortunate and very real situation you will encounter. Persistent inappropriate jokes will need to be dealt with, but others are just going to joke to get through the day. I hope you can find peace in your situation.

Your friend, on the other hand, knows no peace. If (I'm going to say "she", doesn't really matter, though) she was truly as comfortable with her agnosticism as she claims to be, then this subject would not be an uncomfortable one to her. She's as much trying to convince herself as she is anyone else with that post. The “I don’t need a God” argument rings hollow in my ears.

The truth is she, like everyone else, is looking for the thing that fits in her life - the thing that answers the questions she still has. Her problem seems to be that she has heard the answers and doesn't like them. She's afraid to accept God because of the changes that will force her to make.

You probably won't change her mind with any grand statement or conversation. I recommend nibbling away at her. Continue to be her friend and strive to be Christ to her - be His ambassador, so to speak. Kindness is far more convincing than words.

Let’s look at some of the key ideas she presents:
She can’t believe in something that there’s no evidence to back up: This is a no win argument, in my experience, but the truth is we all have faith and a lot of it. Show me a man with out any faith and I’ll show you a man who hides in a hole all day long eating nothing but roots and berries. To come out of your house everyday takes faith. If you have no faith, then how could you ever leave your house in the morning without the fear that someone will crash into or run over you? How could you stay in your house without knowing the builders built it so it would not fall?

If you get into a discussion on faith (and I’d wait for it to come, not force it), ask your friend if the Earth revolves around the sun. Whether she says ”yea” or “nay” ask her how she knows this. Unless she’s been a light year or two away from the Earth so she could track it’s progress around the sun, then she hasn’t witnessed it first hand. She’s merely taking it on faith that the teachers and scientist that are saying it is so are not lying or wrong.

She can’t find a god she wants to believe in: We don’t believe things because we want to. We believe things because they are. If I want 1+1=3, does that mean I can deny math? And if I do deny math, does that make math less real?

Now, she gives two main reasons for disbelief.
1: She didn’t ask Christ to die for her and no one should suffer for her mistakes: Noble sentiment, to be sure. However, does she also curse her parents for feeding and clothing her as a child? They spent thousands and thousands of dollars on her while she grew. Did she ask them to? Why should they have to sacrifice their future monetary security just to raise her? Because they love her. She would not have survived with out their help. They did not need to wait for her to ask for help and they did not need to be thanked for it. They loved her, so they gave freely. You could say they procreated her, so they have some responsibility, but how much more so does God? He created us all and He does not need us to tell Him what we need. He knows and is happy to provide us with it.

Do you accept gifts from people? How can you? You don’t deserve it. You didn’t earn it. Christ’s sacrifice is no different, although it is on a much grander scale. You owe God because He made you, but when He came to collect, you ignored Him, you kicked Him, you spat on Him. Now you owe Him even more. When you owe someone, there are but two options. 1) You pay what you owe. 2) Someone else pays for you. You can’t afford this debt. Paying it yourself means your utter destruction. Your only hope for salvation is to have someone else pay for you. God doesn’t need you to give permission. You owe the debt to Him, so He’s already involved. If He wants to forgive your debt, then it is His to forgive. But instead of being thankful, here you are angry at Him. All He wants is for you to love Him in return. Why is that so much to ask?

Just being a decent person does not repay your debt to God. That’s like owing someone $10,000 so you give $1000 to charity expecting that to make your $10,000 debt go away. Try that with your credit card company.

2. God murdered cats in the flood. Wow. That’s a rationalization if I’ve ever heard one. You may as well say that God can’t exist because I don’t like mayonnaise and no loving, caring God would ever allow so many sandwiches to be plastered with the stuff. But, I will try to look at this from the cat’s point of view. I don’t think the cats minded at all that they died in the flood. You see, a cat simply lives by its nature and by its nature it pleases God. In the garden of Eden, man ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. By doing so, man learned the difference between Good and Evil , and thus took on the responsibility of choosing between the two. No cats ate of that tree, so they remain unaware of the difference. That simply means they live by their nature unaware of what evil is. They do not know evil, so they can not be tempted. Since they can not be tempted, they can do no wrong. It’s a very simple life, much more so than we, who are made in the very image of God, can imagine. I imagine some time before the flood, two of every kind of cat, the animals all knowing what was coming, began to make their way to the ark. Perhaps God called them. Perhaps they chose their representatives. Maybe they held a tournament. I have no idea what cats do when humans aren’t watching them, but some how two were chosen for the ark and made their way there. They were going to be saved and be the Adam and Eve of their species. Their friends and family know no evil and can’t be tempted into jealousy or malice, so they simply would have been happy for the ones who were chosen and continued to praise God by their very nature until the day of their death – natural or otherwise – happy for their friends, thankful for the lives they had, grateful their species would survive, and hopeful that the world they inherited after the flood would be a better one.