marine lab part 2

I'm back at the marine lab for summer session 1 (till june 12). it feels weird to be back especially after an amazing week at rockbridge. There's something weird about having to write a 1 page personal statement on what you want to do in life after rockbridge instilled a sense of Godly purpose in you. "Research" doesn't seem very fulfilling anymore. here, everything is physically the same, but the people are different (except like 5 of us) and there are a lot more of us here and for a shorter time, so me and the people i was here with last semester are hanging out a lot more. i'm taking a biochemistry of marine animals class now. something i've noticed about professors here... it feels like most of them are extremely secular and openly ridicule religion. 3/5 of my professors at marine lab so far have made comments against christianity. i guess i can expect these sorts of things from people who make a career out of a science that is so media-ly biased against religion, but it's really annoying and makes me lose a lot of respect for them. It just doesnt seem fair that you can get in trouble for saying pro-religious things in the class room, but you can't get in trouble for saying anti-religious things in the same class room. Is this one of those turn the cheek situations? i always thought the turn-the-cheek applies to us, but they're talking about God. I feel like we're allowed to get angry in that situation. God shouldn't have to turn the cheek for anyone. Then again, was that what the cross was? one gigantic turning of the cheek? anyways, that was a pretty random rant..

i caught up on the reading (ch 7 was about is the bible sexist). i thought it was really interesting because i grew up going to a pretty liberal church. i never really thought it was an issue. then again, i'm a guy too and maybe i'm somewhat blind to it. My mom, a woman, was in many ways indirectly influencial in my walk with God. I also never looked at the samaritan woman story from that perspective.. i feel like it gets a lot of hype for being the Jesus breaking racism story, but taking into account the culture i agree that it must've been surprising that the woman at the well was a woman. I feel like after reading the chapter, it seems like Jesus actually did more to help women's rights than to oppress them given the cultural context just by doing culturally shocking things. It's also really cool how God is described in parables with qualities of a woman. i think it really speaks to how we're all made in the image of God. Those controversial verses in Paul's letters about women not teaching and being quiet in church and stuff bugged me too when i was growing up. i feel like paul said a lot of stuff that i sometimes didnt agree with. i would always just tell myself "well, paul was human too.. maybe he made a mistake". i feel like we dont understand the contexts of these letters well enough, so i'm just gonna stick with what Jesus said and acted on about these topics. I don't wanna discredit the epistles, but at the same time, i hold the gospels higher, and it seemed to me that Jesus loved women and men alike. the church is His bride. God is like a woman who lights a lamp and searches the house for a lost coin. I really don't think that God is sexist.. and it shouldn't be an issue in the church.