So it is finally Fall Break. After all the crazy tests and mid-term essays, a seemingly eternal boring academic life, I finally can take my backpack and hit the road for a trip. This year I go to Charleston again, but with a whole new group of friends: Dionne, Rachel, Leya, and Angelica. 

We started off early in the morning, just around 8:45am. We went to Waffle House for breakfast, which was tremendously exciting for me at first, but later I felt I made a terrible mistake to feel excited about going there. Dont get me wrong. I love waffle house. They serve me the BEST waffle I have ever had. The texture is so soft, so thin, and the chocolate chips, the butter, the syrup all so good. Just think of the image of a chocolate chip waffle soaked in syrup and butter already makes me feel mouthful. And yeah, I order exactly what my head directed my imagination, and ate the whole thing with joy. Yet that joy does not last long ...

3 hours after we left Waffle House, my tummy starts feeling really bad. I felt so queasy, nauseated, and damn needed to go to the restroom. We stopped by a restaurant on the road so that I can relieve my "things", but I don't know why my stomach just hurt terribly even after I already tried to go to the restroom. Dione gave me two pills to ease my stomach, but they actually just helped for a while.

We drove in D's car again for nearly an hour. During this last hour of driving, we got into a heated debate about religion. I did not remember how the whole thing started, but I just know that we ended up arguing about totally different things that just do make sense to me. Rachel totally has faith and believes in God. She is a big Christian and she believes that God creates the world, that God sent Jesus to human to save us, that God says you can make your own choice: to believe in Him and go to heaven after you die, or to not believe in him and go to hell. She believes God exercises justice, and criminals and bad people will be punished by God. She believes all the stories in Bible are factual events that can be backed up with evidence (!?)  D, also a Christian in theory, kind of believes and follows what the Bible teaches, and she respects the lessons the Bible wants to transfer to Christian followers. However, she believes in other religion as well, like Buddism, and she thinks the stories in Bible are just stories written for people to withdraw a lesson. Angelica and I share the same opinion: there is no such thing as God, and the whole point of the Bible is to get their lessons accross and educate people to live morally and more ethically. The whole heaven, hell, God and his creation of the Earth, they are all products of imagination that human came up with when they failed to explain any happenings around the world.

With all these different viewpoints, instead of taking a step back to listen to one another and recognize that there is no right or wrong here, we just have different beliefs, we all rushed into the debate that could end up being a never-ending argument in which noone can be a winner. I respected the original purpose of the Bible to try to explain everything in the world, to try to educate people about the things they call "fundamental basis for everything else," to try to direct people to a more ethical life, but seriously, Christianity is creating insanely extreme and black-and-white thinking. I questioned the credibility of the Bible. Anyway, the Bible was first written thousands of years ago by human, how can you say that it is totally THE TRUTH? Come on! It has been some thousand years and humans have advanced so much in science and have been able to explain so many things we failed to understand before. Taken Bible into its written context, it is just a way for men to explain the things they had no idea of. And Rachel was arguing that the Bible is the most consistent script in the world. If it exists for such a long time, it must truly explain the fundamental bases of everything, that is why people believe in it. I totally disagree with this point though. The argument of the Bible remains almost the same with its original version thousand years ago clearly shows that the Bible does not advance with human's understanding of the world. It is not about consistency, it is simply about obsoleteness.

I think that the way people taking Bible sometimes too literally that they blindly misinterpreting what Bible and Religion are truly about.  Probably the Bible's main purpose was just explaining the existence of suffering and teaching people to live a good life, but in order to make people believe and act accordingly, the people who wrote Bible had to come up with an epic, compelling, disheartening story that strikes human's psychology and invokes gratitude in human, that is why the whole creation of God creates the world, God send Jesus Christ to the Earth to save men, God communicates to human and tells us what to do, God wants us to live a good life to go to heaven with him,etc., came to existence. The story, eventually, successfully sways people in the way whoever wrote the Bible wanted. However, most of the time, many people understand the Bible in the wrong way, and they believe everything in the Bible. God is the truth, the way, and the light. 

I personally do not like Christianity. I think it is too extreme in the sense that it makes people think the world is only made of good and bad people. Good people are those who believe in God and they will achieve eternal life. Bad people are those who choose not to believe in God and they will end up in hell. Come on! You have to recognize that there are more than one religion in the world, and there are a tons of people non-religious, just like me, it does not mean I cannot make sense of my existence in the world or I will go to hell later when  I die. Christianity makes you forget about your individualism, makes you think of all you do is for God but not for yourself. Your existence is because of God but not because of YOU. Honestly, I have never realized this until today when I argued with Rachel and saw how religious she is. She clearly does not deny that she has black-and-white thinking, she believes there is justice and God executes it. She believes God is a fair God. I am sorry, but if you believe so, you will be so disappointed when you see what truly happens in life. Not all bad people get punished, and many good people suffers terrible lives. So where is justice? What is the point of justice executed after you no longer live in this life but after you die? What impact you can make after you die that makes life after-death so important to you that you strive your whole living life for your life after death? 

Buddism actually makes much more sense to me because it teaches people to focus on themselves and try to get over sufferings to get to nirvana- a worry-free state. I believe Nirvana can exist if a person can know how to control his life. At least, Buddism does not make Nirvana a "GOD" and uses it to explain for every happenings around the world. It concentrates on individuals, it still motivates people to better themselves, and I believe that is a good way to help better the society as a whole. Buddism does not single out people who believe in Nirvana or not, it does not say you believe in it, you go to Nirvana, you dont, you go to hell. It focuses more on teaching than preaching, and that is what I like. I am non-religious right now, but I would be very interested in learning more about Buddism.

So we argued a lot and in the end, we did not come to any conclusion and any agreement; we did not even know what we were arguing about, we just tried to say our opinions. At least, I felt it a meaningful discussion that stimulates my interest in learning more about religion and understanding more about myself. It is not totally useless:))

Well, when we finished arguing, my stomachache came back, together with D's crazy driving (fast and unexpected turning), I felt totally nauseated and ready to throw up. Luckily, we got to her house before I ended up vomitting in her car, and off I ran to my fullest speed to her house's restroom, and there went all my sweety lovely waffle! At least, I felt so much better and at ease.

So two most important lessons today: never ever eat too much butter and syrup in early morning, especially before you hit the road for a long trip. And never ever argue about religion, because you cannot simply change a person's faith and belief by arguing.

Afternoon: went to D's highschool, watched the band practising for the first time. It was amazing!

Shopping in Walmart. Ate Japanese food and watched Karate kid. Played with her dad's awesome canon camera. Played mancala and Millionaire ( I lost again !)

Good day <3 It is a start of a good break. I can see that. :D