Article 10

My time at loughborough university has finished!! I imagine this is the last ever faith article…

Article 10

The Balance of Life

Families prosper, societies develop, civilisations grow…

Divorces happen, morality degrades, wars take place…

One might think of diverse complex causes for these phenomena but the fundamental reason is very simple. When things are in their natural balance, happiness prevails; when this balance is disturbed, destruction overcomes.
It is really intriguing to find and attain this balance in our daily lives. For example, balance in the rights of women and that of men. Balance between the pitiable derelict parents in old houses and those doing forced marriages of their daughters. Balance between the total seclusion of women and her vulgar display for fashion’s sake. Balance between luxurious palaces of Queens and Sheikhs and the marquee of an ascetic. Balance between extreme thriftiness and debt mounting consumerism. Balance between obesity causing appetite and the calorie conscious diet. Balance between the virgin lives of priests and the pleasure filled lives of playboys. It is this balance which needs maintaining. The exact location of the middle point, however, is phenomenally difficult. But there is an easy way as well. Follow the code of life given by the one who has created all of us. Follow one God.

Loughborough Student’s Union Islamic Society

Articles 8 and 9

Arcticle 8 – Jewish Society

Give a little, Get back so much more…

Jewish people have always been made fun of for being a little bit stingy with their money, so you may find it ironic that charity (Tzedekah) is a huge part of Jewish life, but not in the conventional way of simply giving to others. The word Tzedekah has two meanings: charity and justice. Although its main idea is to be generous, it is also about being righteous; it is our job as human beings to do the right thing and give to those less fortunate and who are in need. This may be by giving a few pounds, or buy getting involved with opportunities like RAG at university. According to Judaism, it is our chance to say thanks to God, but also to enjoy helping out others.
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The Talmud (Jewish Law) says that Tzedekah is equal to all the commandments combined. It is obvious to us that we should not steal, so it should be just as obvious to us to give the needy.
Judaism suggests that we give up 10% of our income to charity, either finically or with the time we give.
As students it is important for us to give what we can too. There many things you can get involved in, including RAG which gives us the perfect opportunity to make the world a better place, whilst having the time of your life.
Loughborough RAG current total is £295, 972 and with your help it can increase.

Article 9 –Hindu Society

HOLI!

Holi is a religious festival in the Hindu calendar celebrated on the 11th March. It is a day of fun, colours and rituals for young and old alike.

It is celebrated to recognise the depth of devotion by a young boy called Prahlad to Lord Vishnu (God). His father, on the other hand, was a powerful and vicious demon king who thought of himself as an equal to God and thus kept attempting to kill Prahlad due to his devotion for Lord Vishnu. Bonfires are lit in memory of the miraculous escape that the young Prahlad had when the demoness Holika, sister to his father, carried him into the fire. Holika was burnt but Prahlad, a staunch devotee of Lord Vishnu, escaped without any injuries. An avatar (incarnation) of Lord Vishnu, Narsinha (half man, half lion) defeated the king.

Holi is celebrated by throwing coloured powder and water on each other signifying the colours of love, which fill our life with joy and happiness and also breaking the barriers between us to bring social togetherness.

NHSF Loughborough celebrated the festival which was enjoyed by many who had a fantastic time getting themselves coloured!

Cartoon

This is genius…

Body Worlds

On Saturday I had the privilege of taking my girlfriend to see Gunther Von Hagens’ Body Worlds Exhibition – yep, that’s right we went on a date looking at real dead bodies! For those of you who don’t know, the Body Worlds Exhibition is a travelling exhibition, which has preserved donor bodies and organs using a technique called plastination, halting decay and leaving the bodies visible. It was an amazing experience and, although quite expensive, well worth a visit. Check it…

http://www.visitlondon.com/bodyworlds/

The tour began with embryos, foetuses and new borns, and progressed into old age, taking a look at individual aspects of the human body, there specific roles and qualities. Basically, the exhibition helped me recap my GCSE biology but the exhibition has promoted me to blog because you can’t help come away with a huge appreciation for how complex the human body is – even a 5 weeks in the womb. It’s literally amazing, and its right here in front of us all day and we completely take it for granted all the time!!

Being an engineer (well, nearly), I looked upon the human body as the ultimate in engineering masterpiece, with the best examples of materials, computing power, clever pumps and fluid flows, complex pulley systems, mechanical systems, control systems, damping and lubricating systems, protection systems, audio/visual systems and energy systems, and all of this confined into a relatively small and lightweight structure which has the ability to stand alone, be independent, make individual decisions, grow and reproduce itself over and over again but each time in unique and distinct ways.

I learnt loads and I’m half tempted to list off all these amazing statistics and facts I learnt about my own body, but the only thing I wrote down whilst I was there was this, written on one of the display cards, “The Brain is the most complex object in the known universe”.

And guess what, the universe is a freakin big place and you’ve just used your own personal brain to read what I’ve written with mine…

Browning on the little man

Just a quick April post…Today the 20 most influential leaders from around the world met and proposed plans worth £681 Billion to try and save the (western?) world’s economy. 4 years ago at the 31st G8 Summit progress towards ‘Millennium Development Goals’ (including such things as reducing extreme poverty and child mortality rates and fighting disease epidemics such as aids) was hindered because of budget procedures, that is funding.  In other words, it seems to me, that we are much more concerned with bailing out car manufacturers than bailing people out of unnecessary death.

(Admittedly I’m not an economist and I don’t know all about these things, and I’m sure saving the worlds economy will mean a lot of people don’t slip into lives of (relative) poverty and all that, but at the same time there still seems to be a unhealthy bias somewhere…)