Elias' Thoughts on Utopias & Dystopias

    An interesting part of chapter 4 was the introduction of the character Richard Moss. The way Moss has constructed his own religion and belief system made me think about how Mr. Butler talked about religion in sophomore history class. He described it as an excuse essentially, or a way people could justify their actions or manipulate others into doing what their bidding. Historically, religion has been used as the reasoning behind many wars and many deaths, as well as swaying the hearts of the citizens, finessing them out of money in a lot of cases. Richard Moss on the other hand used religion to justify his relationship, one that we can reasonably infer is looked down upon. His reasoning is extremely old-fashioned, sexist, and reminds me of something an incel might say. I'm not too familiar with the Old Testament, but something I know (or at least something I think I know) about christianity is that lust is viewed as a sin. I think many christians would argue that a polygam...

     Something that stood out to me while reading these first four chapters were the short excerpts at the beginnings of the chapters about god. Personally, I tend to think of myself as an atheist, though every once in a while I find myself half-praying for good fortune. The way I view god is pretty simple, humans made up the concept of some greater being/power to explain the natural phenomenon they couldn't yet explain. This is a pretty common sentiment, but aside from that, I think part of what makes god so appealing is that it gives us purpose, and makes us feel more significant and less alone than we actually are. Lauren, and some others in the world of Parable of the Sower describe god saying "god is change." Now, this irks me a little bit, since deciphering what this means is a bit of a pain. I figure that what she's saying is that change is an absolute, (using the term "god" metaphorically, as a stand-in for something that has complete power over hum...