Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 11, 1997)
▼ EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Steven Asbury MANAGING EDITOR: Thom Schoenbom NIGHT EDITOR: Sarah Kickler EDITORIAL EDITORS: Ashley Bach &• Brian Diamond editorials, letters, commentary and perspective BY MAIL: P-0. Box3159, Eugene, OR 97403 BY E-MAIL: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu NEWSROOM PHONE: (541)346-5511 CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING: (541)346-4343 Reliqion still the opiate of the masses Religions suppress personal individuals the opportunity to think for themselves r | ''he first time I saw the Hale JL. 101, heading north to my parents’ California home. As my best friend, who was driving, com plained about being only half a mile from our exit, 1 looked out my window and saw what looked like an erased star. I wasn’t quite sure what it was at first. “Hey, isn’t that the comet?” I said. My friend glanced up and started laughing at the circum stance of the sighting. Soon, we passed a five-car acci dent. A woman was being pushed into an ambulance on a stretcher. Two children were sitting in the back seat of a car as a policeman kneeled near the open passenger’s door, scribbling in a notebook. Amidst all of the flashing red and blue lights, the last thing on our minds was the irrelevant white smudge in the sky. Over the next few days, that white smudge would become quite relevant to the family members of 39 dead cult members. The mass suicide by the Heaven’s Gate cult on March 26 was performed in or der to reach a supposed UFO that was trailing behind the comet — the irrelevant white smudge in the sky. Suddenly, Lt. Uhura’s brother is dead. She appears on CNN’s “Larry King Live” and all the callers are asking about is how she couldn’t see it coming because of her affilia tion with the Psychic Friends Net work. Suddenly, a man with wide open blue eyes and white hair is entreating from the cover of Newsweek: “Follow me.” freedoms and deny Bopp comet I was stuck in a traffic jam on Highway OPINION By Nicole Bristol Apparently, this scary man, Mar shall Applewhite, the cult’s founder, was the son of a Presbyter ian minister. In the 1970s, Apple white checked himself into a psy chiatric hospital to be “cured” of his homosexual desires. I believe his insecurity about his sexuality led to the cult’s main phi losophy: The human body contains an asexual soul that can only find salvation in outer space. Apple white’s followers renounced their sexuality as well. If he hadn’t been taught that his natural sexual de sires were wrong, possibly none of this would have happened. The entire situation of cults in general is depressing and absurd. I don’t think there is a cause that’s worth surrendering your right to think for yourself, speak to your families and engage in sexual activ ity. The Heaven’s Gate situation could have evolved because Apple white was in denial of his homo sexuality. Thus, he founded a new religion in order to provide a means to ignore his sexuality completely. Unfortunately, the spirituality he added to this denial resulted in the deaths of 38 other people However, what we can learn from this event is that after people sacrifice their right to think for themselves, tragedies often occur. The magnitude of the tragedy de pends on which religion or belief system is involved. Karl Marx once said that religion was the opiate of the masses. And for masses of Americans, religion is their drug of choice. Christianity is one of the largest cults of them all, sedating people with the Bible. Why think for yourself if you can lazily pick up a black book that will tell you how to lead your life? A black book that will teach you how to deprive yourself of natural sexual desires and to dwell in unnecessary shame and guilt. Chris tianity justifies irrespon sibility, creating a situa tion in which a person can wrong another person and turn to a god (one that has “punished” millions of oth er people) to effortlessly gain immediate forgiveness. The Catholic cult encour ages people not to use birth control. Failure to use birth control can lead to the spread of AIDS, STDs and the overpopulation prob lem. The Bible tells you to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Marshall Applewhite def initely followed the Gold en Rule — providing 38 people with a deadly mixture of barbitu rates and vodka that he himself ingested. One of the viola tions of the Heav en’s Gate code was “trusting my own judgment or using my own mind. ” The reason cults and reli gion exist is because people are afraid to use their own minds to create their belief systems; thus, they follow other people’s ideolo gies and get into trouble. You were born with the right and responsibility to think for yourself. You only have a limited amount of time on this planet. Don’t waste your time here by surrendering this right by allowing another institu tion or person to think for you. Nicole Kristal is a columnist for the Emerald. She can be e-mailed at nkristal@gladstone.uoregon.edu. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper or the Emerald’s editorial board. Litters policy The Oregon Daily Emerald will attempt to print all letters containing comments on top ics of interest to the University community. Letters to the editor must be typed, double spaced and in clude the author’s name, signature, and phone num ber. The identifica tion of the writer must be verified when the letter is submitted. Letters must be limited to 250 words or less. The Emerald reserves the right to edit any letter for length, clarity, grammar or style. LETTERS Vote Miner/Unger The election is far from a joke and deserves the respect of all the candidates and the entire voting student body. Sarcastic, casual voter’s guide statements denigrate the serious responsi bilities of the ASUO office, and single platform campaigns will not cut it. I am voting for a team that is serious about action, that has real experience in student gov ernment and that is making real campaign promises. I urge the students of this University not to fall for hopes or sound bites, but to empower concrete action and specific quantifiable goals. Bill Miner and Ben Unger are pledging solid goals with the means to accomplish them. How will Miner and Unger encourage awareness and tolerance on campus? By creating a fund to bring in guest educational speakers. How are Miner and Unger going to promote program growth? They will limit the ASUO budget. How will Miner and Unger promote life on campus? They will bring the concerts here and not let them defer to the Hult Center where students pay more. They will bring back the beer gardens that once thrived in the EMU. I urge you to consider your vote as a message. We demand to be represented strongly by a team that has answers. Vote Miner/Unger. Emily Robertson Political Science All about inaction You may have noticed Bill Miner and Ben Unger are run ning for ASUO Executive. They have bright yellow posters everywhere boldly proclaiming this fact. In fact, they got so overzealous with the postering and they so desperately want to get their name out there, they think nothing of violating elec tion rules. Before everyone got back from spring break, the Miner/Ugner campaign put up posters in every place conceivable on cam pus and they continue to poster on a regular basis. Yet, they did n’t stop there. They postered up and down the streets surround ing campus, on telephone poles and on the back of street signs. Postering in Eugene is illegal and putting posters on the back of stop signs should seem like an obvious no-no. These posters have been up for almost two weeks now. True, some of them have been re moved, but many still remain. For two weeks the Miner/Unger campaign has unfairly been get ting some valuable exposure in many high traffic areas that oth er ASUO candidates have not been getting because they know that is it is against local laws to poster in these areas and that this is a clear violation of elec tions rules. Bill Miner and Ben Unger have known about their wrong doing since last week. On Mon day, the ASUO Election Board told them they had 24 hours to remove the illegal posters. Forty eight hours later on Wednesday, they were still to be found on every telephone pole on Hilyard and Patterson, so I filed a formal complaint with the board. Bill Miner himself told me that the posters would be removed. The next morning, walking to school, I spotted Miner/Unger posters on a telephone pole at 15th and Hilyard and on the back of a street sign on Kincaid across from the library. I did not go out of my way to find these posters. Four days after they were told to rectify the situation, Miner and Unger have yet to solve the problem. But what do they care about it at this point? The elec tion cycle is almost over and even if they take the posters down now they will still have il legally obtained more exposure than the other candidates. Their names should be taken off the ballot since they are un able to comply with the rules. At the very least I would hope that no one would vote for them. If Bill Miner and Ben Unger are unable to deep track of a few hundred posters, how can we trust them with 6 million dollars of student money? Mark Hemingway Journalism SIGMA PHI EPSILON Making their fra ternity house ac- ! cessible for dis abled brother Jess Markt may seem like com mon sense, but the actions of these Greeks are | still commend able. ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT Believe it or not, H we stand by the decision to hire Ernie Kent as the new men’s bas- | ketbail coach. This leaves assis- j tant MarkTur geoninalurch, but new blood for a program the University hopes to rebuild can only help things. I FOOTNOTES SITUATION The battle contin- i ues. The EMU Board voted again j on Wednesday to | keep the group on campus, but things are far from over. Exactly I where Footnotes j will be is still up in [ the air, and an up coming ballot measure is still under debate. Just end it! TACO BELL Taco connois seurs should be the first to know that the once cheap fast food has gotten more expensive lately. While the stated reason for the price increase is the raise of the minimum wage, other fast food restaurants like j Burger King have j kept prices low. 1 So, enough ex cuses, bring back the 59 cent taco.
