Springing Forward

Daylight Saving Time is coming up again. On Sunday, April 2, at two o'clock in the morning, the clock will spring forward one hour. The purpose of Daylight Saving is to take an hour of daylight away from the morning and transfer it to an hour longer of daylight in the evening. This conserves energy as families will not have to turn on their electrical lights for an additional hour as there will be more sunlight.

The concept of Daylight Saving was introduced by Benjamin Franklin in 1784, while he was a minister to France. He published his idea in an essay titled, "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light." His idea was not mentioned again until 1907, when an Englishman, William Willet, proposed the idea.

Daylight Saving was put into place in 1918 for the last years of World War I to help conserve money and energy. However, no one seemed to like the idea and the law was repealed. After this, some areas of America continued to use the Daylight Saving technique while other areas abandoned the idea. Obviously, this caused too much confusion and as a result of this, The Uniform Time Act of 1966 was put into place. This law announced that in April, the clock would spring forward one hour and in October the clock would fall back one hour so that no time would actually be lost.

The Facts About St. Patrick

The personage of St. Patrick is well known throughout the world, and yet the details of his story are not completely clear. Patrick grew up in Britain as the son of a deacon. However, when he was only 17 years old, he was captured by the Irish who attacked his village and was taken back as a slave to Ireland. He was placed in the position of shepard where he spent most of his time by himself. It was at this time that he began to return to his father's faith and he became a devout Christian.

Patrick had to endure six years of slavery in Ireland, however he was able to escape. He had a vision which he claimed was from God saying that he was to leave and find a ship that would take him back to Britain. He was able to return to Britain where he studied Christianity more fully but then he returned to Ireland to spread Christianity.

Chocolate, What Would Women Do Without It?!

I have always wondered, who was the incredibly intelligent person to first create chocolate? The first people were actually the ancient cultures from Central America, such as the Aztecs and Mayans. Chocolate is made from grounded cacao seeds, but it was first used by the ancient Central America civilizations to make a spicy, frothy drink. This drink actually played an important role in religious and social affairs. When the Spanish conquistadors invaded Central America, they brought the seeds back with them and spread them throughout Spain. Chocolate at this time was very bitter, but the Spanish added cinnamon and sugar to make it sweet.

The Scoop on the Scopes Trial

The Scopes Trial took place in Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925. The trial was soon known as the "monkey trial" as John Scopes was brought to court for teaching evolution in the public classroom. In reality he was a football coach and math teacher, but he had substituted in a biology class for a short time. He did not know very much of evolution or necessarily believe in it himself, but was following the current curriculum. However, several citizens from Dayton were hoping to set up a trial that would bring publicity to their small town. Scopes was the best candidate for a good controversy, the argument between Christianity and evolution in education.

The Dayton citizens certainly got the publicity that they wanted. The well known attorney, Clarence Darrow, came in the defense of Scopes. William Jennings Bryan, the attorney who had ran three times for the presidency, came for the prosecution. Seemingly countless numbers of reporters came to report on the trial and updates were heard on the radio. Publicity reached all the way to Europe and Australia.

The trial turned out to be more for show rather for an actual offence. Scopes was not kept as a prisoner or treated any differently. He did not even have to give an account for his actions during the trial as he did not know very much about evolution and was not actually guilty of teaching evolution in his classes. He was more of a vessel for a "show trial" than a true criminal.

Inherit The Wind was a movie based on the trial, but it brought a very different perspective to the story. The creators of the movie were obviously atheists as the evolutionists were shown as the sensible people and the Christians were shown as silly men and women who only knew how to sing songs and read out of the Bible. William Jennings Bryan, known as Harrison Brady in the movie, is portrayed as a man who only knows the Bible, and yet he does not really understand the Bible. He will accept anything as long as it says it in the Bible, but he does not dig deeper into ideas to understand why it says it in the Bible. He has no desire to read The Origin of Species and knows nothing about it, and yet he is proclaiming that it is wrong and should not be taught. He seems to not really know what he believes in, so he is afraid to think and look into other ideas because he might lead himself astray. Darrow on the other hand, known as Henry Drummond in the movie, is intelligent, knowing both sides of the story and valuing the capacity to think.

The pastor of the local church is portrayed as scaring people into the faith by sending all unbelievers to the lake of fire. He also does not seem to know what to do and always has to turn to God for help, portraying the idea that Christianity cripples a human being. The end of the movie does take an interesting turn as Drummond holds the Bible and The Origin of Species together and seems to be blending the two together. The viewer is left with the feeling that Christians are a hypocritical organization of people that do not even know what they believe in, but the thinking of Darwin and Christianity could combine to produce truth.

The movie and the actual event have many differences as they had different agendas. The movie had the purpose of representing Christianity as a foolish religion that ruins a human being. The real trial, on the other hand, had the purpose of bringing publicity and fame to a small town and have an American trial broadcasted around the world. I would have to say that both achieved their goals.

For pictures from the actual trial click here.