Don't Let Your Education Get in the Way of Your Education

I love that saying. It's something I've heard quite frequently since coming to college and after tonight, I have to say that I agree with it wholeheartedly. The freshmen in Animal Science have a test tomorrow and so we got a big group together to "study." Needless to say, we goofed around more than hard-core studying, but we did throw random facts into our conversations. It's a lot of fun to be in a major where people are friendly and really laid back.
On Monday in my Animal Science class, however, we were much more focused. The discussion was over a video the professor showed last week Friday. It discussed how the world views animals and the different 'extremes' found in different cultures. Here in America, for example, we have people who participate in "canned hunting," which consists of "hunting penned animals. On the other end of the spectrum, we have people who bury their pets in cemeteries and keep them well-maintained (we're talking flowers, memorials, elaborate gravestones, the whole shabang).
One thing our professor warned the class against was using the terms "finding the middle-ground," or something like that. By saying that, we are insinuating that we are compromising what we believe in order to make both parties happy.
So what do I believe? I believe that humans and animals are NOT equal, but that humans were given a mandate from God to rule over the animals(1). I also believe that that duty calls for respect to those under us. God gave humans animals as food. This is clearly stated in Genesis 9:3.
We dug deeper into the subject and were in a pretty intense discussion when it was time to end class, so we are going to pick up on it later, but it was one of those times where it wasn't so much about the professor (I really need to come up with an anonymous name for him) teaching us as it was the students figuring things out for themselves and where they stand on some issues that are big in America right now.
There's lot's of stories that could accompany students figuring things out for themselves, but that will have to wait for a different night, as I am running behind in my homework.

Random Fact #2 - The population of Sioux Falls, SD, is 123,975, and it is the largest city in So. Dak. 

(1) Genesis 1:28