Surrogate, Super-replicator, and Our Future Happiness

Zichen Zhang

EAD II Section 4

Paper 3 Final Draft

Dr. Qisi Zhang

April 4, 2016

Faith-based Identity

Today’s society is a society with diverse people and multicultural. So many different kinds of people live together and work together. Therefore, it is easy to be affected by someone else in our daily life. People sometimes may lose themselves and cannot define who they really are, even about their names, culture or genders. In this case, religions play a huge role here. Different people have different opinion. In the article “Leave Your Name at the Boarder”, author Manuel Muñoz, who was born and brought up in a traditional Spanish family in California, mentions about assimilation and narrates his childhood memory about the name transformation but also emits his doubts about the assimilation. He thinks that there are something that can change and affect people’s identities. Another author, Madeleine Albright, has a similar opinion here. In her article “Faith and Diplomacy,” Albright suggests that religion’s influence on world events is inherent and persistent. The government must recognize this reality and adjust its diplomatic strategy accordingly. She proposes concrete steps the government can take to prepare itself for the religious dimensions of inter- and intranational disputes, but she also advices that religiously informed diplomacy will not always solve the complicated problems of a complicated world. For today’s society, religion is one of the most powerful ways that may permanently influence people’s identities.

Religion is a way of assimilation that can influence people mentally. There is an old saying goes: The most terrible thing is the unknown. Religion has extraordinary and dreadful power which can totally change a person’s identity mentally even that person does not realize and start to believe. Then it can control people’s thoughts. In the article “Faith and Diplomacy,” author Albright mentions that “The fault in such logic is that, although we know what a globe plagued by religious strife is like, we do not know what it would be like to live in a world where religious faith is absent (Albright 35).” As we can see, people now do not worry about what religions bring to them and society. They worry about the condition which is a world without religious faith. They do not scare and worry about the thing that has already appeared and happened but the unknown thing. This is a kind of way that religion changes and controls people’s identities and minds. The similar situation also happens in Munoz’s article. In his article “Leave your name at the border,” Munoz argues that “At a place of arrivals and departures, it sank into me that the currency of our names is a stroke of luck: because mine was not an easy name, it forced me to consider how language would rule me if I allowed it (Munoz page 310).” It is so common and nothing surprised. The reason why people need to change their names is that it is very difficult for others to pronounce. This is not because people are willing to change their names but by force. People will not realize it and say it as assimilation when they change their names. Religion also affects people’s identity in the similar way. The truth is that there are so many things people cannot be aware of. Different religions have different crowd who believe in their faiths. That is the most horrible thing. Religion can influence you and people will be unconsciously influenced.

Religion is a way to affect diplomacy and culture by changing people’s identities. When people’s identities are changed, their behavior and thoughts would also be changed. Therefore, their works will also be changed because of the religion they believed. Just like the sentence Albright mentions in her article “Faith and Diplomacy”, “Together, these activists have more resources, more skilled personnel, a longer attention span, more experience, more dedication, and more success in fostering reconciliation than any government (Albright 41).” As we can see, a lot of people believe other organizations rather than their governments in today’s society. It becomes a tendency because of the religion. Religion changes people’s mind, identities and thoughts at first and then these kind of phenomenon starts to change every field that exists around the world and related to work and behavior those people do. Munoz also has a kind of example in his article “Leave your name at the border”. He says that “It applies to needing to belong, of seeing from the outside and wondering how to get in and then, once inside, realizing there are always those still on the fringe (Munoz 310).” From this perspective, it is hard to define which part you are in. Maybe you are in one side but the truth is that you are in the other one. Sometimes people cannot realize. Standers-by see more than gamesters. Just like how religion changes people’s identities. People believe one religion and think that all the stuff from religion is right and start to change themselves. That is dangerous. From Albright’s opinion, we can notice that if the people who work in diplomacy for the government and they are faith-based, they can affect a country’s action and decision.

Faith-based identity can truely change people's life. Everyone has identity and idenetity can decide which kind of person people want to be. A person with faith-based identity, or being changed by religion, is very easy to change his or her identity, too. In the article "Faith and Diplomacy," author Albright mentions this condition. She says that "Standing amid huge crowds, the listeners recognized in each other one again the qualities that made the proud to be Polish-faith in God and a willingness to run risks for freedom (Albright 36)." The people who believe in religions are proud of themselves and their religions. Sometimes executors cannot recognize that their identities was changed impercetibly but listeners can. Personal identities can be shaped by faith. Religion is one way to shape personal identities just like Albright says. Another autor, Manuel Munoz, also has a problem about personal identity. He mentions that "It didnt' take long for me to assert the power fo code-switching in public, the transferring of words from one language to another, regardless of who might be listening (Munoz 310)." Munoz finds out that languages and words can also change people's identities. People who speak English think that English is the best language and it is the easiest language. Therefore a lot of foreigners give themselves English names for English-speaking people so that they will have some convience in the future if they want to stay in English-speaking countries. Foreigners need to accomodate their faith and change their names so that their personal identities could be changed in the future.

The existence of religion builds someone but it can also ruin someone by changing people's personal identities. It is still one of the most powerful way that may permanently influence people’s identities. Those faiths and believes could shape personal identities in some way. However, it is the progress of the era. We cannot change the tendency but we can change ourselves through thoughts and behaviors.