The Bible and Jesus

Since we were talking about God in class, I wanted to put my opinion out there first and then see if it changes after talking about it.

With the understanding that God is an all-good, omniscient being that created the universe, The Bible is a misrepresentation of "Him". My most reliable piece of evidence is the story of Noah's Ark, when God decides that he's going to kill everyone because they aren't behaving how he wants them to. First of all, this is not an act of good - God isn't being good by killing everyone. Second of all, if he created the world, then why would he create human beings that he ultimately wanted to kill? He had to have known, since he's omniscient, that they would've turned out that way.

So now that I've proved that the content of The Bible is questionable, I want to talk about Jesus. There isn't much proof that Jesus was the son of God other than from The Bible and other religious texts. Why would so many people get together to write this text about God and Jesus and all of the events that pertain to them? I think Jesus was a real person that actually walked this earth, but I don't think he was divine. Jesus was ahead of his time; he knew how to make people listen to whatever he said. He was enough of a leader to start a huge following filled with people that truly worshiped everything that came out of his mouth. It could have been a lot of people all working on this big scheme together, or it could have been solely him. It's hard to know, but that's what I think to be true.

Aristotle's Thoughts?

What might Aristotle think about this?

I don't know if Aristotle ever wrote about the question of determinism/free will, but I think he would agree with me. Maybe there's bias? I'm not sure.

But he obviously assumes that we have the ability to choose because he suggests that we should devote our lives to intellectual inquiry. To him (and to me), intellectual reflection is the “‘highest’ element within human nature” (Haberman 104). In order to take his advice, we would have to use free will, right? At least, there's the illusion that we are using free will to choose the path of intellectual inquiry.

In order to improve upon ourselves, there has to be a shift in how we think, right? So everything that defines who we are has to change in some way, and maybe that change is free will.

But I like pretending that I have free will because it gives me motivation to succeed.

Why Should I Care? Here's Why.

Why should I care?

I've made it clear that I don't like arguing whether everything is determined or if we have free will, but there has to have been a reason for looking into this if Professor Johnson decided to share this information with us. I want to look further into his reasoning and maybe find peace with the topic.

"The unexamined life is not worth living" is a quote that has been emphasized in this class. Not to say that the professor is shoving this down our throats and telling us to agree with the quote, but he has brought it into the conversation several times. It's a valid statement because it's important to know what you believe in and why you believe in it.

"It's important to know what you believe in and why you believe in it." Here we have it - the reason why I should care. I believe in acknowledging free will and determinism as possibilities, but not worrying about which one is fact. This is because either way, it shouldn't effect how my life is lived. It's important for me to know this - maybe I wasn't as aware of it before this week, and this discussion gave me the opportunity to discover this piece of information that was hiding in my mind.

Thank you, Professor!

IT DOESN'T MATTER

I'm so frustrated with this week's topic because it honestly doesn't matter.

I get that we should know what determinism and free will are because it is important to be knowledgeable. I don't mind learning about this topic, that's not my point, but I do mind questioning what the answer is (free will or determinism) because it doesn't matter!

First of all, it's impossible to know the truth!

Second, if we did know the truth, it doesn't change what we already perceive. We're thinking, living beings. We have the power to produce thoughts. We believe we are making our own choices, and that's what makes the world work.

If it DID change how we perceive ourselves, we would all be doomed because we would give up! Okay, so everything we think, do, say, feel is already determined, so why should we bother trying? Everyone might end up partaking in a mass suicide! Nobody wants that to happen, am I right? (well, maybe a select few, but there are always exceptions)

So why are we contemplating this if there's no point? This is why I'm frustrated.

6.8 Billion People

I just asked whether or not Houchin is focusing too much on the self and here are my thoughts:

If it is true that only I exist, than of course I should be focusing on myself because there's nothing else to focus on.

However, the universe is perceived to be infinite and if it really is infinite, then we are all meaningless and there is no point on focusing on the self.

Disclaimer: I don't live by what I just said because I would probably not be living.

What I perceive to be true is that there are 6.8 billion people all living on the same planet who all have developed minds that should be used to their full potential. Seeing the world as this, I believe self-interest is very important because it invokes passion that can help us achieve great things.

Self-Interest and Descartes

Houchin talks about the importance of self-improvement in his essay about altruism. He agrees with Aristotle that "the good person must be a self-lover," and that to be wholeheartedly altruistic, one must be self-interested.

The amount of focus Houchin places on the self reminds me of Descartes' theory "I think, therefore I am" in the sense that one only knows that he is existent. If I am all that I know to exist, then shouldn't I be mainly interested in my self? Of course, it would be useless to stay stagnant and it would be negative to become morally unjust, so in order to be good, one must focus on improving himself.

This way, Houchin makes sense because I can only change myself and nobody else, so I should work on improving myself to be good, or virtuous.

The question is whether or not this is too extreme - is Houchin focusing too much on the self?

Heroes for a Different Reason

Do all heroes act in the interest of other people?

We defined heroism in class as doing an altruistic act at a more elevated or dramatic price than the altruist. Doing something altruistic entails doing something for the purpose of helping people rather than helping oneself.

So what about the heroes that are searching for honor? We consider them to be heroes, but they don't seem to really care about the people they help as much as they care about whether or not their legend will live on. This might not be as common in the present, but it certainly was common in Medieval England, Ancient Greece, Rome, and countries of the like.

Maybe they're worried about honor, or maybe they're worried about duty. Some people do things strictly out of duty to a person or idea that means a lot to them. In "The Pirates of Penzance," Frederic feels a sense of duty to the pirates and thus helps them until his term of duty is fulfilled. If somebody performs an altruistic act out of duty and ends up saving someone's life because of it, they are not acting in the interest of the person's life that they saved, but rather the interest of doing their duty.

A man who dies from pushing a child from in front of an oncoming train is considered a hero, but what was his stimulus for doing that heroic act? Maybe somebody ordered him to do it, or maybe he wanted to be remembered as a hero. It is not certain whether or not he did it in the interest of the child he saved.

Altruism at a Cost?

Must you always be risking something in order to be doing something altruistic? Or in other words, must an act be at a cost to you for it to be altruistic?

Let's say I'm locked out of my house and I have to wait a few hours for my parents to return and let me back inside. At the current moment, I have nothing to do. Then, I witness a small car accident and I choose to help the people in the car accident by keeping the kids preoccupied while the adults figure everything out.

I had nothing to do previously, so I'm not losing anything by helping out.

Another example would be doing something considerably negative, such as watching a pointless television show or procrastinating, when a chance to partake in an altruistic act arises. In this sense, I would actually be gaining the ability to do something worth-while.

So my current response is that altruism cannot be defined as a charitable act at the cost to the altruist.

It's All So Confusing

Aristotle asks "whether there is one end or aim that we seek, for its own sake, in all our actions and projects. He says that we can all agree that there is such an end, and that we call it 'happiness,' but we may disagree about what happiness actually is" (Haberman 98).

Aristotle and Plato (and philosophers of the like) seem to believe that there is an ultimate truth - the real answer to the universe and everything is contains. But what if there isn't one simple answer for everyone - what if the answer is that there are millions of different answers that are derived in millions (even billions!) of different people?

It's possible that the truth lies within every single being, and no two truths are the same. This has to do with why there is no consensus as to what the definition of happiness is. Everyone's purpose is different because people interpret their lives to have different meanings. One person could believe that there purpose is to be sacrificed to the gods for the betterment of their society and another person could believe that their purpose is to be born, to suffer, and to die. Nobody can be proved wrong because there is no proof as to what our purpose is.

But as I think further on it, the fact that the truth lies within us could be considered the one true explanation for the universe, which detracts from my point. However, it helps to think of different possible truths in order to maybe decide which truth to believe in.

What's the Purpose of Trash?

Aristotle claims that there are “four questions we can ask about anything” (92), but is there always a final purpose for something? What about when something’s purpose has been fulfilled and it’s still there, such as trash? What’s the purpose of trash?

If everything has a cause then doesn't everything have to be part of a gigantic cycle?

Trash is part of a big cycle. Things that once had a purpose are broken down and laid out in a landfill where they slowly decompose into their natural elements. It takes a long time, but then they eventually become useful materials that can be reused on the earth. Therefore the purpose of trash is to decompose and restart the cycle.

This makes me wonder if the universe is part of an even larger cycle. This theory was seen in "2001: A Space Odyssey" where the universe reaches a certain point and then restarts at the beginning again. This way, there is no unexplainable Big Bang or Unmovable Mover, but everything is infinitely moving through one gigantic cycle. It's a possibility! There's no way of knowing the truth, but certainly different theories can be considered.

Disclaimer: "2001: A Space Odyssey" neglected time before and after man in the cyclical theory (they begin with cavemen and end with man creating a computer that can think for itself), which I disagree with because of evolution - man was not one of the first living creatures on the earth. However, it's impossible to know how far the cycle extends. Also, this all supposes that the creator of the story was actually trying to suggest a cyclical theory, however the theme is up for individual interpretation and this is how I have interpreted it.

Three Conceptions of Fulfilled Life

Does one have to be devoted to just pleasure, honor, or intellectual inquiry? Can’t one be devoted to all three equally?

Aristotle does claim that there are "three conceptions of fulfilled life...(lives devoted to pleasure, to political success and honor, or to intellectual inquiry and reflection)" (Haberman 103). He also ranks each conception, saying that the hedonistic life is worst and the life devoted to intellectual thought is best.

What Aristotle never says is that a person can only follow one path. He says that a purely hedonistic lifestyle is not ideal, but he does not mean that a life which might include seeking pleasure is not ideal. He knows that people cannot be completely devoted to just one of the three concepts because we are social beings that are dependent on one another. He has written two books about friendship because he's aware that we need friends in order to find happiness.

Whether or not one can be devoted to all three concepts equally is most likely is a different question. It probably can be done, but it also probably takes a lot of practice. Balance has never been easy to obtain.

Why Didn't We Do Anything?

A friend of mine from high school just recently passed away, and at first I was really shocked. But now I feel guilty.

We all knew that he was sick and he was fighting so hard to get better. He even went back to India (his home) near the end of the school year to get treatment. In the hallways as he passed by and said "Hi, Katie!" I could see the weariness in his eyes. He was a warrior, and he was trying to hide his pain. I can't help but think that I failed him. I should have done something to help him. I could have formed a charity to raise money for his cause, and I could have raised awareness in my town - if not other places, too. I know a doctor that would have tried his best to help him - I just don't think he knew about it.

But he was such an amazing person. He knew how to make people laugh. He was friendly to everyone, no matter who they were or what they looked like. And he was so smart. Why didn't I help him? Why didn't I do anything? Why didn't anyone do anything? Someone so amazing as he was shouldn't have to go. He should have lived forever.

I want to learn from this. I want to help people like my friend when they're in need. I don't want to stand by and let things like this happen anymore.

Pressure

We focus so much on the pressure that young people feel due to the gorgeous, skinny models on all of the magazines and the strong men in all of the movies; but we're forgetting about the different pressures that influence people all of the time. They're not as obvious, so people don't tend to think about them.

Right now I'm taking a fiction writing class, and we're reading a book by John Gardner called The Art of Fiction. He talks about how you have to be dedicated to the point where you'll choose writing over friends or simple pleasures in order to be a good writer. That's a lot of pressure! What if you're an extrovert and being social is necessary for you to keep balance in your life? It makes it really difficult and stressful because you know you want to be a writer, but you might not live up to John Gardner's expectations or the expectations of other writers.

To link it back to Plato, in his aristocracy, there would be a lot of pressure for youths to do well in school if they wanted to be more than a worker or a law enforcer. They have to be what the philosophers consider "smart enough" to gain passage into a system of higher education in which they can climb the ladder to become a leader. Imagine the kind of stress that would invoke!

There's a lot of pressure in our world coming from so many sources that it's no wonder that people have such high stress levels!

A World Without Music...?

If Plato had been able to implement his form of aristocracy, what would have happened to art and culture?

Plato doesn't have a place in his aristocracy for artists and musicians. Either you're a leader, an enforcer, or a worker (or a woman). People live and breathe off of music and art, and for Plato to even consider a world without it is crazy!

What Plato didn't know is that listening to certain music while studying can help memorization. Reading music can stimulate the brain in ways many, many other activities cannot. Music can also help reduce stress, or add balance to the life of a hard worker.

What would've happened without music? People would have less opportunities to release their stress, which would be really frustrating. Maybe rebellious clubs would've formed that people would sneak off to in order to take a load off. But this would've caused a lot of conflict between government and society, which could have lead to a multitude of bad occurrences.

Maybe Plato would've revised his aristocracy had he known the importance of music and the arts in human society.

The Effect of Women

Both Plato and Confucius disregard women in their philosophical views. If they had ever been exposed to educated women and heard their views, how might that have affected their ways of thinking?

Plato might have realized that women should be educated along with men; being given the exact same chances to become philosophers if they were capable enough to do so. He also might have been open to insight from women about things that men don't tend to think about on their own, such as human emotion. For example, Plato wants his philosopher kings to be without families, which could potentially take a huge emotional toll on someone. A woman might have been able to open Plato's mind to the idea that even the most knowledgeable men need to have meaningful relationships in order to be happy.

Confucius might not have been as affected because his philosophy is based on practicing benevolence, which doesn't involve the intelligence that Plato considers highly important. Confucius may have included women when talking about his ways of thinking, but his life views probably wouldn't have changed nearly as much as Plato's.