Tuesday, December 4, 2007

quit usin that reason, dog

so one of descartes things is about the soul and thinking and how animals dont actually think and dont reason so they have no soul. i am against that belief. i think animals do think and do use reason. they may not be able to construct grammatically correct sentences but there is thinking going on. i have two dogs and i have witnessed many instances in which reasoning and thinking takes place with them. i also know that almost every other pet owner i have ever known, share similar feelings about their pets intelligence. one instance in which i believe my dog demonstrated the use of reason was when he stole my uncles food from his plate during a meal. so we were sitting at our table eating a meal with my dog inside with us. he starts begging at the table but gets nothing. later he goes to the door to my backyard and starts scratching on the door and whimpering. my uncle got up to let him outside but as he opened the door my dog ran back to the table to my uncles seat and started to eat the food off his plate. Bruce (my dog) put a bunch of facts together and used them to get what he wanted. first of all he knows that he wont get food from the table as long as there are people there. second he knows that when he scratches on the door he will be let outside. in order to be let outside someone has to get up and open the door. and when someone gets up to open that door they will not be at the table guarding their food. i think this very simple yet effective plan demonstrates reasoning.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

thinking for yourself

so much for that whole describing my day thing, so last class we started talking about thinking for yourself and whether or not that was really possible. some people didnt think it could truly be done because we are affected so much by everything and everyone around us. however i disagree, i think it is very possible to think for yourself. just because you are influenced by others doesnt mean you cant think for yourself. thinking for yourself is not the same as making a decision. the decision is an action and the thinking is what leads to that action. it is the analyzing and comprehension of facts, opinions, and events around you. when it comes down to making a decision, in a lot of cases there are only a few options. for example at college there are lots of parties. you can either go to a party or not go to a party and do something else. no matter what there will always be people that go and people that dont. you cant say that because you go to the party with lots of other people, you arent thinking for yourself. the decision may be the same decision as lots of other people, but that doesnt negate the fact that you think about whether you want to go, weighing the benefits and consequences, in your own head. the process of thinking is so much more complicated than simply going or not going, its ridiculous to assume that because the outcomes are the same that the process that got you there is also the same. there are so many people in the world and there have been for so long that it would be extremely difficult in your everyday life to do something that no one has ever done or thought about. you dont have to be unique to think for yourself

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

starting again

so its been awhile since my last blog post and i realized that i needed to get back on the horse. i had been having a hard time coming up with new topics just using the class discussions as a source. ive decided to start blogging about life in general and my everyday happenings. today started off fantastically, with 8 oclock econ. it only lasted about 30-40 minutes because we are making our end of the semester presentations, which i still need to finish by the way. then i found my self on facebook "keeping in touch with friends" but really just looking for a little validation in the form of notifications. after i finished, i made my way to wismer for some food where i was pleasantly surprised to find old Boz. i had a nice little chat with him discussion hollywood producers and whether or not they were indeed communists. one thing i can say about ursinus is that i have met and made friends with very interesting and different people than i am used to knowing. breakfast was followed by french, which is especially difficult on tuesdays and thursdays because i have to wake up so early for econ. well i slept and ate and went to sculpture for the rest of my daylight hours. sculpture was also shortened for me because i hadnt had a chance to purchase my materials for the final project. i spent my time planning my project rather than actually fabricating it. i feel like i will be running out of time with this project due to the number of other assignments i have due at the end of the semester. i got a ride to lowes to buy my materials and got a chance to talk with the Rev about our hometowns and dealing with some of the scum that inhabit them. it was a stimulating discussion about how some people just dont know how to keep it real. so i got some of my materials and now im here writing this blog post. and while writing this i am remembering all the shit i have to do and it is managing to drag my until recently high spirits down. oh well, i do work so i will get to some of that shortly before the rest of the nights festivities. and oh yes there will be festivities. i promise my life is not as boring as all this, but i am forced by good conscience to omit certain details about my daily adventures.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

separation of church and science

so for some reason people believed there had to be a separation between religion and science. during the time of galileo the people could not accept his scientific observations because they believed the ideas clashed with their faith in god. i can see how a lot of scientific theories like evolution would directly go against the bible, but for a lot of the things galileo was teaching, there seems to be a certain amount of room for interpretation. the idea that the sun is the center of the earth could be explained by saying that god created the universe the way it is and didnt put the earth in the center, we just got it wrong until copernicus came along. i dont think there is anything in the bible about god making the earth the center of the galaxy. i suppose the real reason people rejected these ideas was not because of the ideas themselves but because of what the ideas represented. they would show that the church was wrong. this would hurt the church because they operated with the assumption that they were all knowing and always right. with this doubt in the minds of the people they may have begun doubting other aspects of the church and this would lead to its downfall.

Monday, November 5, 2007

that comet thing

so i may be a little behind with these blogs but i wanted to write this one about what we touched on last week. we briefly brought up the group of people that followed the halebob comet in one of those sidebars that our class is so good at doing. i believe that a group of people committed suicide when this comet passed by our atmosphere in the belief that there was an alien space ship following in the wake of the comet which would take them all to a better place. there were several comments made about the stupidity of such a belief. now im not advocating this group suicide thing and i dont believe that there were aliens behind the comment but there should be some sort of understanding of faith for them. yes there ideas seem crazy and ridiculous but so do many other beliefs when viewed by someone that does not follow them. christianity was viewed as a cult when it first began, and i could say that the idea of someone being resurrected three days after their death is just as crazy as aliens. just because there are more people following a set of ideas, doesnt mean they are always right or better. this ties in with what we were discussing with the cannibals. judging others because they act different from our social norms. in japan it was common for samurai to kill themselves after dishonoring themselves or their family. there are places in africa where genital mutilation is still practiced. i dont necessarily agree with any of these practices but they are what different people believe and follow. it just seemed wrong in the way we simply dismissed these comet people as freaks in a cult.

Friday, November 2, 2007

faith and science

nathan ask in an earlier class, what the difference is between science and religion. each person had a slightly different idea about what the answer was but one common idea was that science is measurable and religion is not. it is based on faith for some idea. i agree that there are many aspects of science that are measured and that is what gives them their validity. however there are also many things that are not measurable and require a certain degree of faith. gravity is only a word that has been given to that force that causes some forms of attraction. some could just as easily believe that gravity is actually god in a different form. just because science has labeled this force gravity, does not give it any more validity than someone saying god is responsible. people seem to be more willing to accept science because it can be proven or measured. but there are still so many things in our universe that science is trying to explain. how do you explain gravity? you can measure how fast something falls or how fast the planets rotate and complete their revolutions but what makes gravity, gravity. why is their an attraction between masses? i dont understand it but i except that gravity exists.

Monday, October 29, 2007

of montaigne

in our class we kinda decided that montaigne was trying to say two different things. the first was that most people judge other civilizations based on popular say and the second was that people should judge based on logic and reason. i dont think these two things can be separated. no matter how reason based you are there will undoubtedly be some aspect of your culture or life experience that factors into that reason. your upbringing and those around you will always have some sort of influence on you. you could either be in agreement with that popular say or you can disagree with it. even if you disagree with what the majority says, they are still having some sort of influence on you. in montaigne's case he has lived in france and he thinks it is full of problems. he is convinced that france is wrong. there may be many things wrong with how the country is run or its principles but there can still be an argument made for several positive aspects of france. it seems as though montaigne appreciates the brazilians for their culture, but it also seems like he appreciates them because they are not france. there is more distaste for france in this piece than admiration for brazil. he can say that based on reason and logic brazil is less barbaric than france but that reason is based off of what he does not like about this own culture.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

judging other societies

we talked about differences between cultures and what if anything makes certain beliefs correct and others wrong. the example of stealing and lying came up and what would happen if there was a culture where those actions were accepted. what would i say to them because i believe that they are both wrong except for a few special cases? i would like to think that i would be able to accept all other cultures and respect their beliefs, but in the end i know i would try to convince them that they are wrong. its not just that they believe in something different than me but those beliefs clash with my own. i dont steal from others because i dont want them to do it to me. there is mutual respect for others and their property. if stealing was ok then everyone would do it and the society couldnt function because everything would be in disorder. so even though stealing is a very extreme example i do think there are some ideas that would not work in a society. people can impose their beliefs on another culture but i think it is very important how that is done. the manner in which you present your ideas can dictate the success of those ideas. people always act negatively if they feel that their way of life is threatened. this is just like in a classroom discussion. if you are trying to make a point, if you logically present your argument and are respectful, there is a much greater chance that it will be welcomed.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

religious images

so the other day we all had to bring in some sort of religious images and share them with the class. i found what i thought was a humorous image of jesus and some animals associated with christianity. the image was not meant to be insulting to anyone's beliefs and i dont know if it was actually perceived to be insulting. it caught my attention when i saw it because of the ridiculous portrayal of jesus. his head is larger than life and his facial expression is basically nonexistent. it seems to take away from the human aspect of who jesus was. in this picture he is a character not an actual person. this reflects how some in our society have changed their views and commercialized parts of christianity. i dont think this is good. it detracts from what is important in the religion. i dont really understand that aspect of what the christians do. the vatican takes in so much money for the church but why does the church especially the vatican need that much money to operate. i could understand if there was something broken in the building or a heater needed to be fix, and that might require fund raising, but churches have become so over the top and lavish that it seems pointless. why does it need to be so luxurious. i dont know if there is something in the bible that says god wants his followers to create great churches worth millions of dollars. that seems unnecessary as long as you devote yourself to god completely.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

michelangelo

all of Michelangelo's paintings are of nude people. in several stories, nudity is shown to be bad and represents a fall from grace. however michelangelo painted all of these scenes with nude people. this gives the viewer something else to focus on. when everyone is naked, the concept of shame through nudity disappears. for example, in the story of noah and his sons there is much emphasis placed on the father's nudity. in michelangelo's version of the story, the meaning changes from shame of nudity to shame of something else. it is perhaps simply noah's drunkenness that should be shameful. through a media other than text, michelangelo is able to portray a familiar idea or story in a different way and invoke a completely different response. it would be interesting to have the responses of other people that were around at this time to get there reaction. people back then were familiar with the stories from the bible but they would be experiencing these images for the first time without any bias. now if you mention michelangelo, people will automatically think of a masterful artist with amazing works of art. im sure there were many people from michelangelo's time that would not accept the images he was painting.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

important gita passages

in the teaching "the renunciation of action" stanza 16, Krishna speaks about knowing thyself and ridding yourself of ignorance in order to reach a higher understanding. i really agree with this idea. i think self understanding is very important in life. when you know yourself, you know your limitations and your strengths. you can use this knowledge to succeed in life by working with your strengths and protecting your weaknesses. it may not lead to a higher state of being but i do think it will lead to a better life. people make mistakes in life because they dont understand something. understanding yourself is the first step into better understanding your surroundings. knowledge does give people some kind of power or advantage in life. i find most of the gita very interesting in theory but i believe this passage in particular is relevant.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

the gita

there is a big difference between Christianity and Hinduism. in christianity life seems to be one long journey and the goal at the end is entering heaven after death. with heaven there is the promise of salvation. however in hinduism, there is no end to the journey, it is an endless cycle in which there is birth, life, death, and rebirth. the body is only a shell or vessel for what is inside, the embodied self or what some believe to be a soul. this soul is eternal and cannot be destroyed. in christianity, emphasis is placed on obeying god and devoting yourself to god's wishes. if this is done throughout ones life, then when the person dies, they will enter paradise forever. the hindu beliefs seem to focus on karma and accumulating good karma so that the next life will be enriched. this continues forever, so that each life you try to improve the next life for your embodied self. in these terms christianity seems much more finite and defined. you live, you die, you go to heaven (hopefully). however with hinduism, there is no end, life continues and will always be. the physical body will diminish but you will always live in some form or another. krishna tells arjuna that nothing of nonbeing comes to be, nor does being cease to exist.

Monday, October 1, 2007

and still more socrates

so at the end of class we discussed the ending of the conversation between socrates and euthyphro. some believed that there should have been a conclusion to the question, "what is pious and what is impious." i think the ending has more of a meaning if there is no answer to the question. on some level everyone wants to know the answer to that question and others like it, but regardless of the answer there would be naysayers who will find fault with it. the entire point of socrates questioning euthyphro is to get him to realize that some questions dont have answers. socrates wants people to question. most people in this society accept religious ideologies as being true without understanding them. i dont think socrates has an answer to the question and he knows that euthyphro does not either. on can see in this exchange that socrates is attempting to teach euthyphro that there are limitations to the human mind and our ability to comprehend. if at the end of all of this, socrates had told euthyphro, "ok the pious is ____,"he would have simply rendered his lesson meaningless and succeeded only in making a fool out of euthyphro.
in a way, not having an answer makes socrates seem even more intelligent.

Friday, September 28, 2007

can we write about editing essays?

today we read a few essays from the class and reviewed them. i liked breaking up into samller groups and discussing a specific essay. i dont think we had enough time to go through all 4 thoroughly. when focusing on the one essay, we were able to go through and closely examine each part. i think this process allows for good feedback and a chance for the writer to improve their paper. even if this only allows for 4 essays to be read, i think we can all learn what works and doesnt work in these papers. when editing your own paper, you can sometimes get stuck in a pattern of predictable writing. reading others essays can show just how differently everyone thinks, and with this kind of exchange, new ideas can be formed. Hopefully this will lead to a better way of conveying your ideas. i think next time it would be better to spend time reviewing more essays in groups and giving more thorough critiques to each essay rather than trying to compare them to others.

Monday, September 24, 2007

socrates and his society

in class today we discussed socrates' method of questioning people and some in the class believed that it was the way socrates questioned everyone in an aggressive manner that got him in trouble. i disagree. i think it is what socrates is saying that pissed everyone off. he is basically questioning their belief system and in some cases turning it upside down. not many people like it when they think someone is threatening their beliefs and in this time period, their way of life. i think socrates is trying to teach people and trying to help, even though his methods make him out so be a crotchety old man. in most cases the people in socrates' community follow a fixed set of beliefs and rules governing religion. their religious beliefs are so strong that they impact most aspects of their lives. these citizens like euthyphro believe in these ideas because they know they are supposed to. they dont understand what it really means. if you believe something just because it follows the status quo, then there is little power in the belief. socrates is not trying to devalue their beliefs, he wants them to actually believe and comprehend them. by questioning the towns people and confusing them, socrates causes the towns people to question themselves. and through this questioning they can actually learn what is important to them and why it is important. he wants the towns people to learn that there is meaning in everything we do and if we can understand that meaning, we can better understand ourselves and what our purpose is.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

socrates and euthyphro

this is the first time i've read a text with socrates. i had heard about him from many secondary sources but i had never actually read anything about him. i had this image of him being a noble and brilliant man, who was honored for his ideas and innovations. now after reading this story, i have a radically different view of socrates. he seems like an ornery old man that likes to cause trouble. he is indicted for some mediocre charge of disturbing the peace and poisoning the minds of the children in the village. he spends the entire story arguing with euthyphro and trying to confuse him. he enjoys the idea of outsmarting other people. Socrates knows that euthyphro is arrogant so he asks him a question about piety that he knows euthyphro will try and answer. euthyphro is led into a trap and socrates plans everything. this makes socrates seems even more arrogant and malevolent. i think that socrates is bored. he wants something to do so he picks a target and verbally runs circles around him to the point where euthyphro will say whatever he wants. although euthyphro may seem unreasonable for prosecuting his father, he is doing what he thinks is right. he may be doing it for the wrong reasons (he may want to save face in the community by severing his ties with his father.) but the person did die as a result of his fathers actions and there must be some consequences for that. yes euthyphro is pompous and arrogant but that should not get in the way of what is right and wrong. reading this story did make me think of a bugs bunny cartoon with daffy duck. there are many similarities regarding the characteristics of these four characters. bugs bunny is socrates because of all the tricks he pulls and his circuitous reasoning. daffy duck would be euthyphro because he is outspoken and arrogant. bugs tricks daffy just like socrates tricks euthyphro.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

the other day in class we continued our discussion on the bible. i was asked some thought provoking questions by tabatha. one of which i was not expecting was "how would i raise my kids?" this question caught me a little off guard manly because i am nowhere near ready to have kids and we have never really discussed how our beliefs would affect our kids . the answer to this question would have to be, i have know idea how i am going to raise my kids. yes there are certain things i will teach them and how to act with other people(dont kill anyone and dont steal), but as for trying to guide their spirituality, i think thats a little bold for me to presume that i have the right to do. i will teach my kids to respect authority and try to guide them between what is right and wrong, but sunday school is not on the top of my list. i am not saying that i will not let my kids go to church, quite the opposite, if they really want to go i will encourage them to pursue their passion. i think they should have the right to choose whether or not they believe in a greater power and whether or not to adopt certain beliefs instead of teaching them to accept them from a very young age. many young children see church or religious services as a chore either because they are bored or dont really understand what is happening. its not until people mature and grow that they can really understand some of the beliefs and ideologies from different religions. thats why i think its important to wait until the children are old enough to think for themselves so that they can form their own ideas on spirituality and really choose for themselves if church is right for them. its their life, they have to live it.

Monday, September 10, 2007

god vs man

today at the end of class we started to discuss how god is supposed to be very different from man, how the distinction between what is human and the characteristics of god are clear. but from what i have read, i think god is very similar to humans. he shares many traits with man and are now considered to be natural human instincts. in genesis god has made mistakes, he is not perfect. after the flood he admits that it was a mistake to wipe out humanity. humans make mistakes, we are fallible. later when faced with the destruction of sodom and gomorrah, god changes his mind. abraham talks to god and reasons with him. This shows that god is open to debate at least in this instance and can be persuaded to think a certain way. Humans are always thinking, changing, and evolving, which is what god does in this passage with Abraham. Later in exodus god says that he is jealous and he decrees that humans should not be jealous. Now at some point in every one’s life they have been jealous of someone or something. This is part of human nature, we have unlimited wants and limited resources to get those wants. However humans usually don’t want to admit they are jealous or have “undesirable” traits. Perhaps this is why god is seen as different from humans. He knows he is jealous and he admits it. Maybe he knows his true self and has reached some sort of higher understanding of the universe because of it.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

penny day

today was an unusual day in cie. for the first time ever in school i examined a penny. at first i didnt quite understand what we were doing and why this was necessary but by the end it all made sense. something like a penny is a perfect artifact to examine because it is so overlooked in our society. by taking a step back and removing ourselves from our society and trying to make as many educated guesses about whoever produced the penny i learned how telling something as simple as a penny can be. there are little details that tell all about our society. for example the words in god we trust reveal how central god and worship are in our society. if currency that is made by the government which is supposed to be separate from the church has an inscription about god then religion must influence many other parts of our lives that we may not realize. we are supposed to examine ancient texts and make discoveries about the societies that produced them. this will require the ability to take a step back and rid ourselves of previous experiences and notions that we may already have. the penny exercise helped me do that because it was something that i already knew about and i had to force myself to ignore what i already knew. as for gilgamesh, i dont know anything about his society or what life was like back then. all i have to go on is the text we are given. like the penny there are many details in these texts that must be given credit for their significance and what they mean about those ancient societies.

Monday, September 3, 2007

Genesis

so we discussed genesis today in class and there were a lot of interesting points raised. its hard for me having very little education in the bible or religious studies to understand others that have had a "religious" upbringing. there are so many beliefs that i have a hard time comprehending. i guess the biggest one would be faith in god. what is faith? the belief that as long as you obey and trust god, you will be safe and blessed? i mean thats basically what i took faith to be from reading the first part of genesis. for example, abram had faith in god and god commanded him to take his son and kill him as a sacrifice to god. abram did as he was told and right before he cut his sons throat, the messenger of god told abram to stop and that he had proven his devotion to god. so now abram and his son are blessed. god is awesome, he is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. so god knows abram and he knows what he is going to do. so he knows that abram is dedicated to him. what is the point of making him go through the pain of almost killing his son and making the son go through such an ordeal. to me that is just like burning an ant with a magnifying glass. if life is so precious why torture those living it with ridiculous tests. the garden of eden is another one of these tests. god knows by putting the forbidden tree in the garden that eventually adam and eve will eat from it. so he is basically letting them live in paradise to get a taste of it and then snatches it away when they fail to remain "true" to god. if he wanted them to stay innocent he could have removed the snake, the tree, or stop them before eating the fruit. god also makes mistakes. when in a brilliant move he decides to cleanse the world with a flood, he wipes out all of the "evil" people. afterwards, he tells noah that he made a mistake and he would never flood the earth again. (also there have been a few floods since then which have plenty of people regardless of their moral standing) so far in genesis, the god depicted is not a god that i would be able to believe in or have faith in that god.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

i hope this works

hello. is there anybody in there?