So it has been awhile since I last posted. Sorry about that, but things have been a tad hectic around here. Not to the point where I am losing my marbles (don't worry...I just counted and they are still there), but enough that it was a bit difficult to find time to write another post. Also, due to low self-esteem about these posts, I had to come up with a topic that would be interesting and thoughtful. That being said, let us now turn to the actual text of this post.
Caution: This will not be a very happy post, just so you are warned at the outset.
For my Intro. to Bible class we were reading some selections from the Apocrypha (for Catholic readers that would just be the books at the end of the Old Testament, Protestants do not have this in their version of the Bible) specifically in 2 Maccabees in which stories of martyrdom are presented and the characters are depicted as being heroic. The figures in these books were willing to die for their faith and refused to change deviate from their religious tradition simply because someone was oppressing them so badly. Jews in the text were being forced to eat pork, which is strictly against Jewish law. I then asked myself if there was anything I would be willing to die for, such as these martyrs did.
My initial reaction was that I could not think of anything that means so much to me that I would be willing to die for them. Perhaps this is because I am too young and have not experienced the world sufficiently so I simply have not found anything worth dying for yet. However, I thought that since I was unwilling to die for anything in particular maybe that meant I was a bit too open? Maybe you are reading this and it is making absolutely no sense, but I will try to explain. All right. So, what I mean is that since I do not hold anything quite so dearly or care about anything with immense amounts of passion that I am therefore open. That is to say, I am open by virtue of having nothing that I cling to so dearly that I would not be able to live without. Things in my life can come and go as they please because they are merely things. Maybe the universe has something better intended for me than clinging to these items. Perhaps an example will illuminate what I am trying to say. In the above example from the biblical text, the Jews in Maccabees had such a strong connection and relationship to their faith that they felt as if they could not live without it. I mean, they were willing to die before changing their ways. In a sense, it may seem as if they were stubborn or close-minded. Since I have no item or thing with this sort of connection, then maybe I am too open to change and do not hang on to items like that. Rather than clinging to one item and living a stagnant life, I am open to change in the pursuit of an interesting life. As a minor side note/tangent/disclaimer, I am not saying that if you hold on to things from the past that you lead a boring and monotonous life. I am suggesting that if you were to open yourself up to change that more opportunities would come your way and, in my opinion, would lead to a more well-rounded, balanced exposure to life and all this world has to offer.
Since there is nothing that I personally deem worthy of dying for, does that make me a bad person? I sure do not view myself as being a bad person, but my opinion is biased. I do not know of anyone who thinks I am a bad person, but that does not mean that I am a particularly good person. Maybe I simply am a person, not good, not bad, simply neutral.
I cannot provide examples of things I would die for, but that does not mean that there are not things in life that I would live for. There are tons of things to live for, and I live to hopefully someday experience those things and to continue to experience things I already experience. Friends, family, the prospects of a career in the future, a family in the future. All of these things I find extremely appealing and they are what keep me going. Is this a more optimistic view of life as compared to what you would die for? Rather than being a Debbie Downer and thinking about dying, I am thinking positively and optimistically at life and thinking about the present and all the things I am looking forward to in the future. I dunno. Just a thought that occurred to me as I was writing this.
To move along to another aspect of this passage we read, I started to think about what comes after life and what it means to be dead. Pretty big, serious stuff, I know. Philosophers spend lifetimes pondering these things possibly never reaching a definite conclusion. However, I would like to tackle this issue. Maybe a little less than a tackle though...maybe more like a light shove or bump, since just this post is concerned with death at the moment.
I suppose that death can be described as the absence of life (which would definitely need a definition of life, another lifelong quest that many fail to ever conclude). But what happens once we die? Many religious traditions tell us what happens after we die. Buddhists and Hindus think we are reincarnated and then live another life. Many of the Abrahamic traditions describe judgment and then sorting into either heaven or hell. So there are plenty of answers of what centuries, even millennia, worth of philosophers and previous human beings have described as occurring after we die, but how can they be certain of this? Have they experienced death? And if we claim that we have, how could they have experienced death and then written about it? As odd as this sounds, and I mean this in a strictly out of curiosity so don't go calling the cops on me or anything, but I have always wanted to die and then come back to tell my experiences to others. I doubt they would ever believe me (I'm not even sure I would believe someone who claims this has happened to them), but I, as well as many others I have spoken with on this subject, have always wanted to know what it felt like to die. Just once. However, this is highly unlikely to ever occur and even if it did, how can I be certain I was dead if my consciousness I had when I was alive would not be present with me when I am dead (and hence lack life). I dunno, this is just a fascinating subject that captured my attention many years ago and still has my attention and thoughts.
One final thought that was presented to me during my J-Term class here at Luther. Just as a brief reminder, my J-Term class was textual criticism of the Bible, meaning we looked at what other ancient authorities had written down as being part of the Bible and how that differed from the Bible we have today and of what, if any, significance these discrepancies were. Anyhow, during one of our discussions we got onto the topic of why our society is so obsessed with staying alive when such eloquent pictures of the afterlife have been presented to most of us. Especially in the Christian tradition, where the kingdom of heaven, at least during my upbringing, is so awesome and out of this world (figuratively and perhaps literally) that we would not want to go there immediately rather than living in this world of pain and suffering. An example we used in that class was when someone is sick, you want to get the best medical attention/care that you possibly can, so as to live longer. However, by living longer, you are delaying yourself from entering the kingdom of heaven in all its magnificence. Wouldn't it make more sense for people to be dropping dead every two seconds in hopes of reaching this heavenly realm of paradise? Why would anyone endure all the pain and suffering if they were promised so better conditions on the other side? Thinking about it now, I think I may have an answer to this question, which I addressed earlier in this post. People are not dying because there is something they value here that they deem worth living for.
Just some more reflections and thoughts....
Until next time.....
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Completely Radical Thought
I was thinking the other day and then this idea came to me. As the title of this post suggests, it was completely radical, but not in a particularly good way. With that in mind, I would also like to openly state right here and now that I do not personally subscribe to this theory of mine. I may have thought it up, but that does not mean I seriously believe this, though there may be a shred of truth in it, but it seems almost too malevolent to be true, so I hope it is not true.
Anyhow, it concerns global climate change, a touchy subject, I know. Just hear me out though. Alright. So I was sitting down here in boring ol' Iowa thinking about climate change. I am not sure how I actually go on the subject, but somehow I did. Then I started thinking about whether it was completely true or not, when I realized the timing of this declaration. If you think about it, most of the Western nations have completely industrialized. That industrialization affected the climate, no doubt, but countries in the West continued to expand and grow their economies. What about all those "Third World," lesser developed countries that are living in utter poverty? How are they going to industrialize if all of the Western powers chastise these poorer countries for harming the environment and affecting the climate?
This then led me to believe that these Western nations were simply trying to keep those poorer countries poor so they could continue to grow. It seemed almost contradictory. Many developed nations give loads and loads of aid to these countries to assist them in their issues and rebuild their economies and whatnot, but they do not want them to grow any further. This part of my theory just seemed to malicious to believe. Why would a country such as the United States ever do such a thing?
A good example is China. Everyone chastises China for producing too many harmful pollutants that they then put into the air or their water supply. Granted, it is definitely not a good thing they are doing, but that does not mean that we must look down on them. Especially since if we were to look back into our history, we would see that when we were first industrializing our cities looked pretty polluted as well. A good example that I can think of is London in the 19th century. Maybe Pittsburgh during the same time was pretty bad as well? I have to admit, I am not up to date on my U.S. history.
With this example in mind and in conjunction with everything else I have said in this post, it seems as if this may be a plausible theory. Maybe the timing for this global climate change is because we are starting to see nations develop and we don't actually want them to do that so we point out all of the environmental damage they are doing in hopes that they stop their industrialization.
I think that is about it for this post. I still have loads of other ones, but I will save them for later. I also feel as if my first few posts were really good and intense and now they are getting a bit weaker and not so great. This one, for example, does not seem to be that brilliant or anything, just some random thought conjured up by me. I dunno, maybe I am just being too critical of myself as I usually am.
In other news, I went to this room mate finder thing cuz I sorta need one for next school year and I found one, which made me insanely delighted. I also am all registered for next fall as well, and am excited to take Judaism, Religions of East Asia (in which we will discussion Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shintoism...pretty legit), a Spanish class, and a history class in which we look at the historical accuracy of films that are concerned with Medieval Europe.
Until next time...
Anyhow, it concerns global climate change, a touchy subject, I know. Just hear me out though. Alright. So I was sitting down here in boring ol' Iowa thinking about climate change. I am not sure how I actually go on the subject, but somehow I did. Then I started thinking about whether it was completely true or not, when I realized the timing of this declaration. If you think about it, most of the Western nations have completely industrialized. That industrialization affected the climate, no doubt, but countries in the West continued to expand and grow their economies. What about all those "Third World," lesser developed countries that are living in utter poverty? How are they going to industrialize if all of the Western powers chastise these poorer countries for harming the environment and affecting the climate?
This then led me to believe that these Western nations were simply trying to keep those poorer countries poor so they could continue to grow. It seemed almost contradictory. Many developed nations give loads and loads of aid to these countries to assist them in their issues and rebuild their economies and whatnot, but they do not want them to grow any further. This part of my theory just seemed to malicious to believe. Why would a country such as the United States ever do such a thing?
A good example is China. Everyone chastises China for producing too many harmful pollutants that they then put into the air or their water supply. Granted, it is definitely not a good thing they are doing, but that does not mean that we must look down on them. Especially since if we were to look back into our history, we would see that when we were first industrializing our cities looked pretty polluted as well. A good example that I can think of is London in the 19th century. Maybe Pittsburgh during the same time was pretty bad as well? I have to admit, I am not up to date on my U.S. history.
With this example in mind and in conjunction with everything else I have said in this post, it seems as if this may be a plausible theory. Maybe the timing for this global climate change is because we are starting to see nations develop and we don't actually want them to do that so we point out all of the environmental damage they are doing in hopes that they stop their industrialization.
I think that is about it for this post. I still have loads of other ones, but I will save them for later. I also feel as if my first few posts were really good and intense and now they are getting a bit weaker and not so great. This one, for example, does not seem to be that brilliant or anything, just some random thought conjured up by me. I dunno, maybe I am just being too critical of myself as I usually am.
In other news, I went to this room mate finder thing cuz I sorta need one for next school year and I found one, which made me insanely delighted. I also am all registered for next fall as well, and am excited to take Judaism, Religions of East Asia (in which we will discussion Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Shintoism...pretty legit), a Spanish class, and a history class in which we look at the historical accuracy of films that are concerned with Medieval Europe.
Until next time...
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Hypothetically speaking...
As the title suggests, I am speaking hypothetically and am not trying to point a finger at one person in particular. It was the case, however, that someone did inspire this post, though a name will not be disclosed.
Alright. So, I was recently talking with someone and was joking around having a good time. For anyone that knows my humor, I hardly ever take anything seriously and you know when I am taking something seriously. Otherwise, you just assume that it is innocent fun and I do not mean anything by it. Some have called me passive aggressive with my humor, which I suppose one could say I am, but that was not the case in this instance. Others have not been able to take my humor seriously, so I have had to tone it down a lot, especially when I am working. However, this was around a group of people who I hang out with quite frequently. Anyways, the story goes one from here, but I just thought I would clarify a bit.
So I was joking around and made some comment to which this person commented back that my comment could be taken offensively and they gave me a bit of a mini lecture on correctness and such. Granted, my joke was religious, but it was not a malicious religious joke. I merely said that I was a rabbi (clearly I am not considering I was raised Christian and there is really no way I could be a real Jew...except in the more liberal branches of Judaism, but I digress). This person made the observation that my comment could be considered blasphemous since I was not really a rabbi and Jews may take it the wrong way and be offended.
This person surprised me to a degree because when I had said it I did not mean anything by it and was just trying to be silly and random, as goes my humor the majority of the time. This person is always conscious of words that may offend someone, but in this moment, I think they took it a bit too far. I was merely joking around (it somehow fit into the scenario) and did not mean anything by it.
Where is this post going then, you may ask. Well, I am going to tell you right now, other than a complaining rant, which I am going to try and not post on here.
Anyway, I think what really disturbed this person was not the fact that I was joking around and could possibly offend the absent Jewish person, but that I was not telling the truth because I am not truly a rabbi. First of all, is this really lying? I suppose in the conventional definition of the term, I would have been lying, but then every time anyone jokes around, couldn't they be lying? I suppose some jokes are free of lies, but in this instance, was I really lying? I did not think I was, but the way this person framed their response to my joke made it seem that they had a big issue with lying, which is understandable considering their background.
From this comment, I suppose I made the assumption that this person is really concerned with telling the truth and reality. That is to say, they are more concerned with telling the truth than telling an untruth for the sake of comedy. I suppose I can respect that. But I have to go back to my first statement in this block of text: that they are concerned with telling the truth and reality. After I had written that on my scrap sheet of paper, it made me think about the nature of truth in conjunction with reality. Is reality really the truth? (Note: I am saying 'truth' not 'Truth' or 'True.') That is to say, can we assume reality to be true? Can you trust your experiences as being true? I would lean towards the affirmative on this position and declare that our subjective realities are truth for us. What I experience every day is true, what you experience every day is true, what the Dalai Lama experiences every day, and what Barack Obama experiences every day is true. And when I say that they are true, then that means that they are, by extension, the truth for those individuals. When asked what you did today, you can be certain that what you say, based on what you said, is true (unless you have CRS, in which case remembering what you did today would be difficult and you may lie to make your life look interesting).
Assuming that this person is in agreement with me, in that what you do is true, then how can she read fiction? Granted, you may go into the reading and claim that what you are about to read is no true and never happened, therefore making the act of you reading the book true while the content in that book is not true. However, I continued to think along those lines and questioned as to whether you could read non-fiction. How can you be certain that what you read in this book is true. Certainly the author cites their sources extensively, but how can we be certain that we can trust those sources? I think that I would like to say one more thing on this subject, and then move on to the bigger idea behind this experience, so long as your brain has not exploded or you are merely utterly confused. So, you can say that you read a non-fiction book, which would mean that you are telling the truth: you indeed did read that biography of Abraham Lincoln. However, that does not mean that the content of that book is necessarily true. I think the same can be said about a fiction book: who is to say that what occurs in the novel (which we assume to be false) is not actually true?
After tying that, I realized that what I had just typed makes more sense in person/in my head and I do not blame you if you do not understand a word of what I just said. It may even be the case that what I said is a bunch of rubbish. However, this leads me to an idea that I have held for an extremely long time and has become somewhat of a personal philosophy of mine, though it certainly does not apply to all aspects of my life. The idea is this: in order to discern whether what you are reading is actually true or not, would not you have to experience it for yourself. This goes back to the first point that I made in this post and I just realized how nicely these two ideas mesh. To reassert my personal maxim: in order for something to be true, you have to experience it for yourself.
I can think of at least one example from my own personal life in which this maxim is particularly relevant. First, when someone gets hit really hard and they start crying or whining and moaning, I am, in all seriousness, a bit skeptical. How do I know for certain that they are hurting? Furthermore, how do I know that their pain is as great as they are making it seem? It seems to me that the only way to truly understand their experience is to actually experience it for myself, in the exact same manner. The only way I will ever understand how much that ball to the face hurt, I would personally have to get hit in the face just as hard.
Therefore, it is extremely important to me, at least at this point, to fill my life with experiences so that when someone speaks to me about their own experience, I can truly empathize. I will better understand what they are talking about. I think that is about it on this topic. At this point, one may object and question as to why I am a history major then, if I cannot trust information until I experience it for myself. As I stated at the outset of this discussion, this does not affect all aspects of my life. I feel just fine trusting historical documents and other sources of information. It is difficult to explain, but that is basically how I feel. Comment on this if you want/need/desire clarification.
This post is already getting really long, so I think I may stop here even though I have a few other topics to talk about.
REGISTRATION FOR FALL 2011 TOMORROW! :D
Alright. So, I was recently talking with someone and was joking around having a good time. For anyone that knows my humor, I hardly ever take anything seriously and you know when I am taking something seriously. Otherwise, you just assume that it is innocent fun and I do not mean anything by it. Some have called me passive aggressive with my humor, which I suppose one could say I am, but that was not the case in this instance. Others have not been able to take my humor seriously, so I have had to tone it down a lot, especially when I am working. However, this was around a group of people who I hang out with quite frequently. Anyways, the story goes one from here, but I just thought I would clarify a bit.
So I was joking around and made some comment to which this person commented back that my comment could be taken offensively and they gave me a bit of a mini lecture on correctness and such. Granted, my joke was religious, but it was not a malicious religious joke. I merely said that I was a rabbi (clearly I am not considering I was raised Christian and there is really no way I could be a real Jew...except in the more liberal branches of Judaism, but I digress). This person made the observation that my comment could be considered blasphemous since I was not really a rabbi and Jews may take it the wrong way and be offended.
This person surprised me to a degree because when I had said it I did not mean anything by it and was just trying to be silly and random, as goes my humor the majority of the time. This person is always conscious of words that may offend someone, but in this moment, I think they took it a bit too far. I was merely joking around (it somehow fit into the scenario) and did not mean anything by it.
Where is this post going then, you may ask. Well, I am going to tell you right now, other than a complaining rant, which I am going to try and not post on here.
Anyway, I think what really disturbed this person was not the fact that I was joking around and could possibly offend the absent Jewish person, but that I was not telling the truth because I am not truly a rabbi. First of all, is this really lying? I suppose in the conventional definition of the term, I would have been lying, but then every time anyone jokes around, couldn't they be lying? I suppose some jokes are free of lies, but in this instance, was I really lying? I did not think I was, but the way this person framed their response to my joke made it seem that they had a big issue with lying, which is understandable considering their background.
From this comment, I suppose I made the assumption that this person is really concerned with telling the truth and reality. That is to say, they are more concerned with telling the truth than telling an untruth for the sake of comedy. I suppose I can respect that. But I have to go back to my first statement in this block of text: that they are concerned with telling the truth and reality. After I had written that on my scrap sheet of paper, it made me think about the nature of truth in conjunction with reality. Is reality really the truth? (Note: I am saying 'truth' not 'Truth' or 'True.') That is to say, can we assume reality to be true? Can you trust your experiences as being true? I would lean towards the affirmative on this position and declare that our subjective realities are truth for us. What I experience every day is true, what you experience every day is true, what the Dalai Lama experiences every day, and what Barack Obama experiences every day is true. And when I say that they are true, then that means that they are, by extension, the truth for those individuals. When asked what you did today, you can be certain that what you say, based on what you said, is true (unless you have CRS, in which case remembering what you did today would be difficult and you may lie to make your life look interesting).
Assuming that this person is in agreement with me, in that what you do is true, then how can she read fiction? Granted, you may go into the reading and claim that what you are about to read is no true and never happened, therefore making the act of you reading the book true while the content in that book is not true. However, I continued to think along those lines and questioned as to whether you could read non-fiction. How can you be certain that what you read in this book is true. Certainly the author cites their sources extensively, but how can we be certain that we can trust those sources? I think that I would like to say one more thing on this subject, and then move on to the bigger idea behind this experience, so long as your brain has not exploded or you are merely utterly confused. So, you can say that you read a non-fiction book, which would mean that you are telling the truth: you indeed did read that biography of Abraham Lincoln. However, that does not mean that the content of that book is necessarily true. I think the same can be said about a fiction book: who is to say that what occurs in the novel (which we assume to be false) is not actually true?
After tying that, I realized that what I had just typed makes more sense in person/in my head and I do not blame you if you do not understand a word of what I just said. It may even be the case that what I said is a bunch of rubbish. However, this leads me to an idea that I have held for an extremely long time and has become somewhat of a personal philosophy of mine, though it certainly does not apply to all aspects of my life. The idea is this: in order to discern whether what you are reading is actually true or not, would not you have to experience it for yourself. This goes back to the first point that I made in this post and I just realized how nicely these two ideas mesh. To reassert my personal maxim: in order for something to be true, you have to experience it for yourself.
I can think of at least one example from my own personal life in which this maxim is particularly relevant. First, when someone gets hit really hard and they start crying or whining and moaning, I am, in all seriousness, a bit skeptical. How do I know for certain that they are hurting? Furthermore, how do I know that their pain is as great as they are making it seem? It seems to me that the only way to truly understand their experience is to actually experience it for myself, in the exact same manner. The only way I will ever understand how much that ball to the face hurt, I would personally have to get hit in the face just as hard.
Therefore, it is extremely important to me, at least at this point, to fill my life with experiences so that when someone speaks to me about their own experience, I can truly empathize. I will better understand what they are talking about. I think that is about it on this topic. At this point, one may object and question as to why I am a history major then, if I cannot trust information until I experience it for myself. As I stated at the outset of this discussion, this does not affect all aspects of my life. I feel just fine trusting historical documents and other sources of information. It is difficult to explain, but that is basically how I feel. Comment on this if you want/need/desire clarification.
This post is already getting really long, so I think I may stop here even though I have a few other topics to talk about.
REGISTRATION FOR FALL 2011 TOMORROW! :D
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Science, Religion and Morality
As I have said many times before, I love Luther college's lecture program. I have been to so many good ones in my four months here that I cannot wait to return this fall to hear even more. I attended a lecture Wednesday this week that was hosted by the Secular Society here on campus that had recruited two philosophy professors (one that teaches in the religion department as well), one professor from the religion department, and an evolutionary biologist. As I settled into my seat, there was a professor of religion acting as moderator in this discussion and he explained to us how this was going to work. All of the professors had been given specific quotes from various individuals that they were going to respond to. They were to provide their own personal beliefs on the subjects presented in the quotes and then provide some reasoning behind their thinking.
Rather than walking through the entire lecture, which I was silly enough not to bring pen and paper to, I am going to pull out specific points that I found interesting and thought provoking. After I got to the lecture, as a side note, I realized how silly it was of me to not bring paper and pen: there were philosophers here, which are individuals that provide society with thoughtful reflections all the time. Anyhow, rather than dwelling on my forgetfulness, on to the topics presented.
As I mentioned in the title of this post, all of the quotes in this two hour discussion were concerning either the role of science, the role of religion, or morality. I found that most of the quotes were quite heavily loaded with anti-religious sentiment, however. Nonetheless, we had fairly religious people up on stage to provide some counterarguments to these positions.
One of the philosophers made an astute observation concerning the dichotomy or duel between religion and science. As this is a hotly contested subject with varying opinions and viewpoints, I thought that it was quite brave of him to even bring up, not to mention openly criticize. He made the bold claim that this whole religion vs. science debate in our society today is not actually science vs. religion. Rather, he claimed, it was science vs. science. After making this claim, he paused and the entire audience was silent, to use a cliche, you could have heard a pin drop it was so silent. This was a completely different spin on this issue that many members of the audience, I am sure, had not heard before. I, for one, was completely astounded, and I even talked to one of my friends about this claim and he was equally astounded.
The professor backed up his claim and seemed to define what he meant by this assertion. What he meant by saying that it was a debate of science vs. science was that it was a belief/adherence to science of the first century in the common era vs. science of the twenty-first century of the common era. I believe he made some more in-depth arguments and astute observations concerning this, but the overall idea that I began to think about was the validity of such a claim. As a side note, he did mention two individuals, whose names I cannot remember, that adhered to either first century or twenty-first century science. Nonetheless, the fact of the matter, the main idea presented in this declaration was that there were those individuals that see legitimacy in contemporary science while others are a bit more skeptical and tend to disagree with science in the modern age.
I talked to one of my friends about this assertion, as I mentioned before, and after I explained what the professor had said, he made the counter-argument that it was still religion vs. science. However, I do not tend to agree with his position, as even though the science of the first century may have been heavily influenced by religion, it was still science in its day. It was as cutting-edge as science is today. The people back then did not understand that cutting people's veins open in the hopes that he would feel better seemed like a foolish idea. They were of the mind that this was what you were supposed to do. I used an example of more modern times with cancer and chemotherapy. I pointed out that what if, in a hundred years, we had advanced to a stage in our development wherein we had found the cure for cancer. (I suppose my argument assumes the end of the world will not come this may nor in December of 2012. Therefore, if you do truly believe that we are going to die within a few years, you can completely disregard and skip this portion of my post.) I pointed out to him that if we had found a cure for cancer in one hundred years, that the scientists then may find it quite silly that we had ever used chemotherapy in the first place, I mean, look at all the nasty side effects of this treatment.
That was basically where the argument ended, but getting back to the professor's original comment, it does sort of seem to me that what we are fighting over is not whether religion is right or science is right, but whether my version of science is right or your version of science is right. Which leads me to my next point of the role of religion and science.
I believe it was the same sage professor that pointed out our erroneous assumption that there is a debate between religion and science that spoke about the role of religion and science. He claimed that if you are looking for a description of how the world is, then look to science, if you are looking for something more, something deeper that science cannot tell you about, about what is most important in life, then look to religion. I found this statement to be profoundly true. If you are wondering how the brain works, how muscles function, what food is healthy for you, what the circumference of the earth is, you better go ask a scientist, because they are the ones that can tell you about that. However, if you are searching for something deeper and less quantitative than science, then go to a religion and ask those questions, because that is the proper role of religious institutions.
A question that was not sequentially near this question, but is linked to this question, is whether there is a right or wrong religion. And contrary to what seems to me to be mostly popular belief, there is no "right" or "wrong" religion...at least in moderate eyes. Of course there are extremists that will kill you because their religion is most definitely right and yours is wrong, but in many people's estimation, religion is subjective to the personal experience. It has been my experience that most good natured individuals do not tend to push one religious creed upon others as being the only, true way. However, the professor said that there was a better religion than another, to which the audience chuckled because hitherto this man had not espoused radical or extremist views. He again backed up this claim by saying that the correct religion is the one that you choose. He said that if Islam does not work for you, go try Christianity, and if that does not work, go ahead and try Buddhism. Keep searching for a religious tradition that makes you realize that there is something deeper, something that science cannot tell you about. There is more to life than being able to determine which foods are healthy, how muscles function and the circumference of the earth, which is the question of what is most important in life. So, I guess that the whole dichotomy of science and religion ought not look like how we represent it, but rather, their functions are completely different. Religion has this this area to deal with while science deals with this area.
The other philosophy professor made a completely unrelated statement when confronted with the question of whether morality and moral people can exist outside of a religious tradition, to which he said yes. He described religion and morality as two distinct areas of thinking (or something like that. A better phrasing is not coming to me at this moment). He also said that religion relies on morality rather than the other way around. I think the question he was getting at answering here was which came first: the chicken or the egg? Which came first religion or morality? He claimed that morality came first and that religion was a response to how to behave morally. Religion offers a codification of how to behave in a moral way.
One last observation that I remembered from this discussion was that religion is not God. Yes, as wild a claim as that sounds, it seems to be an accurate statement. Religion does not automatically equal God, rather religion is our interpretation of this world/God. The question of whether our sacred texts (in this example, the Bible) were directly written by God seems to me to be quite contrary to what has made it into the Bible. There are so many different stories depicting one even, such as the two creation stories in Genesis, the three stories of how David came to the throne in 1 Samuel, and countless others. However, just because there are multiple accounts of the same event does not mean that God does not exist. It does mean that the Bible was written by previous humans, how were just as malleable and fallible as we are today, so we have to take that into account. I suppose, thinking about it now, that the different interpretations or accounts found in the Bible depicting the same scene are in a sense different experiences felt by different individuals. I think that this means that we cannot discount them because since there are multiple versions that gives us the freedom to choose which we think is more closely related to our own beliefs. Maybe I am wildly wrong on this, but nonetheless, religion is not God, rather religion is our interpretation of the divine/this world.
Just a few more things to talk about and then I will end this insanely long post. First of all, my dad and aunt were talking and they came to the conclusion that, in response to my previous post, desire is the root of violence, and if we were to get rid of all desire, then there would be no violence in the world. I do not think that a whole lot of explanation is going to go into that comment, but you might want to look at my previous post and then put it into context, because otherwise, that statement standing along pretty much explains itself. I think that this is a particularly good observation that I had not thought about before, so thank you dad and Auntie Sue for bringing this to the forefront.
Additionally, I had an interview on Tuesday for a job this next year in the history department. I got an email back on Friday (I was astounded by how rapid the response was) saying that I got the job. I was quite ecstatic the rest of the day and wanted to tell everyone about my great triumph. That means that this fall, I will no longer be working in the dishroom or any other part of the caf, but rather I will be an administrative assistant in the history department and will have another job in the Language Learning Center either helping students in need of help or assisting professors if they need help. I am pretty excited to start next fall.
I think that is it... So...until next post...
Rather than walking through the entire lecture, which I was silly enough not to bring pen and paper to, I am going to pull out specific points that I found interesting and thought provoking. After I got to the lecture, as a side note, I realized how silly it was of me to not bring paper and pen: there were philosophers here, which are individuals that provide society with thoughtful reflections all the time. Anyhow, rather than dwelling on my forgetfulness, on to the topics presented.
As I mentioned in the title of this post, all of the quotes in this two hour discussion were concerning either the role of science, the role of religion, or morality. I found that most of the quotes were quite heavily loaded with anti-religious sentiment, however. Nonetheless, we had fairly religious people up on stage to provide some counterarguments to these positions.
One of the philosophers made an astute observation concerning the dichotomy or duel between religion and science. As this is a hotly contested subject with varying opinions and viewpoints, I thought that it was quite brave of him to even bring up, not to mention openly criticize. He made the bold claim that this whole religion vs. science debate in our society today is not actually science vs. religion. Rather, he claimed, it was science vs. science. After making this claim, he paused and the entire audience was silent, to use a cliche, you could have heard a pin drop it was so silent. This was a completely different spin on this issue that many members of the audience, I am sure, had not heard before. I, for one, was completely astounded, and I even talked to one of my friends about this claim and he was equally astounded.
The professor backed up his claim and seemed to define what he meant by this assertion. What he meant by saying that it was a debate of science vs. science was that it was a belief/adherence to science of the first century in the common era vs. science of the twenty-first century of the common era. I believe he made some more in-depth arguments and astute observations concerning this, but the overall idea that I began to think about was the validity of such a claim. As a side note, he did mention two individuals, whose names I cannot remember, that adhered to either first century or twenty-first century science. Nonetheless, the fact of the matter, the main idea presented in this declaration was that there were those individuals that see legitimacy in contemporary science while others are a bit more skeptical and tend to disagree with science in the modern age.
I talked to one of my friends about this assertion, as I mentioned before, and after I explained what the professor had said, he made the counter-argument that it was still religion vs. science. However, I do not tend to agree with his position, as even though the science of the first century may have been heavily influenced by religion, it was still science in its day. It was as cutting-edge as science is today. The people back then did not understand that cutting people's veins open in the hopes that he would feel better seemed like a foolish idea. They were of the mind that this was what you were supposed to do. I used an example of more modern times with cancer and chemotherapy. I pointed out that what if, in a hundred years, we had advanced to a stage in our development wherein we had found the cure for cancer. (I suppose my argument assumes the end of the world will not come this may nor in December of 2012. Therefore, if you do truly believe that we are going to die within a few years, you can completely disregard and skip this portion of my post.) I pointed out to him that if we had found a cure for cancer in one hundred years, that the scientists then may find it quite silly that we had ever used chemotherapy in the first place, I mean, look at all the nasty side effects of this treatment.
That was basically where the argument ended, but getting back to the professor's original comment, it does sort of seem to me that what we are fighting over is not whether religion is right or science is right, but whether my version of science is right or your version of science is right. Which leads me to my next point of the role of religion and science.
I believe it was the same sage professor that pointed out our erroneous assumption that there is a debate between religion and science that spoke about the role of religion and science. He claimed that if you are looking for a description of how the world is, then look to science, if you are looking for something more, something deeper that science cannot tell you about, about what is most important in life, then look to religion. I found this statement to be profoundly true. If you are wondering how the brain works, how muscles function, what food is healthy for you, what the circumference of the earth is, you better go ask a scientist, because they are the ones that can tell you about that. However, if you are searching for something deeper and less quantitative than science, then go to a religion and ask those questions, because that is the proper role of religious institutions.
A question that was not sequentially near this question, but is linked to this question, is whether there is a right or wrong religion. And contrary to what seems to me to be mostly popular belief, there is no "right" or "wrong" religion...at least in moderate eyes. Of course there are extremists that will kill you because their religion is most definitely right and yours is wrong, but in many people's estimation, religion is subjective to the personal experience. It has been my experience that most good natured individuals do not tend to push one religious creed upon others as being the only, true way. However, the professor said that there was a better religion than another, to which the audience chuckled because hitherto this man had not espoused radical or extremist views. He again backed up this claim by saying that the correct religion is the one that you choose. He said that if Islam does not work for you, go try Christianity, and if that does not work, go ahead and try Buddhism. Keep searching for a religious tradition that makes you realize that there is something deeper, something that science cannot tell you about. There is more to life than being able to determine which foods are healthy, how muscles function and the circumference of the earth, which is the question of what is most important in life. So, I guess that the whole dichotomy of science and religion ought not look like how we represent it, but rather, their functions are completely different. Religion has this this area to deal with while science deals with this area.
The other philosophy professor made a completely unrelated statement when confronted with the question of whether morality and moral people can exist outside of a religious tradition, to which he said yes. He described religion and morality as two distinct areas of thinking (or something like that. A better phrasing is not coming to me at this moment). He also said that religion relies on morality rather than the other way around. I think the question he was getting at answering here was which came first: the chicken or the egg? Which came first religion or morality? He claimed that morality came first and that religion was a response to how to behave morally. Religion offers a codification of how to behave in a moral way.
One last observation that I remembered from this discussion was that religion is not God. Yes, as wild a claim as that sounds, it seems to be an accurate statement. Religion does not automatically equal God, rather religion is our interpretation of this world/God. The question of whether our sacred texts (in this example, the Bible) were directly written by God seems to me to be quite contrary to what has made it into the Bible. There are so many different stories depicting one even, such as the two creation stories in Genesis, the three stories of how David came to the throne in 1 Samuel, and countless others. However, just because there are multiple accounts of the same event does not mean that God does not exist. It does mean that the Bible was written by previous humans, how were just as malleable and fallible as we are today, so we have to take that into account. I suppose, thinking about it now, that the different interpretations or accounts found in the Bible depicting the same scene are in a sense different experiences felt by different individuals. I think that this means that we cannot discount them because since there are multiple versions that gives us the freedom to choose which we think is more closely related to our own beliefs. Maybe I am wildly wrong on this, but nonetheless, religion is not God, rather religion is our interpretation of the divine/this world.
Just a few more things to talk about and then I will end this insanely long post. First of all, my dad and aunt were talking and they came to the conclusion that, in response to my previous post, desire is the root of violence, and if we were to get rid of all desire, then there would be no violence in the world. I do not think that a whole lot of explanation is going to go into that comment, but you might want to look at my previous post and then put it into context, because otherwise, that statement standing along pretty much explains itself. I think that this is a particularly good observation that I had not thought about before, so thank you dad and Auntie Sue for bringing this to the forefront.
Additionally, I had an interview on Tuesday for a job this next year in the history department. I got an email back on Friday (I was astounded by how rapid the response was) saying that I got the job. I was quite ecstatic the rest of the day and wanted to tell everyone about my great triumph. That means that this fall, I will no longer be working in the dishroom or any other part of the caf, but rather I will be an administrative assistant in the history department and will have another job in the Language Learning Center either helping students in need of help or assisting professors if they need help. I am pretty excited to start next fall.
I think that is it... So...until next post...
Thursday, April 7, 2011
War and Peace
I was watching this video and it made me think about a lot of issues in the world. As a random side note that I have discovered as I have gotten older is that the world is a crazy, intricate and insanely complex place. Seriously. Some time (if you get the time) you should really just think and contemplate about how people interact and how when you are faced with new situations where completely new faces appear, how insane it is to think that those people have been living in your neighborhood, or in your city, or in your state, or in your country and you have never even interacted or talked to them. I once had this idea about creating this picture with my bubble at the center (Of course! Who else would fill that position? No one!!!) and then connecting with a line to all of the other bubbles that I have had contact with at some point in my life and then continuing this process. If we did that, then I think it could be argued that everyone is connected to everyone else. And after thinking about this while typing it, it seems that this idea has already been put into action. People have already implemented this idea in the form of the 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Anyhow, back to the video. Watch it if you want. It is one of my favorite bands making a video for their song. I think that the quality of the video and such aside, which was great in my opinion, it forced me to think about some of the themes it talked about. Maybe I made some gigantic leaps in my thinking when I was watching the video, but I do not think they are that huge and even if they are, this is my brain we are talking about and you consent to this type of torture when you read my first post.
The stated mission of the band at the beginning of the video is that this is a song for peace, ironic considering the title of the song is "This is War" usually a declarative statement made my some talking head made in an effort to encourage the populace to support his/her decisions and actions. However, it made me think: what if we were to take away all weapons, of any scale? Many countries have been trying to get rid of their weapons of mass destruction after the Cold War and the tensions associated with that period, but they still retain guns. Guns can do some damage as well. Granted, they cannot do as much wide-spread instantaneous or long-term damage as nukes, but they can still kill people and do on a daily basis. So, what if we were to band together as a world and get rid of all of our weapons?
Well, the first problem I thought about when I considered this possibility was that even if we were to get rid of all the guns, knives and nukes in the world, people would get creative and resort to something else. They would get broom handles and start beating people with them, they would take their headphones and choke someone they did not like. So, ultimately even if we were to completely eradicate weapons from the face of the earth, that would not mean that peace would ensue. People would get creative and start using random, seemingly harmless objects and use them as weapons.
This then led me to believe that fighting would have to cease in order for real world peace to ensue. You can take away all of the objects that do the killing, but humans are still here, coupled with other objects with the potential of killing. In order for world peace to ensue we would have to end the desire for fighting and conflict in human beings. Is this even conceivable? Can we completely eradicate any sense of fighting in humans, or is it simply part of human nature to be desirous of fighting? Perhaps not as desirous as I seem to have put it, but I hope you can get my point. Is fighting with violence simply part of human nature and thus unchangeable? Is violence one more characteristic that makes us human?
One more considerable question I thought about but was hesitant to put on my little scrap of paper I had available when watching this video and am still unsure about as I write about it now, is can there be fighting without violence? Alright, say we can't get rid of fighting because it is too deeply ingrained in the human psyche/nature but can we keep our fighting nature but do it without the resort to physical violence? Or are these two intricately intertwined issues to the extent that untangling them would be a hassle/impossible?
Anyway, I think that is about it for now. I went to a lecture tonight about science, religion and morality -- which was absolutely awesome. I will definitely be posting some more interesting questions the lecture brought up, along with an update on various academic things as tomorrow is a big academic-oriented day for me.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
First Post
Hello and welcome. In this blog, prepare yourself for an adventure, the likes of which has never been attempted before: going inside Andy's head. If you are too afraid of the prospect that goes on within my skull, then I would advise you to leave now while you still can. Good. Now that we have weeded out the weaklings, we can now proceed to some more serious business.
First off, my day at work today was ________(adjective I have yet to determine). I was supposed to work on deli line and then we were short so they switched me to the typical breakfast line, which was understandably busier because there are not a whole lot of people that want sandwiches and wraps at 10am. Anyhow, I got over to the line and busted my butt to get through the line that snaked through the cafeteria serving area. Also per usual, the cooks could not keep up with the demand they were facing, so I was constantly short of food, so I switched over to the line with more food since my own line was deprived of food. Mike and I were throwing the food (both figuratively and sometimes literally) at the hungry mob of college students.
After the cafeteria was shut down for brunch was when things started to get even more interesting. I started to talking to Mike, and we shared a lot of information for never talking to each other before. Potential friend I think. Anyhow, he is from Andover and went to AR for a year and a half, worked at Bunker Beach for several years, and just transferred to Luther as well. Needless to say, it was awesome to share stories with him and find someone that I had so much in common with. We started cleaning the line and then when it was all done, I went out into the actual dining room and started assisted in cleaning tables and such. This is when my great revelation and the push that I needed to create this blog came from. I noticed two phenomena while I was cleaning tables.
First of all, and perhaps not surprisingly, (undergrad) college kids are generally lazy yet destructive. The tables were absolutely disgusting, it was as if a renegade group of two year old who cannot feed themselves had come to the cafeteria. Food was all over the floor, syrup was on the tables, and dishes were left at the tables. First of all, you pass the dish return on your way out of the cafeteria (which, by the way, I will henceforth refer to as the "caf") so it is not like it is some great inconvenience to put your dishes on the turnstyle. Secondly, really?! What were you doing while you were eating? Did you lose all hand-eye coordination or forget where your mouth is? Grr... Anyhow, I was doing my duty nonetheless. This is where my college kids are lazy observation comes in. I had just busted my ass off (in my opinion at least) and I am sure everyone else did as well, yet there were kids slacking, sitting down and texting, and just generally being dinks. This is not a new phenomenon either. I understand wanting to take a little break from standing for a couple hours, but you can do something productive while you do this. Seriously. Not that difficult. I just thought about how disappointing our generation is insofar that we do not know what hard work looks like.
As I was cleaning tables, I also thought about how mindless this activity was and about how often people complain about mindless activities being a waste of time. However, consider the following argument that I will hopefully make clear: mindless activities may be demeaning and whatever other negative adjectives you wish to attach to such times, but at the same time you are offered free time for your brain to think about anything. Absolutely anything you want, which is, in my opinion, awesome and ultimately important to being human. For example, since my brain was not needed to concentrate on much else other than a repetitive motion of cleaning, I was able to think about all of the proceeding plus other random thoughts. I have noticed this occurring while I shovel snow (which apparently only falls in Minnesnowta) and when driving somewhere. Both are quite mindless (although you ought to have your mind somewhat on the road when driving), which leaves you to ponder strange or interesting natural or social phenomena. And to conclude this paragraph and post in general (since I am running out of things to write) in light of my recent reading of Plato's "The Apology," consider the quotation Plato attributes to Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living."
That is all for now, I am sure I will have more tomorrow or the next day because I have a busy schedule this week, including an oral exam in Spanish, an interview for a position in the history department, a lecture from a man who will be talking about his account of the Egyptian Revolution earlier this year, a dialogue given by multiple professors at Luther concerning creationism vs. evolution, which should be interesting and insightful, and then finally I get to talk with my adviser concerning registration for the upcoming fall. Pretty exciting week, one of only 6 or so left this academic year. :))
First off, my day at work today was ________(adjective I have yet to determine). I was supposed to work on deli line and then we were short so they switched me to the typical breakfast line, which was understandably busier because there are not a whole lot of people that want sandwiches and wraps at 10am. Anyhow, I got over to the line and busted my butt to get through the line that snaked through the cafeteria serving area. Also per usual, the cooks could not keep up with the demand they were facing, so I was constantly short of food, so I switched over to the line with more food since my own line was deprived of food. Mike and I were throwing the food (both figuratively and sometimes literally) at the hungry mob of college students.
After the cafeteria was shut down for brunch was when things started to get even more interesting. I started to talking to Mike, and we shared a lot of information for never talking to each other before. Potential friend I think. Anyhow, he is from Andover and went to AR for a year and a half, worked at Bunker Beach for several years, and just transferred to Luther as well. Needless to say, it was awesome to share stories with him and find someone that I had so much in common with. We started cleaning the line and then when it was all done, I went out into the actual dining room and started assisted in cleaning tables and such. This is when my great revelation and the push that I needed to create this blog came from. I noticed two phenomena while I was cleaning tables.
First of all, and perhaps not surprisingly, (undergrad) college kids are generally lazy yet destructive. The tables were absolutely disgusting, it was as if a renegade group of two year old who cannot feed themselves had come to the cafeteria. Food was all over the floor, syrup was on the tables, and dishes were left at the tables. First of all, you pass the dish return on your way out of the cafeteria (which, by the way, I will henceforth refer to as the "caf") so it is not like it is some great inconvenience to put your dishes on the turnstyle. Secondly, really?! What were you doing while you were eating? Did you lose all hand-eye coordination or forget where your mouth is? Grr... Anyhow, I was doing my duty nonetheless. This is where my college kids are lazy observation comes in. I had just busted my ass off (in my opinion at least) and I am sure everyone else did as well, yet there were kids slacking, sitting down and texting, and just generally being dinks. This is not a new phenomenon either. I understand wanting to take a little break from standing for a couple hours, but you can do something productive while you do this. Seriously. Not that difficult. I just thought about how disappointing our generation is insofar that we do not know what hard work looks like.
As I was cleaning tables, I also thought about how mindless this activity was and about how often people complain about mindless activities being a waste of time. However, consider the following argument that I will hopefully make clear: mindless activities may be demeaning and whatever other negative adjectives you wish to attach to such times, but at the same time you are offered free time for your brain to think about anything. Absolutely anything you want, which is, in my opinion, awesome and ultimately important to being human. For example, since my brain was not needed to concentrate on much else other than a repetitive motion of cleaning, I was able to think about all of the proceeding plus other random thoughts. I have noticed this occurring while I shovel snow (which apparently only falls in Minnesnowta) and when driving somewhere. Both are quite mindless (although you ought to have your mind somewhat on the road when driving), which leaves you to ponder strange or interesting natural or social phenomena. And to conclude this paragraph and post in general (since I am running out of things to write) in light of my recent reading of Plato's "The Apology," consider the quotation Plato attributes to Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living."
That is all for now, I am sure I will have more tomorrow or the next day because I have a busy schedule this week, including an oral exam in Spanish, an interview for a position in the history department, a lecture from a man who will be talking about his account of the Egyptian Revolution earlier this year, a dialogue given by multiple professors at Luther concerning creationism vs. evolution, which should be interesting and insightful, and then finally I get to talk with my adviser concerning registration for the upcoming fall. Pretty exciting week, one of only 6 or so left this academic year. :))
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