Suffering and Nietzsche

OK, so listening to the side of the tape about Nietzsche was a bit interesting and confusing at the same time. He likes pain? Maybe because of the sheltered life he lived, he grew up to despise and rebel against it. He is one of those philosophers brought up in a good Go atmosphere , just to turn into a atheist who talks about pain. On the tape it was explained that suffering is good. And that the healthy persons life is full of suffering. Is this true? I mean I know to go through many trials and tribulations is to be made stronger, but it can be detrimental to a person to have a life of suffering. Not everyone can bounce back after going through such pain.
I do not agree when it was said that , "Suffering just happens" and that it was "Bound to happen." No, suffering doesn't just happen, it happens because people take certain paths in their lives that causes them and others to suffer whether it be intentionally or accidentally. I do believe there are circumstances that blaming oneself is appropriate , but Nietzsche asks , "Why blame yourself for something?" You blame yourself maybe because you see that there was something you could have done, but didn't or you see that there was something you shouldn't have done but did. This philosopher really had some ideas that were out there, and needed to stay out there. I didn't like his points at all, at least the way they were portrayed on the tape.

Faith vs Proof: A response to "The Leap of Faith."

Faith is the belief in something/ someone without it being physically present. People, however, cannot believe without having faith. How can you seriously know that 2+2=4? Because your teacher taught it to you? Wouldn't you have to have faith that your teacher actually knows what they are talking about to believe them? Yea, you can do the math for yourself with objects or even your fingers, but who is to say that addition isn't really subtraction and what we were taught is subtraction is really division? We had faith in those who taught us math to believe what they say and take it for the truth. People have faith in people,(trust) to teach them what is what sometimes without physical truth. Believing teachers and parents is the "Leap of Faith" that we take and then establish truth. Another example is religion. It has a lot to do with faith because one cannot see God, but those that are devout to Him knows that He is there. People who believe in religion believe that God is present in the atmosphere around us and do not need a physical being to know that He is there. The recording was talking about the difference about faith and proof. Well it seems that proof feeds into faith for some, if not many.
Another thing from yesterdays class that got me thinking was when the speaker was talking about people imagine they believe in religion and then you have those who truly do believe in religion. Religion,like i said in a previous post, isn't a physical thing; it is a spiritual and emotional thing. Those who supposedly "imagine the believe in God" may not have that connection with Him and don't acknowledge Him unless they need something. Also these people listen to sermons, but are absent minded while the sermons are going on and do not digest the word. They hear the pastor taking , but they don't understand or practice the Word of God. Those who truly believe try their best to please Jesus and listen whole-heartedly to the sermon digesting it and practicing it. Faith is a hard thing to have because we are spoiled to always have physical objects to cast our senses on. To get over not having faith, we must get over fully relying on our senses.

Freedom of Life?

What is freedom? Why do we have freedom? Are we truly free? Personally, I believe freedom is the ability to choose a direction or path we want to take. Humans do have freedom but as oxymoronic as it sounds, we have a restricted freedom. We have laws to guide us (even though we choose whether or not we follow the rules) and we have social moral codes that we follow (if we don't we can be exiled or looked at as an outcast.) I do believe that God has a purpose for all of us, but he gives us the freedom to choose whether or not we want to live out the life he has for us. We have the freedom to do good/ we have the freedom to do wrong. In existentialism, it is said that we make our morals and define ourselves by what we do; I agree. If we do just things we can be defined as just, if we do things that are wrong then we can be looked at as unjust; though this is true, each individual has their own definition of moral and immoral things.
The topic of freedom is a complex one. Everyone has their own concept of freedom. People feel free because they have religion, others don't feel free because of religion. People only feel freedom if they are harming someone and others feel truly free if they are helping. "We are free to create our own essence...We are totally responsible for our actions, for what we become." Though our parents raise us to hold certain values,when we are older we have the freedom to choose whether or not we keep those values. As long as we make sure we take responsibility as to how we use our freedom, I think no one can really say what is moral or not.

Existentialism

"Your life lacks definition. It is meaningless. Life is absurd." These were the first ideas pumped into my head about existentialism. It has always been a complex subject for me because it raises many questions and clashes with the thought of religion. In existentialism, a person supposedly defines themselves and gains their own self moral and self worth not relying on society's standards. Everyone, each individual is suppose to remain an individual having their own thoughts, concepts and values , not relying on the outside world. For me, being religious, I believe that essence precede existence in the fact that God has a plan for our lives and that is to live by His word so when we die we go to Heaven.
On the topic of death it is,I feel, another complex topic in existentialism. Many people wonder, if I am suppose to define my life why was I made in the first place? They may also say, Life is full of heartache, tragedy, and disappointments and then eventually I die, Why live now? Then the topic of suicide comes in. People know death is inevitable though sometimes we forget and think we are immortal. Though we don't ponder about death 24/7 when it does come to mind it is a scary and nerve racking thought. It becomes so nerve racking that people take death into their own hands and commit suicide. Another reason why people may commit suicide is that in the process of trying to "define" their lives they hit an obstacle that seems to be never ending or people may think that they have done putting definition to their lives just to have that one thing be taken away. My opinion on existentialism is that i is a gloomy and depressing subject that has a few points that are true in my eyes. I do believe that people have their own truth and they live that truth through their actions; even though society may take a persons truth and distort it making people think that what they hold as true is really their truth but it isn't, it is society's truth. Also, I believe that we have to make decisions in life and are granted that freedom, but that is for a later entry.

Let's not talk about sex?

In class today the topic of Pansexuality came up and someone mentioned that sex is a topic that isn't really talked about even though it is everywhere. I must say that I agree, sex is everywhere and it supposedly thought about multiple times throughout the day. It is in movies, magazines, the Internet, and even in books, however to blatantly talk about sex, it doesn't really happen. Sex has always been. and still is an intimate topic. It was said that even during the time that Freud wrote his theories, sex was not a talked about subject. So it made me think, why did he make such a bold move? also where did he get all his sexual references from if sex was not popular? Did he only base it off of his sexual desire?
Another thing I don't understand, is that Freud says that as children, the girls had penis envy and we do not remember having penis envy because we were little. I mean the only reason I would think a girl would have penis envy is because guys can stand up to pee and girls have to sit down or squat. But if we were so little and we didn't even know what penis's were how could we have penis envy. My parents were strict and never knew a male appendage until I was of age to remember my thoughts. Some of his theories seem to be really under-developed.
I also was wondering about something else. You see, I am in this class called Popular Hollywood films of the 1950's and I watched this movie in which the younger man fell for an older woman. How would Freud explain this? Would he say that the man never went through the Oedipus complex and is finally going through it as he is choosing a mate? In the movie he never talked about his mom and only his mom so one can assume she died while he was young. So does having/desiring an older mate connect in anyway to Freud's theories of development?