Free Will.

I have started reading chapter 15 and so far I find it interesting to see the duel views of free will. If I had to pick a side as to where I stand, I would say I agree with the Libertarians view that we do have free will. I believe that we are all responsible for our actions, granted that we are in sound mind. The only way person isn't in charge of their action is if they are mentally/ emotionally unstable; other than that we do have free will. Even believing in God, you have your free will to choose if you want to do whats morally right or morally wrong. Many people think that you are not free because God supposedly "brainwashes" you to do what He wants; not the case. God loves us and does have our will set out for us, but He makes us choose whether to follow Him or not. This choice was due to the fact that Adam and Eve ate the apple and "their eyes were open," forcing them to know the difference between good and evil.
We have a free will to choose our actions as long as we are ready to take responsibility for them in the end and not make excuses. Now that I think about it, it seems like existentialists and determinist's would be great enemies since they have conflicting views. In what I read so far I can only see the determinist's as excuse makers, using past events/ancestors always as an excuse to get out of the consequences of their actions. To clarify my self even further, I do believe in involuntary actions as well as voluntary actions. If we have to think and reason about something and come to a conclusion, that is a voluntary action. If our body does something without us thinking then that is a involuntary action. Being hungry is involuntary, because we do not think about being hungry it just happens. Whether we eat or not (or even what we choose to eat) is voluntary because it takes reasoning and deliberating.
Another thing stated by the determinist's that I want to clarify is the subject of want and desire. OK, we cannot help the things that we find appealing and that is arousing to us, but we do choose as to whether we give into our desire or not. If a person placed a huge chocolate cheesecake in front of me and they know that is my weakness, the cheesecake is something I really want, but I know if I eat it I will get fat it is up to me whether I give into my want or my reason. I could show weakness and indulge or I could show discipline and walk away. The same can go for any desire people have. It's their choice. Free will is free will!

Superiority

"The infirm or the stupid should be sterilized so their genes are not passed on,"this was a statement made by Darwin. This strikes me as a negative thought that may have been used as one of the justifications for many evil things done in the world. As soon as I read this I thought of Hitler's take on ethnic cleansing and his belief that the Aryan race was superior. This also puts me in the mind of slavery and how many people may use this as their reason as to why they enslaved those "under them. I do not believe anyone should be sterilized and that anyone is stupid and weak. Everyone is human, and everyone (though may not be equal in strength and knowledge) is equal in their right to live and breed.
Another thing that bothers me is this Survival of the Fittest thing. I think just hearing this theory creates a superiority complex in people making them think that they have all right to live, but they can do w/o the people who are "beneath them." Isn't this theory saying that one person has more value than the other? Can anyone be called less fit to survive? We are all created equally to carry out our purpose, but then Darwin states that people should be sterilized and the fit will only survive; why and how did he come to this conclusion? Darwin did take a great leap to press on a seriously touchy issue. This doesn't only denies the role of God but it blatantly tells those who have been sick most of their life that the reason why they are sick and are going to die is because they are not fit to survive. They have no reason to breed; they need to be sterilized. They are an unequal to the healthy "superior" person. I don't understand. Maybe I am not understanding what Darwin meant. I don't get it. :-x

Evolution and Ethics

First I just want to state my opinion on Darwin's theories (again). I don't know who I thinks is more absurd Nietzsche's or Darwin's. I mean this is just my opinion; I know there are people out there who agree with Darwin, but I fail to see how I come from a baboon or monkey or whatever he says we evolved from.
Now that got that out of my system, I wanted to take a closer look at the at pages 217-219 which talks about ethics. I do not understand what Pojman is trying to get across. He tells us about three types of birds, who usually attract parasites and the only way to free themselves of the parasites is to clean themselves. Technically they cannot literally clean themselves, but they rely on other birds to clean them. I see a connection to humans we don't rely on others to clean us, however, we do rely on other people to survive. Now these "birds" have three different personality traits; the sucker (who cleans everyone whether they reciprocate or not), the cheater (who never cleans any other bird but expects other birds to clean them) and the grudgers (who as their name implies only cleans those who cleans them and holds grudges against the cheaters). Since I believe the birds are suppose to represent a community of people which the book says that the suckers are the Christians, being totally altruistic, what is Dawkins implying? Is humanity suppose to be grudgers? Why are the Christians labeled as the suckers? Is it because we believe in love for all no matter what they have done to us? Why is that so wrong? Should we only do good deeds as long as we get something in return? Only do things for gain and not for the morality we hold? This is what I do not understand. I believe that good deeds should be rewarded on occasion, but don't let that be the only reason you do something. Do things because you know its morally right, not for fame or fortune. For the bad you do, yea you should be punished. I don't know, all I do know is that I found this interesting and it sparked many questions for me.

Religion, Evolution, and Evil!

OK, so I began reading the chapter on Darwin and I just have one thing to say...........what? I do not understand any of this evolutionary mumbo jumbo and the parts that I do understand are just going against creationism. I have talked to many people and when we do end up talking about Christianity , someone always says there is no room for Christianity anymore because so many people aren't acknowledging God as the creator of the Universe and everything in it, but they always turn to Science. There was a movie made a few years back called "The Reaping," and in this movie there was a scientist who was once a Christian, but then rejected the faith because of a personal problem that happened to her. As a Christian friend was talking to her he told her to explain all the plagues that happened in the bible when Moses asked Pharaoh to let his people go. Within less than a minute she gave a scientific explanation for all the plagues that happened, ruling out any possible involvement that God had. I was really shocked, but back to evolution. I so not believe I cam from a monkey. OK so there have been tests and research and data that shows humans and chimpanzees have almost identical genetic structure. OK and?
I was never big on this whole big bang/ evolutionary theory and I still am not. Maybe that is why I am having such a hard time with this chapter. What really set me of is that on pg 211, it states, " whereas religious accounts of the origin of evil have less impressive credentials." How dare they!? Then Pojman go on to question God and Him not being "more efficient." I mean come on, it was said in this chapter that the evolutionary theories have little proof.
Even though science and Christianity and all of these other theories differ, I must say that I did find one interlacing fact ( yea I was surprised). The bible says, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." Jesus also says to make sure not to get caught up in the things of this world. Giving into the things of the world and bodily desires is what causes sin and greed and many of the philosophers agree with this. It is because of a persons wants and desires and their yearning to fulfill these wants and desires that there is evil. In this chapter it says, "Much, if not most, of moral or human made evil is the "unintended" result of nature's making us creatures with insatiable wants but limited resources and sympathies." I interpret this as due to the desires of man, evil (sin) is the result. That is the only underlying theme that I see between philosophy and religion.
I will try my best to finish this chapter, but like I said before it is hard to understand. I am trying my best to be patient, but it is just a fact of the matter that I don't believe in this and they are bashing religion harshly.

Real Truth.

While we were going over the existentialism chapter, my attention was directed towards page 191 on the discussion of truth. The parable of the two worshipers interested me not only on a philosophical level, but also a realistic level. The parable states that there are two worshipers one who prays to the one true God and the other who prays to an idol. The worshiper who prays to the true God and has a real conception of God prays in a false spirit. He maybe just prays because he feels like he is obligated to and has no real emotion towards God. The person who worships the idol, though the idol isn't the real thing , the worshiper prays in a real spirit. To be honest I agree with Kierkegaard when he implies the person who is preying to the idol is the one that holds the real truth. I can see this on a realistic level because when I go to church I see people jumping up and down and fainting, and sometimes I think they aren't feeling the real spirit, they aren't worshiping truthfully. I really don't know because I am not inside their head, but sometimes I feel like they jump up and down because they may feel like they are obligated to. Then I look at the person who sits there not making a sound, just sitting there quite as a mouse and I think maybe they are the one who is having the real connection with God although many think in order to worship God you must jump and dance. I didn't mean to go into something like this , but the parable just made me think about that.
There is no real definition to truth, everyone has their own truth. Kierkegaard says that "the most passionate inwardness is the truth, the highest truth attainable for an existing individual." In other words, once someone is doing something whole-heartedly and full of emotion and not faking it, that is their truth. Truth requires feeling, emotional feeling that one exerts into somthing. Ithink this topic struck me also because of the example that is always used in class. Look out the window and you see the tree, how do you know the tree is really there. Unless you believe whole-heartedly that you see a tree , instead of just thinking "yea I guess thats a tree," then you have discovered your truth. It is important hold on to your truth once you have attained it. It is important that everything is done in truth and with passion. It is only through truth that we can have faith and only through faith we can have life.

Our Journey called life

Life itself is a journey. Within this big journey of life we have mini-journeys which are the roads we take in order to reach goals we set up for ourselves. There is a problem with setting goals however. People don't realize that they shouldn't only concentrate on their goal, but how they go about their goal, the road that they take to reach it. We learn from our journeys and if we do reach the end we can say that achieving our goal is our reward. Even if things don't turn out the way we want them to, going through that experience made us more knowledgeable than we were before we started.
The journey of life shouldn't be taken for granted. It should be looked at as special and even though there are rough times, we should continue on with life learning from the rough times. We should also be mindful that if we live our life well that in the end(when we die), our reward will be that in heaven (if you believe in heaven). Life is taken for granted everyday just because we find things don't go our way, which may lead us to say "I hate my life or "Life sucks." I am guilty of doing such a thing, when life gets stressful for me I say, "ugh life is so hard I just want to die." Of course I don't mean it, but I realize now that I still shouldn't say things like that. Life being "hard" or "stressful" is just a journey in which you learn to juggle more than one task and learn patience and endurance. I know one cannot be happy about life all the time, but I feel we should start analyzing why do we think we feel the way we do about life. What can we learn from each circumstance we go through? There is always something to be leaned from life, we just have to be willing to be taught.

Philosophical Sayings.

Today in class I heard a quote that stuck to me, "No man is an island." I agree with this to the fullest. I am the type of person who wants to be independent and loves doing everything myself but, even though I may not want to, there are times where I just have to bite the bullet and ask for help. We live in an interdependent world, as I did state in an earlier blog. If we were to go to the woods and try to live alone without anyone, which I believe Thoreau tried to do, we wouldn't survive. Humans are social animals, relying on others to reproduce, talk to, help, and just be around. Though it is hard for me to be around people due to my introverted personality I know I have to be.
Another thing that I have been thinking about for quite awhile is, since we, as humans, are suppose to define themselves and our life, why is it said that life is pointless and absurd. Doesn't that mean we are making it pointless, since we have the power to do what we want. I , at many times, had said "I'm bored", and I am sure you have to, but aren't we just making ourselves bored? Don't we have the power to make our lives exciting? On this topic I want to talk about Nietzsche. He describes the "routine" life of someone who wakes up, goes to work, comes home, showers, watch TV, go to bed (just to do the same thing the next day) as wasting life. How is that wasting life? People have to make a living don't they? Also, I am almost positive that the same thing doesn't happen in the same order everyday. This is why I do not like his theories and many other theories of philosophers. They love to generalize and try to make it seem like every one is the same Everyone is evil, everyone is naturally good, everyone has lives that are absurd! I just don't understand , and I don't think I ever will.