In class today, we talked a lot about atonement and the forgiveness that goes along with it. One question that was raised was “what if the offended didn’t give you the option to atone for what you did wrong?” Well, in my opinion, that raises another question of what if the offender recognized that they did wrong and should apologize and repent, but simply decided not to, but was given forgiveness anyway.
I recognize that in this argument, depending on the extent on the situation, this could be a really evil person. But if a person decidedly did something very wrong and chose not to follow through the period of atonement in some way, and still received forgiveness, do they automatically get sent straight to Hell?
Also, another topic that was raised during class was does a person who constantly apologizes for nothing lose the meaning of atonement? Personally, I feel that at least if someone is honestly repenting repeatedly because they feel that they were in the wrong, then it’s not a bad thing.
So, I guess what I am getting at is . . . Where is the line drawn at repenting repeatedly? And is it better to atone too much than not at all?
We were saying God wants us to lead a selfless life. God also wants us to act in a just manner, right?
So I’m thinking blind forgiveness is a good example of why we can’t do both. To instaforgive seems unjust. To instaforgive is also selfless. Either way we go we have wronged God. Is this not a problem for theists?
Is it selfless to forgive someone who doesn’t deserve or ask for forgiveness, or am I using selfless too loosely?
I was reading a bunch of the philosophy of religion posts that explore the idea of a triple O-god, and while wondering whether or not god exists, I started to wonder; if god doesn’t exist, then why would the idea of god exists? And this made me think about the idea that maybe god is the human interpretation of the absence of knowledge. If you look at the history of the human race, as more knowledge is accumulated and more about the world and its operations leave the outer limits of the human consciousness and enter into its wider view, the quantity of gods worshiped in religion decrease from a substantial amount in polytheistic systems to just one in the transition to monotheism.
Now if you step all the way back to animism, which is like the beta version of religion, it explains some fundamental questions that one might have while experiencing reality, such as why are somethings animate and somethings inanimate and what are dreams. And I feel like it’s the real pioneer of the concept of the soul.
This made me wonder If god exists, in whatever form, wouldn’t gods relevance some what be hinged on whether or not humans have souls? Because how can you be rewarded or condemned in an after life if you don’t have a soul?
I thought this video was interesting and might stir up some controversy for the philosophy of religion class. Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus || Spoken Word
As a young child I was told to believe in god. Every Saturday my family would attend our temple along with a large portion of other conservative Jews. Along with that every Sunday I would attend a Jewish day school and learn things like the prayers and culture of my Jewish heritage. At the age of thirteen I was bar mitzva. On the day of my bar mitzva my task was to read out of the Jewish bible in Hebrew (the jewish language). Overall I had to read about fifteen paragraphs out loud and to be honest I didn’t even understand what I was saying. It was all memorized.
This got me thinking. How much did I really know about my own religion? As I thought about this I began to research my history with more care. As I grew more knowledgeable I acquired more respect for my culture however the idea of an all powerful god seemed more and more ridiculous. I just couldn’t imagine a god being able to split the seas for Moses to be true. I look at an Omnipotent being as only a myth. The reading made my beliefs even clearer to me when it brought up the stone theory.
As a young child I was told to believe in god. Every Saturday my family would attend our temple along with a large portion of other conservative Jews. Along with that every Sunday I would attend a Jewish day school and learn things like the prayers and culture of my Jewish heritage. At the age of thirteen I was bar mitzva. On the day of my bar mitzva my task was to read out of the Jewish bible in Hebrew (the jewish language). Overall I had to read about fifteen paragraphs out loud and to be honest I didn’t even understand what I was saying. It was all memorized.
This got me thinking. How much did I really know about my own religion? As I thought about this I began to research my history with more care. As I grew more knowledgeable I acquired more respect for my culture however the idea of an all powerful god seemed more and more ridiculous. I just couldn’t imagine a god being able to split the seas for Moses to be true. I look at an Omnipotent being as only a myth. The reading made my beliefs even clearer to me when it brought up the stone theory.
This week, we have been talking a lot about puzzles that arise when considering whether a “OOO-being” can exist. I found this discussion very interesting, and honestly, it has taken me a while to wrap my head around the ideas we have discussed and formulate my own opinion.
The idea of omniscience, in particular, is very intriguing to me. Omniscience is one of the traits that most people would automatically bring up whenever they are asked to prove the existence of God. However, the puzzle that arises is that an all-knowing God cannot also be all-loving, another important trait of a OOO-being. I find this puzzle very interesting.
Take this into consideration: If God knows everything that is going to happen in the world, before it happens, then why do terrible people and things exist? God should be able to prevent the creation of cancer, because He is all-powerful, and clearly if He is all-knowing, then He knew a long time ago just how much suffering it would cause. Not to mention, He is supposed to be all-loving. Yet, cancer still exists, and kills people every day. If He is all three of these things (omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent), then there shouldn’t be any reason for cancer to exist. The same puzzle can be applied to the existence of figures such as Hitler, bin Laden, Stalin, and others. Why would God allow them to exist when he clearly knew just how much destruction they would cause during their lifetimes? Does He truly love all of mankind if He is allowing them to suffer? Or does He allow it for the sake of the “greater good”, and teaching us to love one another? These are the questions that are often posed when considering whether a OOO-being can really exist, and questions that I have debated in the past. Maybe there is an explanation that can justify the existence of such cruelties while still staying true to the idea of a OOO-being, but for now, it seems to me that it is impossible for God to have foreknowledge of them and still be the omnibenevolent being that so many people think of him as.
I was pleasantly surprised reading Lewis’s thoughts about Christianity and how he emphasized that Christians (and people of any faith) should have an open mind about other belief systems and not be so quick to throw down other faiths. What bothered me was his assertion that someone who considers themselves to be an atheist must, by definition, deny all belief systems. He makes it clear that one must either believe in God in the context of some religion or simply be a denying atheist. He seems to be missing a third option – a noncommittal agnostic point of view.
As a scientist in training, I am learning how to think about the world objectively and not put my full faith into something unless I have clear empirical evidence. Any plausible idea of a god, to me, transcends space and time and our universe and we will never have a clear case for or against its existence. The evidence is beyond us, as humans. I accept that there may be some higher power we do not understand – however, this power would be more unknowable than most people would be comfortable with. Since there is no way to prove or disprove this nothing, I remain happily noncommittal.
People seem to have this need to commit fully to one side of the argument to get some kind of satisfaction. I’m satisfied hanging on the fence and observing my universe objectively and answering the questions that I can. Discovering the secrets of the universe this way instead of contriving a god to explain them seems much more satisfying to me.
Virtual Reality Contact Lenses Could Be Available by 2014
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=virtual-reality-contact-l
So, it turns that Gettier case I discussed using contact lenses that played a video image isn’t so far fetched after all.
According to the paradoxical argument of the stone, it asks if an Omnipotent being can create a stone heavy enough that itself cannot even lift it. Here it is paradoxical because if the Omnipotent being can lift the stone, it fails to make that heavy stone. Again, if it cannot lift it, it fails again to do something and be all powerful. However, according to Christianity where there is the Trinity consisting of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I believe it is possible for God to do both. In this case God can create a stone heavy enough that He cannot lift it. For Jesus Christ and the Father are both God, Jesus is a human being not being able to lift a stone so heavy that God made.
There was a part of the second C.S. Lewis reading that i found particularly entertaining. It was the very beginning when he began to talk about atheists and religious persons in relation to each other. He said that being a christian doesn’t mean that you have to find complete fault in the other religions, but he did say that in being an atheist you had to accept that the religious people in the world were simply wrong. What interested me is the level of understanding and acceptance that each of these groups have with each other. I believe in God, i was raised in Roman Catholic family, and i went to Catholic school growing up, however, i accept that not everyone believes what i do. I understand that my beliefs may seem odd to some, but i try not to judge people based on this. What i’ve found is that an atheist that i have a conversation with will try to disprove what i believe in, as if it were that simple. i think that each religion has similarities with the next, and that we can learn from each of them if we are atheist or not. Believing in a religion doesn’t just teach you to believe in a higher power, but also teaches you trust, and loyalty to the higher power. Are not trust and loyalty admirable qualities? Atheism keeps you grounded, making you seek proof before blindly accepting something. That i think is admirable as well, only a fool would allow himself/herself to believe whatever he/she hears. Learning from both groups can give you many good/respectable qualities. Religion and atheism can teach you to be steadfast, accepting, loving, curious, and honest. No man should limit his learning sources.
No really, why study philosophy? I’ve asked many philosophy lovers this question and have yet to receive an answer that satisfies my curiosity.
Some back-story: I am a senior non-philosophy major currently taking two philosophy classes, which was not my first choice. The last philosophy class I took was in 2008 as a first semester freshmen for nothing more than to fulfill a CCC. I didn’t understand back then and I still don’t, so I’m asking the question again.
Back to the point: Why study philosophy? From what I’ve taken away from this class and others, there’s never a definite answer. Every argument has a counter-argument and every answer can be challenged. Everyone takes away something different and it can’t be scientifically proven one way or another. It seems that either side of any philosophical battle can be argued forever. Philosophy seems to be relatively, if not completely, subjective. So if there is no right answer, why bother?
Epistemology seems to fuel this curiosity of mine even more. The way I see it, it tends to focus more on what could be rather than what is. But why consider what could be over the reality in front of you? Like for example, Professor Cullison said “I know my name is Andy.” I’m fairly certain something followed that to the effect of “well what if you’re hooked up to a machine that is just making you think that?” Why is that a possibility or even a consideration? And for things like the Gettier cases, you had a justified reason to believe something, but your original thought was incorrect but you’re right in some way. Great! You were right but in a different way than you had originally intended. Isn’t that what matters?
I guess more importantly, I want to know how studying this is relative to the “real world?” I’m in no way trying to knock philosophy. I can appreciate those of you who live and breathe this sort of thing because it’s something I seem to be incapable of getting my head around. But for typical day-to-day life, why does questioning the things and situations around you in a philosophical manner matter? I could definitely be wrong with this, but in my opinion, it seems to be almost counterproductive.
By knco | February 1, 2012
In a basic model of atonement, human beings generated a debt to God for offending Him with their sins. In response, God comes down to Earth in the human form of Jesus Christ and endures the penalty for humans’ sins, saving them from Hell. If this is true, then why have we always been told that good people go to Heaven and bad people go to Hell? If Jesus truly endured enough punishment to pay the debt of billions of past and future sins, then why would Hell even need to exist at all?
I feel that if this model of atonement were to be true, there would be no religious boundaries keeping us from sinning. It would be easy to say “I can do that, Jesus has got me covered.” Obviously, modern law keeps us in line for the most part; however, we all do things on a daily basis that Jesus or the church would not necessarily agree with. We curse, we lie, we steal, we have sex before marriage, etc.
For the Christian way to have any plausibility, atonement would have to be much more complex. From a religious standpoint, perhaps Jesus’ death was to implore the human race to become a better group of people. Maybe the passion of Christ did not save us from Hell, but instead gave us all the chance to avoid going to Hell. Thinking of Jesus’s sacrifice, we may feel remorse for our sins, ask God for forgiveness and be forgiven.
From a historic standpoint, there are many religious instances in which the stories were swayed to reflect the times. For example, during lent, Catholics cannot eat meat on Fridays. During the time that this rule was inducted, the world was experiencing a struggling fish market. Therefore, Catholics were told that it was sinful to eat meat on Fridays during lent in order to promote the purchase of fish and improve the industry. Perhaps atonement is a similar situation and is not real at all. Maybe the writers of the bible used Jesus’ death to pass along his teachings to promote becoming better people. With atonement, Christ’s death was supposed to pay off our debt to God, when in reality, it only created a new debt, one to Jesus himself. Followers of Christ now feel obligated to ensure he did not die in vain, making sure to ask God for forgiveness whenever they sin and strive to become the best person they can be. What if atonement is just a way to instill guilt into human minds, making sure that those who followed Christ would do just as I mentioned above, the threat of a non-existent Hell hanging above their heads?
So in my opinion, there are three options. Hell existed at one point and was abolished after Christ’s death, Hell still exists and Christ’s death only gave us the opportunity to avoid it, or Hell doesn’t exist and never did exist and atonement is merely a biblically manipulative tool to keep us humans from sinning.
Mavrodes article on, “Some Puzzles Concerning omnipotence,” seems to come to the conclusion that by proposing “putative tasks that are self-contradictory,” to test God’s omnipotence are not effective way to answer the question if God is truely omnipotent. He concludes that they are out of the realm of possibility because the objects do not exist.
By WOLF | February 1, 2012
Hey all,
I was in Epistemology today and we were discussing issues regarding the access of the reading material via GoogleDocs. One particular issue involved students not being able to access their Fredmail off campus. Being a victim to this horrible disaster, I decided to investigate the issue personally. For some reason, Fredmail has difficulty with a good portion of newer versions of web browsers. I haven’t attempted to fix Google Chrome yet (one shouldn’t have to…GoogleDocs should work with another product from google. Silly programmers.), and I loathe IE, so I fixed my Firefox browser. I’ll post the super easy instructions and the link for them below. Any questions and I’ll happily help anyone out having trouble if I can. Cheers.
Instructions for Fredmail (and GoogleDocs) fix:
- First, type about:config in the address bar
- You will get a warning about “Voiding your warranty.” Click past this warning.
- Then search for network.auth.force-generic-ntlm. Change this value to “True.”
- Try to login again
Links:
http://www.fredonia.edu/its/helpdesk/googleapps/gmail.asp
or
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1ibvsFx1Ixlj9PdbUJm3WhS61-PvpuMIERLWvmTr-6HY