After working for hours and hours on my presentation, here I am again, this time with a better understanding of angels and devils and how they fit into the Renaissance Period.. Anyone who hasn't done their project yet, this blog seems to make a whole lot more since afterwards, so don't wait to start researching!
In class on Tuesday, when we were examining Paradise Lost, someone mentioned how there are many people and sects of religion out there who don't believe in Hell, and some people also have trouble with the idea of how a loving God could have created a Hell, and put people (or in this case fallen angels) into such a place. I couldn't help but try to rationalize it for myself.
I believe in Hell, and I believe in a loving God, who is willing to forgive us for not acting always in his name. We as humans are given the chance to repent, as Doctor Faustus was up until his last breath. I don't believe that God gives up on anyone, nor do I believe that he wants there to be a need for Hell. However, he is the one who makes the decisions, who can read peoples thoughts, and is the only being that can truly know what is in our hearts. He made us and gave us the free will to do as we want, how else could there be so much bad in the world?
All I could think of in class was the fact that nowhere in the Bible or from what we read in Paradise Lost (which is fiction), nowhere does it say that Satan/Lucifer ever tried to repent. Perhaps Hell exists for people who are in denial of God, and even when they know he exists, until they recognize that he is the way to heaven, to eternal happiness, until that time, they will be in Hell. Perhaps Satan is just so delusioned and full of self-righteousness that he does not recognize that he also has the chance to repent.
Maybe one day there will be no need for Hell. As far as religion today goes, it serves its purpose as a place to instill fear into Christians and non-Christians. God needs a place like this, because evil is so "fun" and tempting. God does not tempt; he shows and he loves.
Hell is like the Surgeon General's warning label on alcohol and cigarettes. Evil may be tempting, but you know the possible consequences before you partake.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Logically Erasing Logic
I'm not really sure about this class. I feel like so far it is more of a class of self-discovery and discussion than about studying English literature. It's not a bad thing, but it is certainly not what I expected, seeing opening thoughts on Doctor Faustus lead into students' lengthy monologues on what their religious and secular beliefs have changed into within the past few months, or the past few minutes.
It is, however, terribly interesting to listen to all of it, soak in my peers' opinions, look at the clock and see that an hour of class is already over, have my brain wrapped in so many different directions and thought patterns, and feel as though there's a whole world out there that no one truly knows anything about.
It makes one feel so small and so hopeless knowing that this path can lead nowhere but insanity if you were to just go lay out in a field and try to figure it all out based on logic. Logic, in definition, explains things and shows what "makes sense," but how can anything make sense if there are alternate explanations for everything? How do you show the logic behind the clouds moving in the sky? It's a vast combination of water, gases, atmospheric pressures, and wind patterns. But how do you show why those are there? How do you show why those are the factors that control it, why "logic" doesn't determine that birds are responsible for the clouds moving, and the invention of the airplane just sped up the whole mess?
Logical answer: science can show it. But when it comes to things beyond what scientists can prove on a physical level, when it comes from the physical to the "metaphysical," from the earthly to the "unearthly," the natural to the "supernatural," all bets are off. How do you prove that God exists? This proof has likely been attempted since man's first ability to think abstractly, by church officials like Saint Anselm, philosophers like Rene Descartes, and even fact-worshipping mathematicians like Kurt Godel. Every one of their "proofs" has flaws, has people criticizing, providing alternative "logic," that discredits each proof.
People have individual minds, which allow for individual thoughts, which necessitate a human race full of conflicting belief systems, as each idea presented can be shown with ideal logic, which until disproved seems to make perfect sense. While logic presents itself as a ideal character to prove an idea to be a belief, it is really the antagonist, the bad guy, for it can turn us all away and counter each idea, confusing us and turning us every which way, placing us in a momentary sense of relief as we think that we have it all figured out, only to have our whole worlds turned upside down as the next idea places us in mental anguish as it makes us question the last.
Without a God, there is no end. A belief can only be determined through placing trust and faith in God. Knowing in your heart that something is true, is good, is right -- that is believing. Knowing that something, someone, created this Earth and all that is in it, is beyond the power of logic. Believing is laying in that field somewhere, on a patch of grass that was created outside the realm of your understanding; it is looking up into those heavens not knowing what the hell could be up there; and it is feeling at peace because you understand that to this world, you may be small, to your life you are the world, and to whoever created it all, you are life.
It is, however, terribly interesting to listen to all of it, soak in my peers' opinions, look at the clock and see that an hour of class is already over, have my brain wrapped in so many different directions and thought patterns, and feel as though there's a whole world out there that no one truly knows anything about.
It makes one feel so small and so hopeless knowing that this path can lead nowhere but insanity if you were to just go lay out in a field and try to figure it all out based on logic. Logic, in definition, explains things and shows what "makes sense," but how can anything make sense if there are alternate explanations for everything? How do you show the logic behind the clouds moving in the sky? It's a vast combination of water, gases, atmospheric pressures, and wind patterns. But how do you show why those are there? How do you show why those are the factors that control it, why "logic" doesn't determine that birds are responsible for the clouds moving, and the invention of the airplane just sped up the whole mess?
Logical answer: science can show it. But when it comes to things beyond what scientists can prove on a physical level, when it comes from the physical to the "metaphysical," from the earthly to the "unearthly," the natural to the "supernatural," all bets are off. How do you prove that God exists? This proof has likely been attempted since man's first ability to think abstractly, by church officials like Saint Anselm, philosophers like Rene Descartes, and even fact-worshipping mathematicians like Kurt Godel. Every one of their "proofs" has flaws, has people criticizing, providing alternative "logic," that discredits each proof.
People have individual minds, which allow for individual thoughts, which necessitate a human race full of conflicting belief systems, as each idea presented can be shown with ideal logic, which until disproved seems to make perfect sense. While logic presents itself as a ideal character to prove an idea to be a belief, it is really the antagonist, the bad guy, for it can turn us all away and counter each idea, confusing us and turning us every which way, placing us in a momentary sense of relief as we think that we have it all figured out, only to have our whole worlds turned upside down as the next idea places us in mental anguish as it makes us question the last.
Without a God, there is no end. A belief can only be determined through placing trust and faith in God. Knowing in your heart that something is true, is good, is right -- that is believing. Knowing that something, someone, created this Earth and all that is in it, is beyond the power of logic. Believing is laying in that field somewhere, on a patch of grass that was created outside the realm of your understanding; it is looking up into those heavens not knowing what the hell could be up there; and it is feeling at peace because you understand that to this world, you may be small, to your life you are the world, and to whoever created it all, you are life.
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