Monday, February 4, 2019
Our favorite topic: Fate vs. Freewill
Not too long ago, I had a random religious discussion with my friend who goes to a Catholic school, however, he is actually not Catholic. He told me he is fairly agnostic, sometimes even atheist in certain circumstances. Religion is a sensitive topic to discuss without openmindedness, but in my opinion: to each their own. I have my beliefs that I stand by and you are more than allowed yours as well. ANYWAYS He told me a professor came to his school and gave a discussion about how he believed God sets an ultimate path for us however we still have free will to determine our long-term actions as well. My friend just claimed he could not understand this as it such a contradicting statement and he only stands by the belief of free will. Although we disagreed in opinion, it was a great conversation and I greatly respected how open we were even though we were on opposites sides of the spectrum. (Also a thanks to English class discussions in general, because we have the discussion of fate vs. free will a lot, that I used different knowledge from what we have said in class to understand his perspective a bit more too) The reason I bring this up is due to the mention of two philosophers we read about this weekend, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre. Specifically that Sartre had beliefs that human authenticity came from choosing our own actions and “avoiding a bad faith of pretending that others are responsible for our choices.” I was a bit confused as to what "bad faith" meant (wondering if that is just an opinion) but it is an existentialist term that basically just means humans inevitably live inauthentically due to societal pressures and we lose direction of our own free actions and thoughts. I, personally, encourage others to figure out things in life for themselves and through experience because you won't do something or learn unless it is what YOU want to do. However, I do believe that God has set an ultimate path for us we are not aware of and everything will come together in the end how it is supposed to. I guess I contradict myself so I understand disagreement but I let faith play a good role in my decisions and perception in life, for positive reasons. So I guess the point of this blog post was just to point out a topic that stood out to me from the reading, reminded me of a nice conversation, and I just overall wanted to know your thoughts.
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2 comments:
Farah's provocation of the philosophy that we've discussed in class which is apparent in the works of literature we've been discussing all year, are important to not only the integrity of the novels, narratives, and overall literature that we've read and gone over all year, it is also imperative to the movements of literature that such works are a part of. In the current discussion state of our class, philosophy is relevant and important to modernism. Specifically whenever I reflect upon its relevance, the first thing that comes to my mind is Grendel by John Gardner. The dragon chapter is the most significant example of this, holding the philosophical ideals of Whitehead, for example, to reverence. All in all, the idea of existentialism, a philosophical ideal, is a progressive topic for the novel published then and for the whole movement of modernism in general.
I love how you presented and contrasted the ideas of secular and religious free will vs fate, especially since I was unaware of the secular argument until now. Usually when a person thinks of the ideals of secular humanism and the such, they will usually also group it with the idea of free will, because I definitely did unthinkingly before. But, philosophy and human beliefs are so much more complicated than that. And you point out how that both from a secular and a religious standpoint that there are lots of contradictions involved, but from a personal point of view, I think that might be the point of faith. Whether a person is religious or not, I believe faith is something intrinsic to the human experience.
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