Hypatia
At the turn of the Middle Ages you begin to see the subject of philosophy stopping at the questioning of God ( I get the impression that the death of Hypatia was directly related to this.) Doubt is not accepted by many leaders and other authoritative figures putting a halt on secular philosophy.
Discussion Question:
How important is it for a society to
question beliefs of God or other religious deities?
How important is it for an individual to questions these things?
Factual Question: Which king saw his empire as a theodicy, and was dedicated to stewarding the people's souls into heaven?
-Charlemagne
* Next subject al- Gazzali
al- Gazzali is considered one of the most influential Muslims of all time.He understood the importance of falsafa (islamic philosophy) and developed a complex response that rejected and condemned some of its teachings, while it also allowed him to accept and apply others. Al-gazzali's critique of twenty positions of falsafa in his Incoherence of the Philosophers is a significant landmark in the history of philosophy.
ps. Sorry for the late post guys, I have been without a computer for the past week.
I believe that it is very important for society to overcome dogmas to reach mankind's full potential. Being limited to believe in a faith without personal doubts only confine a society to a certain way of thinking. When you take that liberty away from people, you have completely lost all moral grounds. Isn't this the first basis of religion anyways?
ReplyDeleteI have never understood why any person would be afraid to question any set of beliefs, because it is just that, a belief. If you have to scare people into your beliefs or establish laws into believing in them, well then I think it's something just not worth believing in.
Al Gazzali
In The Incoherence of the Philosopher, al- Gazzali argues against the reality of cause and effect, pointing out that nothing about the fact that certain things seems to precede other things is sufficient to prove that the one causes the other..
Do you believe in cause and effect scenario? To what extent?
Al gazzali found self truths in religion, but remained very skeptic. Eventually he came to the conclusion that "the truth is the denial and rejection of religion." He also describes some philosophers as being affected by the " defect of unbelief". Which dismisses naturalists, but acts as testament to their existence.
In his deliverance from Error, he recorded that he had been brought to the edge of Skepticism because of the failures of the proofs of God.
What do you believe are some proofs for/ against the existence of god?
What book did AL gazzali write that found 20 propositions of Aristotle's
that were not sufficiently demonstrated?
-The Incoherence of the Philosophers
Which Muslim philosopher stated that when he was and adolescent, "that Christian youths always grew up to be Christians, Jewish youths to be Jews and Muslim youths to be Muslims"
-Al Ghazzali
I think it's very important to question everything we are told in order to sift through the information and find what we really believe. Without questioning the existence of God and deities, we won't really find what we believe.
ReplyDeleteI didn't see your post when I looked, so I went on and posted my al-Ghazzali questions in a separate post.
yeah i think that we should take a second look at all our beliefs, I don't think that we should question merely for the sake of questioning though. it seems that some of the philosophers we've talked about make a lifestyle out of doubting. seems a little unproductive considering that the only thing they accept on faith is their ability to reason in a way that reflects reality. this seems far more circular than the belief in the accuracy of the bible
ReplyDelete*Matthew Williams
ReplyDeleteI'm confused on what I think about this question...haha. I think we should maybe question why we believe them but I agree with Matt in that I don't think we should question just to question. Part of believing is not questioning though so I think that's why I'm torn.
ReplyDelete