Group #4 - Section 017

Group #4 – Section 17.

Today we have discussed Hypatia and many others.

Hypatia was an Egyptian Neoplatonist philosopher who was the first notable woman in mathematics As head of the Platonist school at Alexandria, she also taught philosophy and astronomy, As a Neoplatonistphilosopher, she belonged to the mathematic tradition of the Academy of Athens, as represented byEudoxus of Cnidus;she was of the intellectual school of the 3rd century thinker Plotinus, which encouraged logic and mathematical study in place of empirical enquiry and strongly encouraged law in place of nature. Hypatia lived in Roman Egypt, and was murdered by a Christian mob which accused her of causing religious turmoil.Kathleen Wilder proposes that the murder of Hypatia marked the end of Classical antiquity,while Maria Dzielska and Christian Wildberg note that Hellenistic philosophy continued to flourish in the 5th and 6th centuries, and perhaps until the age of Justinian.

Discussion Question:

Hypatia was killed by christian mobs, Do you think that Christianity has anything to do with Hypatia's Killing?

QUESTION: Why did "God" create the Universe?

Here is what our group thought about it,

It is hard to think of a reason why God created the universe without making some suppositions about the character of God, his motivations, reasons and the like, which usually we only get through His revelation to us, which then gets us into religious metaphysical systems. Whatever reason God had for creating the universe would only make sense given some larger religious interpretation of the world, its purpose and our role in it.
		Some religious groups claim that God created the universe as a reflection of his power and glory and created and created intelligent beings in order to appreciate and worship His greatness.
		The problem with these religious pictures however is that they are at rock bottom egocentric. They explain very well why we are here and what role we have in the greater scheme of things, but they give us very little insight into the motivations of the Big Man, appealing to the old 'God works in mysterious ways' line.
		We could give a non-religious reason, perhaps after an eternity of sitting around doing nothing God got bored and needed something to entertain him for a few trillion years. Or perhaps one day he was in the grip of existential doubt about the meaning of his own existence and decided to create the universe to give his life a purpose. But here again we are transferring human motivations on to God and we don't really get any answer to the question, just a trivial comedy sketch.
		We can however approach the question more philosophically to try and get at the very heart of the nature of God. The religious answers are based on the assumption that God had a reason to create the universe. Well, this assumption may be wrong. Perhaps God didn't have a reason, perhaps he didn't even have a choice.

Personal Note:

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshiped anything but himself.

Group Members:

* Teresa.

* Zach.

* Hicham (Pronounced HE-Sham). - GROUP LEADER

* Matt.

* William.

* Jacob.