Our group discussed the questions used by Hecht in her Doubt quiz. We came to the conclusion that as we read the questions we were able to easily identify which direction the response would take : yes or no God. As Dr. Oliver discussed in class we should have probably taken the quiz with a more open minded almost innocent approach, we wondered if others encountered the same situation. We also discussed the statement made by Hecht : " believers refuse to consider the reasonableness of doubt, and nonbelievers refuse to consider the feeling of faith." We discussed the importance of considering opposing view points not only in philosophy but also other fields such as politics where major parties are strongly divided, we concluded with defining doubt.
Factual question: Which French Philosopher wrote about the difference between problems and mysteries?
Discussion question: Do you think studying philosophy would help us understand various societal problems such as inequality, war, political power etc..? Does doubt make you abandon beliefs or critically analyze one's viewpoint thus strengthening an argument?
i think studying philosophy make us think differently about various problems. i think it also makes us doubt a lot things.
ReplyDeleteI think doubt in a belief can make you a stronger believer. By questioning certain aspects of religion we force ourselves to find more in depth answers to our religion every time we have that doubt.
ReplyDeleteI believe that studying philosophy will help me understand societal problems because it will give me knowledge on the different opinions on the meaning of existence and how life was created that people have had.
ReplyDeleteDoubt tends to make me abandon my beliefs but for mankind as a whole I would say that doubt tends to lead to man examine his own fundamental beliefs and changing them to make more sense to himself.
I believe that societal problems such as war, inequality, and politics have to be looked at in more of a psychological way than a philosophical. Human error and emotions such such as greed and anger drive people to make the brash decisions in politics and war, and most of the decisions made in those fields are usually done for some personal benefit and are rarely done for the greater good.
ReplyDeleteIt would be easy to examine society through a philosophical aspect, but to actually solve the problems in society, I believe we'd have to more examine the human mind in a psychological way
I think this would be a good open-ended question: Many wars throughout history have been started over religion (Christians and Muslims in the Crusades, etc.), and many people were violently converted into Christians during the spread of Catholicism. So, has religion done more harm than good throughout history, or vice versa?
I'm a Christian so don't get the wrong idea, just trying to go with the flow of the class! haha