Tim Rudolph's Chapter 4 Journal
KEY IDEA OF THE WEEK
The key idea of this week is that there are logical reasons to believe in God and that Jesus was a human being. We learned in the Reading Book that there are many logical reasons to believe in a god, including the Golden Ratio, the Anthropic Principle, and Kalam's Argument. We read that evidence points to the idea that there was a creator of the universe. William Paley said that the world is too intricate to have no creator. St. Thomas Aquinas said that there must be a god to finish the hierarchy of being. There are also arguments that God exists from the human person, including man's need for meaning, fear of death, pain of loneliness, and thirst for happiness. There is also an argument that God speaks to us through our conscience and an argument that human nature the idea of human nature proves God's existence. The second key idea of the week is that Jesus was fully human. We saw this through the video Portrait of a Radical, which showed the human side of Jesus and explained how counter-cultural Jesus really was. The video showed that even if Jesus wasn't the Son of God, he was still a good moral teacher and should be respected for his integrity. We also saw in our take-home test essay that Jesus showed faith in his followers and his teachings.
3 IDEAS TO REMEMBER
1. The human conscience is a mystery.
Science has not come up with a good theory on how the human conscience works, or how morality exists at all. Some people think that the human conscience is an instrument through which God speaks to us and tells us his will. Others think that it is simply a product of evolution and tells us what to do based on external forces. No one has ever found the source of the human conscience inside the human mind, although some scientists guess where they think it might be. Or it may not even exist inside the brain, it may just send messages to the brain from some other source. Either way, consciences are very mysterious and nobody knows for sure where it came from or what it actually is.
This is important to remember because some scientists say that human beings are simply robots that process information and act accordingly. But the idea of a conscience could contradict this idea. A conscience could be a part of the soul, which means that we make choices not solely on outside information but also on our own identity or spirit. It would prove that we can make a certain choice without letting external forces affect our decision. Also, the conscience could be used as evidence to support the existence of God.
2. Humans never feel completely happy.
The Reading Book says that humans can never feel completely happy because of several factors. For one thing, they always feel a little bit lonely because they cannot make someone else fully understand them. Everyone wants to be understood, but words cannot explain the core of a human being, so everyone feels slightly lonely, even if they have thousands of friends or are in a happy marriage. The mystery of death also prevents happiness because most people are afraid of death and cannot fully appreciate the world around them because they know that it won't last forever. There are many questions that cannot be answered, and we cannot be fully happy because we do not know if the good things of life will last.
This is important to remember because many people think that the more things you buy, the happier you are. Or others think that only a good marriage will grant pure happiness. But the reality is that we cnanot reach pure happiness, either because it doesn't exist or because it is beyond our grasp. If we remember that we cannot be fully happy, we can focus on living a good life instead of spending money on products thast fail to satisfy us. It seems that products can increase our happiness, but it usually only does so for a short period of time. As soon as something better comes along, we want that instead. We can never be fully happy because the things we have become outdated and there is always something better.
3. Jesus was a human being.
The video Portrait of a Radical showed that Jesus was fully human, whether he was divine or not. He believed in his teachings so much that he was willing to die for them, and he eventually did. He had faith in his followers and rewarded them for their obedience. He was counter-cultural in his actions as he spent lots of time partying, which made some people think he was a drunkard. He hung around with the poor and the sinners instead of the rich and "holy" people. He told the people that the rules they were following were wrong and that his rules were better. He did things differently from the way people would have expected him to act.
This is important to remember because people often forget that Jesus was human and focus only on the miracles that he performed. As the video tells us, Jesus liked to party, and nobody talks about that in Church. I always hear about Jesus as some God who is far superior to humans, but really Jesus was a human himself. Although Jesus may have been somewhat divine also and the stories in the gospels may be true, it is still important to remember that Jesus was a human being who knew what life was like as a person. This is especially important for me to remember because I don't believe that he was God, but I do believe that he was a good moral teacher and maybe even a prophet. I don't read the Bible because I don't believe most of it, but maybe I should read it and see just how cool of a guy Jesus was, even if he wasn't divine.
JESUS IMAGE