Blog Assignment #1

God and the Origin of the Universe

In Problems from Philosophy second edition, by James and Stuart Rachels, chapter two discusses the topics of God and the Origin of the Universe. This chapter intrigues me in many ways. One of the reasons this chapter tickles my mind is because of the topic of religion. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary2004, Religion is 1: the service and worship of God or the supernatural, 2: devotion to a religious faith, or 3: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious beliefs, attitudes, and practices. René Descartes stated, by a quote in the introduction to chapter two, that basically everything exists because of co-operation of God. (Pg. 10) Peter van Inwagen also is quoted in chapter two with the basic idea that God is a necessary being because God is independent and the universe is dependent on something, which is God. (Pg. 25-26) Keeping all of this in mind, the dictionary, Descartes, and Inwagen all prove that a religion must be present for a society to exist. Even people who are atheists have a religion because they practice a certain system of beliefs, attitudes, and practices. Everyone follows certain beliefs, attitudes, and practices, therefore, everyone has a religion of some sort, thus making every society contain a religion because a society cannot exist without people.


Our Knowledge of the World around Us

Chapter ten in Problems from Philosophy second edition, by James and Stuart Rachels, talks about the World and Man’s Knowledge of it. Section two about Idealism is what heightened my interest in this chapter. (Pg. 137) Since I was a little boy I’ve always thought in terms of Idealism, I wish I ‘d known what it was called then. It would have saved a few parent-teacher discussions. The concept posed at the beginning of the section on page 137 talks about a tree’s representation of colors and shapes is only an idea because of the different views, people, and eye-sight variation that is in the world. It’s like the question I would ask in class; "Does everyone see the same things?" I would use the color shade of red on an apple as my example and pose this very question. I wanted to know was it the eye that really caught the image or something more. All in all, the chapter definitely shows potential in brainstorming for me.


This video I found is quite intriguing and covers both of the topics I've talked about. When you get over the boringness, come down to the basic facts, and evaluate the arguments, you can actually pick up on the flaws and fallacies given by these world-respected scienteists and phiosophers. ENJOY