Dialectics: God and Man

The relationship between God and man is a unique one, and it is individual for every person. It is one that has defined much of history, shaping the way people interact, societies form, and governments rule. It seems that religion became a tool for people to justify anything, and it was acceptable to fight for your faith because your god would reward you in the end.

However, something in me tells me that if God (whichever one, if any, you happen to believe in) were to come down and have a conversation with man, he would have quite the opposite to say. There is no way that any God would approve of destroying anything that he made, making terms like "Holy War" completely ridiculous.

People started believing in God because they needed an explanation of why they were here and what happened afterward. If we take the concept of "God" back to its most basic meaning, which is the creator and protector of the world, it is difficult to see how the interpretation of this concept became so complex and twisted into anything that anyone wanted it to be.

Man would most likely step into defend themselves at this point and say that God wants this and God wants that and if there are people that do not want this or that, then they deserve to be destroyed for disrespecting their creator.

God probably is sick of his name being used to justify crimes and wars and atrocities, and would say that this was never what he intended to happen when he created the world. There should be no reason to be killing in his name or using religion as a means to separate.

Whether you believe in God or not, I think it is time that people realize that a persons relationship with God is something that should remain personal, and not be used for anything more than a source of worship and guidance, because when it becomes more than that, the very things that God worked to create have been destroyed.

360: Current Events Strategies

Now on well into our second round of our new current events system, we have had many discussions on how the system is working, and if anything can be done to improve upon it. In these discussions I have been listening to the class and developing my own ideas off of theirs. I think it is very important for us to always be open to exploring and changing our way of doing things until we find the process that works best.

One of the great things about the new current events systems is that it allows us to really dig into a topic and take everything out of it that we can. However, this does run the risk of topics becoming too redundant and discussions lagging. This may be avoided by picking broader topics with more to talk about. But, then it is possible that the topic is too broad and four weeks isn't enough to get anything out of it.

Clearly, it is a difficult balance to strike for all of us. I think that the best thing we as students can do is try to be prepared and choose articles that will truly benefit the class instead of just the first one we find. I think that the best thing we could have in terms of direction is a little more structure to discussion, and as a classmate brought up, more intensity in the discussions.

All in all, I think that our new current events process definitely leaves more room for deep insight and true understanding of a situation. It would be nice if we could rev up our discussions and see if we can get anything more out of the topics we choose, but I think that these are things that can be changed by us students and not necessarily the process.