Try to address 2 or 3 of the following
prompts. Respond to 1 or 2 of your classmates' postings.
- What is human nature?
- Why is a conception of human nature of important? What does it do for us?
·
What ought we to
do?
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How ought we live?
·
What kind of
society should we have?
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Who is responsible
for what and why?
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What kind of
economic & political system is just?
- What have you learned about death & dying that is important to you? Is surprising to you?
- Has this helped you reflect on the meaning of life?
- What does life mean?
- Am I living a good life?
- What is death?
- What’s my legacy?
What is human nature? This is what I believe from the Christianity perspective.
ReplyDeleteTheory of Human Nature (what are we?) Free-willed creations of God—J-C’s see freedom as a gift from God, something that gives human beings dignity. God’s gifts however are never without their dangers.
Theory of the self (who are we?) Sons of God, images of God. We are essentially symbolizing beings, makers and readers of signs.
How should we live? Success in life requires submission to God’s will, in order to gain divine help to see the meaning of our lives—using reason and memory. God has created the world so that we can return to Him. Truly human life is religious—a life lived submitting to God’s will.
How do we follow the theory of human nature? Success in life depends upon choosing good (=God) over evil. To make this choice we must read God’s signs correctly. But only God can show his plan, and so we need to rely on God—authority—to properly direct our choices.
information from http://www.carroll.edu/msmillie/philhumbeing/theorieshumannature.htm#JC & Buddhist
I like this description of human nature. I am a Catholic, so I agree with it completely. Mostly, I enjoyed that it points out that we are makers and readers of signs. Even people who aren't Christians like to have signs that show them what is happening in life or where to go in life. It is interesting how so many people rely on things like this, regardless of their faith.
DeleteWhy is a conception of human nature of important? What does it do for us?
ReplyDeleteIt is important because no matter what religious faith we follow it shapes us as human beings to act morally and to exist for a purpose. We as humans need structure mentally and spiritually. To believe in a higher power, we are able to get through the hard times, to gain insight for answers we need and to prepare us for the afterlife. Regardless of what context that is we feel good about being good citizens in society and contributing how we were meant to.
i would like to think that human nature has more to deal with our natural inclinations as human beings than just morality and religion. what makes us human? how do we tend to behave? how do we react in certain situations? human nature ponders these sorts of profound questions. to answer them with only religion and morality is to limit ourselves as humans. we are much more than what religion defines us to be. we are not just creatures living out the will of some god.
DeleteThanks for your reply Michael... the questions your presented are great questions but where do we get those answers from? Why do we behave the way we do? what makes us react to situations? In my opinion these all stem from how we were raised and our faith we follow. We act as we were taught as children and we make decisions based of the morals our family and parents raised us to have. Now there are plenty of people who do not actively engage in those principles they were taught and are off the beaten path so to speak but in general we all act and do according to how we were raised and the faith we follow. I respect your opinion and I am living out the will of God and he is not just "some God." I am not sure what faith you practice but that is my thought about what you mentioned. On what other scale would you approach those questions about human nature other than morality and faith as you mentioned? I am interested in hearing your thoughts.
Deletei agree Michael. While we do crave that sense of a higher power, i don't think it makes us human. I think the fact that we have a sense of morality makes us human. which for some people, comes from their religious views, others and inner knowledge of right and wrong. I also believe the thought process of cause and effect we go through in our kids make us human. If i do this, what would happen? Would that be worth it? Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? why? Most importantly, we ask "why?" Why do i live where i do? why do i make the choices i do? etc.
DeleteI agree with Michael and Rebecca. I am a very religious person, but I believe that human nature is so much more complicated than that. If looking at human nature through religion, it's the morality we get from these religions that make us human, not the craving for a higher power. There are some people that don't believe in a higher power, but that doesn't make them miserable or any less human. However, I believe that people are basically good and it is this foundation of morality that makes us human.
DeleteWhat kind of society should we have?
ReplyDelete"Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individual stand." -Karl Marx
What a wonderful question to ask as well as a tough one to answer. Marx's above statement about society stands out to me and i believe it to carry some truth. I don't believe in most of Marx' beliefs and certainly don't believe in communism, but i think he had some interesting points and observations about society and human nature in general.
Society has become departmentalized and broken down into a cluster of competing groups with competing desires and values, goals, wants, needs, and means by which to accomplish them. The individual has become much less important. you belong to this group or that group or you don't belong at all and you are an outsider. this team or that team or no team. I have nothing against groups but when there are so many in competition with each other nothing gets accomplished and the individual suffers for it.
These are just a few of my observations of society. My number one belief is that i do not want my actions to be dictated by anyone else and this is harder to accomplish inside of groups, especially as you become a part of more groups and bigger groups. to view society as one big group, the over ruling power is the government and i have a million problems with the the american government and the the whole idea of government in general. The system has become so obscure and jaded, Nothing is as it seems and everything is corrupt. All it is nowadays is money and lobby groups. Whoever can throw the most money at something is bound to win. No politicians are innocent no matter how they may seem. the system is at fault, but individuals must claim responsibility for taking part in a corrupt system. but most of all i do not believe these corrupt bafoons have any right to tell me how to live my life.
I leave you with the words of Slim Shady:
"I say what i want to say and do what i want to do. People will either love you or hate you for it." -Eminem
I love finishing with the Eminem quote. Seems a bit anarchist but I can understand where you're coming from. The competing political parties or "groups" seem to always lock each other up, making any sort of laws nearly impossible to pass through congress. It is creating a great hindrance on society. Maintaining individualism is important, being yourself and following your beliefs is what this country was founded on, but I also feel that it is important to have cohesion as well. A nation divided will surely fall. When we stand together nothing can take us down. While I feel it is important for individuals to express themselves, I also value working together towards a common goal.
DeleteThoughts on Human Nature and why a conception of such is important.
ReplyDeleteHuman Nature in general is the collection of unique characteristics that make us human. Defining what exactly human nature is though is a bit more difficult, not to mention subjective. Therefore i can only have opinions of human nature and not define anything with exactness.
I believe it is in our nature to want to belong and to have meaning. Everybody wants to have some meaning in their life or feel that life in general has some meaning. There are those who do not believe there is meaning, a very nihilistic approach, but finding meaning is difficult. ill admit i have trouble finding meaning sometimes. and i hope its out there. But i believe it is human nature to seek it out.
I also believe that it is human nature to want to be together. Loneliness is the worst thing in the world, making family, friends, and community essential to our existence.
of course there are those who prefer to be alone, making my above statements seem meaningless, but in making observations on the nature of humanity one cannot expect a single characteristic to be present in all of humanity. human nature is the collection of all traits of humanity, meaning it contains many conflicting characteristics and ideals.
This call attention back to the importance of individuality and the magnitude it carries. Everyone is their own person, and can be whoever and whatever they want to be. We have free will. and history has shown that with enough free will and determination the individual is capable of almost anything. It can be hard to be your own person but everyone has the ability to. i believe it is in human nature to take the easy route and follow the group and i really believe it is important and necessary for us as humans to resist this urge as much as possible so we can become the best self we can.
"How do we avoid succumbing to the zombified trance-state of blindly following others in a herd as sheep? as hamsters in a hamster wheel?" -Jason Silva
check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=137&v=NA_tjY8osGE
In this life, we need to try to resist some aspects of human nature to become what we truly want and need to be. So many aspects of our human nature is at conflict with each other it is difficult to determine what we really want or need. But we must honestly attempt to do so.
"We are larvae who haven't turned ourselves into butterflies yet." -Jason Silva
Forgot to add this:
DeleteIt is important to have a conception of human nature so that we can determine how we WANT to live rather than what our nature determines us to do. Also, because there are so many conflicting aspects of human nature, i believe having a conception fo such allows us to actively resist the parts of human nature we do not like, and passively ignore the others
One thing that stuck out to me about death and dying is that everyone will experience death. We will experience the death of others, and eventually our own deaths. What I never opened my eyes to previously is that the ones who suffer from death the most are the family and loved ones of the deceased. Not having end of life wishes established in writing, and having people in place to carry out those wishes can cause great stress and emotions from family members.Throughout this semester, we have experienced many forms of death at all ages, which shows how important it is to have these arrangements in place sooner rather than later. This stood out to me the most from this course.
ReplyDeleteI agree Zak, death is like any long term life situation, such as preparing for college, and we must prepare for it. It must become part of our everyday language and it will benefit how we view death along with the negativity based on false knowledge of the topic.
ReplyDeleteI think that human nature is the qualities that we type to the human race. What our human tendencies are. The concept of human nature is important when trying to understand our own and others thought processes as we are subject to the tendencies of human nature.
ReplyDeleteI have learned that death is our inevitable end, but it's something we don't understand with certainty and therefore are scared of or anxious about. We avoid talking about death as it has no certain answer. This has helped me reflect on living life with more meaning. Always trying to live my life to the fullest as I don't know what lies ahead or when the end is coming. My legacy will be a good one in my opinion if I can say I did what I wanted at the time to make me happy. To live without many regrets.
I agree this class has also made me want to make sure I am living my life with a lot of meaning and purpose. Even after this class though I am still a little anxious about my own death. I don't know if that would ever really go away, but I know it won't keep me from living my life the best I can.
DeleteThe question that prompted a lot of thinking for me and has really helped me to understand death and dying was the prompt for our very first paper: is death a process or an event? My answer to this question was that dying was a process, while death was the event. I still believe this same thing; however, I think this question will alter that way I deal with death as I encounter it in my professional career. You and Heidi had mentioned that by working in hospice, you could tell within a pretty accurate frame of time when death will occur. Since I know dying is a process, this may help me to know what to look for and will allow me to give the family of the dying time to say goodbyes and make arrangements. I think this would give the family great comfort in knowing that they were able to say some last words and getting a head start on funeral arrangements may also relieve some stress. I know my mom was so overwhelmed planning my dad's funeral, and I think even a couple extra hours may have helped to relieve some of that stress. We had discussed in class that once the person dies, it is no longer about the deceased, rather it is about helping the family to cope with the death and move forward. I will keep this in mind as I experience death in a clinical setting.
ReplyDeleteI think as humans what we ought to do is live life the best we can. We should always try to do the right thing in life, but we know we won't always succeed. Even though we won't always succeed that doesn't mean we should stop striving to do the right thing in life. We should all be tolerant of other religions that differ from our own and we should be tolerant of how other people want to live their lives as long as its not harming others.
ReplyDeleteThe society we should live have is a tolerant one. I think we should have laws that protect people from harm,but the laws shouldn't just one group of people happy at the expense of others.