Plantinga 4...

Redemption...God gave us Christ o die for our sins so we could come back to his side. I liked how they referred to Jesus as the second Adam. He retook the test that was given to Adam at the beginning of time and was able to overcome temptation and fulfill his task. He was able to go without sin therein enabling the human race o reconnect with God. Though He did this and gave us the second chance we still must believe in his sacrifice and live a faithful life according to God's word. We must not take advantage of it either. Though we might get saved and call ourselves Christians we must live our lives in the manner He wants us to and not just go on living the way we did before. Concerning baptism, we must remember that it symbolizes this new commitment to God we have entered into. Baptism in itself does not save you. You must accept the Lord into your heart to be saved. It though is an important step in a Christians life to be baptized. For it shows your rebirth and you coming into a union with God. I was baptized when I was about fifteen and during that time I felt that I was growing and was ready to show that I was ready to live my life for Christ. To keep growing though one needs to challenge themselves. You must keep praying. Prayer is talking with God. Besides asking for forgiveness for the things you did or praying for those around you you must also remember to talk with God as though you are talking with a friend. Sometimes I like to go over my day and give Him my thoughts before i go to sleep at night. This kind of gives me a more personal feeling when I pray. Reading God's word is also another thing Christians should do to keep growing. This I have been very neglectful of. I guess I'm far away from being a 'good' Christian, but I know what I believe in.

Learning in War-Time...

Learning things in hard times is well hard. Many things might be happening to you or the people around you. A family member dies, you've broken your arm, or in the reading's case a war might be going on. In these situations you must try your best to succeed and notjust give up. Even while these hardships are going on you have a responsibility to yourself to keep learning as well as keeping relations with God. During hard timeslike war or whatever you can become disheartened and lose sight of the important things. You musn't give up. Things can't be done half-heartedly. You must overcomethe hardships and do your best. There are no perfect conditionsfor learning and if there were then we woujldn't have to learn in the first place. So you must do everything you can in the situations you are given.

My own personal example for this is my transfer to CC. This fall I transferred from a small community college in Indiana. There everything was a lot more relaxed. When I came here the work load and difficulty of the classes increased. During my first semester I was a bit overwhelmed. I started getting into my old habits from the year before and I ended up doing very poorly in my classes. In these new conditions I did not try my hardest and in doing that I failed. During this time as well I had gone astray in my walk with God. I think now that if I had been diligent in those aspects then i would have done better. Now that I have seen these faults as well I believe I can correct myself and do better for my future time here at college. If I don't work hard from now on then I will lose much more then my education. I will lose friends, a home, and possibly even my dream. We must all do our best during hard times or else we may lose the things we hold dear.

POISON...of subjectivism...

This reading was incredibly difficult for me to read for some reason. It took me at least 2 times before I understood some things while others I had to reread many more times.
On the first page a paragraph that stuck with me was..."Until modern times no thinker of the first rank ever doubted that our judgments of value were rational judgments or what they discovered was objective. It was taken for granted that in temptation passion was opposed, not to some sentiment, but to reason. Thus Plato thought...The modern view is very different. It does not believe that value judgments are really judgments at all. They are sentiments, or complexes, or attitudes, produced in a community by the pressure of its environment and its traditions, and differing from one community to another. To say that a thing is good is merely to express our feelings about it; and our feeling it is the feeling we have been socially conditioned to have."
So basically it is rational thought versus personal preference. If that makes sense. You think rationally thinking in and out of the box instead of just staying inside the box. People have become self centered in their thinking. Then from the self centered thoughts comes ideology. People think of things as important or right then end up forcing others to believe or think in the same way. This kind of collective thought reminds me of the borg from star trek...yes I like star trek...anyway they share one mind, have no feelings, and if you are not part of the collective you must either become one of them or be destroyed. Talk about pushing your own values onto someone else. Something else in the reading that was very borg-like was the second paragraph on page 3. "All idea of "new" or "scientific" or "modern" moralities must therefore be dismissed as mere confusion of thought. We have only two alternatives. Either the maxims of traditional morality must be accepted as axioms of practical reason which neither admit nor require argument to support them and not to "see" which is to have lost human status; or else there are no values at all, what we mistook for values being "projections" of irrational emotions. It is perfectly futile, after having dismissed traditional morality with the question, 'Why should we obey it?' then to attempt the reintroduction of value at some later stage in our philosophy. Any value we reintroduce can be countered in just the same way. Every argument used to support it will be an attempt to derive from premises in the indicative mood a conclusion in the imperative. And this is impossible." So resistance really is futile. No matter what there is some sort of conformity going on. There are many sociological implications that can be added to this. Things about norms and morals and laws, but all of this is useless if it doesn't have some ground or reasoning behind it. Still very confusing stuff...maybe I'll understand more when I'm older. ^_^;

Plantinga 3...

The Fall...When Adam and Eve were cast from the garden for eating of the fruit of good and evil. Last semester I took a theology course and the fall and the problem of evil were talked about. Since Plantinga was one of the writers of my text some of his thoughts about what are in chapter 3 were included. Though I don't remember everything from then...winter break does that to a person...I still remember some points made about the coming of evil into the world and how the fall has effected everything since. We truly have fallen a long ways. Idolatry has poisoned our lives. We worship pop culture and other secular things. Now a days we do things that will make us as an individual happy instead of thinking of others. We have become incredibly selfish and rebellious. We are very sinful creatures, but in the reading Plantinga makes a statement that "all sin is evil, but not all evil is sin." This is a very good statement because things such as natural evil can't be considered sin because nature can't sin. A volcano can destroy a village, but that is just tragedy not sin, but it is still evil. Evil things may happen, but unless it is a person who commits it, it is not a sin.
Going back to the garden it makes one wonder what would have happened if they hadn't taken the fruit. Everything of course would have been perfect, but what is it to say that anyone from generations to come would then have been tempted and then eaten. The serpent would probably not give up till it happened. This makes one think that every time we sin we are eating that fruit and keeping the evil in the world. Without sin can evil still exist? Everyone is born a sinner, but does that mean that we too are also evil. What a paradox it is and it is something we shall never truly understand.

Mere Christianity...

OK...So basically in a nutshell what chapters 1-4 discussed was Natural Law...aka Laws of Human Nature. This or these are laws that everyone knows yet they don't know. I guess you could call it intuition or instinct to know what is right or wrong, good or bad, or whatever. Though humans always tend to want to be right. I enjoyed the arguments that Lewis gave at the beginning of the chapter, these represented the I'm right and you're wrong argument. People really do argue for the stupidest reasons. Everyone also has different moral values and social norms. Everywhere you can see people who break these laws or codes. Even I have broken some of these laws, though they haven't been large crimes I promise. I learned in my sociology class last spring that these peoples are called deviants, basically people who deviate from the laws set for them. There are things people set for themselves, like moral standards, that they themselves break. Does this then make them hypocrites. It's like wearing a mask in public then becoming your true self when you get home. No one is perfect though. (intermission to make rice...and back) Knowing what is right and wrong normally people should have an instinct to know which is which. These things are also taught in society, but depending where you grew up the moral values vary. Back to the instinct for a minute or longer depending if my brain wants to keep working. Children usually have an instinct to please their parents or the people around them, but still they must be taught right from wrong. They have basic knowledge but they must hone i so they can become more intelligible as they grow. Now good ind bad is kind of another story. People deem things good or bad. Things can have their good points and bad points, but it all depends on ones opinion or the natural laws set by God. Like killing is bad and food is good, but with food some might taste good but be really bad for you...like cheese cake...yummmm...but again this can be an opinion. Human Nature...Natural Law...blah blah blah...it's just a mesh of things that people rebel against, and that's one of our flaws. Though depending how we live and what morals we hold we can overcome our rebellious nature and be law abiding peoples...though if we didn't would we still be humans...nya...=^-^=

Note to readers...

Sorry everyone, I had started a few of my blogs the other day but the things i had typed were lost due to my computer restarting. So I must retype all of those posts. On a better note though I am for the most part recovered from the nasty cold I had last week and can finally think straight. Anyway I should have all my posts up by this evening. Sorry about the inconvenience. Cheers.

Dear Wormwood...

I found after reading the Screwtape letters very interesting. No one really tries seeing thing from the point of view of the devil. Though we can't truly get into the mind of Satan or demons or even God for that matter it gives us a taste of what they might be thinking. I guess these kind of outside the box kind of ideas intrigue me. What kind of diabolical things can they be concocting to fumble up the human race? It gives very good examples of things that can draw us away from God or from people we love.
For the particular letter Screwtape writes to Wormwood that was given in the readings concerned keeping the Patient lukewarm in his Christian life. He said that he was almost glad to hear the Patient was still a chuchgoer. This is that they want the new Christian to feel comfortable and think that going to church is good enough, while in reality it isn't. If one just goes to church and is not active in it they will not grow and learn. Keeping up the appearance is what they want the Patient to do, but no truly become what they are acting as. Besides this Screwtape advises Wormwood to lead him slowly towards the darkness for the mans heart is still uneasy. If he uses distractions that will lead him away from the church or his Christian walk. Things Screwtape suggested were reading books, keeping him up late, talking with people who won't help him in his life. These kind of things are distractions. Everyone allows these kind of things in there lives. They distract themselves from the things they should be doing or keeping up with relationships with loved ones. For a student such as myself I have had these kind of distractions...Facbooking, reading stories online, or even going to the mall instead of doing homework or studying. If someone doesn't keep themselves and rely on God to keep going in life then they will gradually slip into darkness. So you must learn to keep focused and not allow distractions into your life or live in a way where you cannot make strong commitments.