English project CIP (Conceptual Inquiry Project)

[The_OG_Nelta]

I think i've done this before, a longggggggggg time ago.

Basically, I have a bunch of random questions on things like Sin, Emotions, etc.
I just need opinions so I can collect some data etc etc.
So feel free to answer if you want! And if you don't want to then don't worry about it!
Your answers will be used and appreciated, thank you guys :D

Emotion:
1. Is emotion more related to instincts that both men and other animals can have, or is it more closely tied in with logic, reasoning, and intellect? Elaborate.

2. Do emotional thought processes always result in opinion, or can they also contribute to reasoning? Why or why not?

3. What role did emotion play in forming the first societies, tribes, and civilizations? What role did they play in politics then and now?

Sin:
“But unless the act transgresses the law of God it is not sinful. The divine law which is transgressed may be the natural law that God instills in human reason, but the act is sinful if the person who commits the act turns away from God to worship or love of other things”

1. Original sin is the sin of Adam which has been passed down from generation to generation. What is the difference between original sin and acquired sin? Which do you consider more important in life? Explain

2. Do people sin for the reason that sinning itself is enjoyed? Do people enjoy a disobedient act because it is forbidden? Explain.

3. Pride is self-love in excess of what the self deserves. Pride is a tragic flaw that makes man forget that they are only men and are subject to the laws of god. Pride is said to be the root of all sin, do you agree? Explain.

Sin(2):
1. In the Pagan and Judeo-conceptions of sin, sin is essentially the transgression of divine law and a rift in the “relation of man to the gods or to God”. Do you agree with this? If not, what do you consider the definition of sin to be? Explain.

2. A man’s pride and disobedience are often linked with the very idea of sin. At the core, pride is fostered by a “self-love in excess of what the self deserves” while disobedience is often prompted by “love which exceeds the worth of the object loved”. Although love is most often viewed positively, do you believe that love can also be the “heart of sin”? Is sin a result of excessive or misguided love?

3. Why do we sin? Why do we in our choice between good and evil, tend to move, sometimes even against the “inclination of our nature, away from good toward evil” and sin?

4. Any suggestions for leads (works of art, music, literature, etc that pertain to topic of sin)

Eternity:
1. Do you think eternity flows forward, or is it a fixed point where everything that is, was, and will be is present at once?

2. Is eternity basically time standing still?

3. One of the definitions of eternity is simply something that is immutable; never undergoing change. Is there anything eternal within the realm of time? Or is the term 'eternity' applicable only to the divine?

4. Eternality has been claimed by two things other than God: truth and ideas. According to Hobbes, whatever "is produced by reasoning aright is general, eternal and immutable truth." Do you think that truths can change? Explain.

Cause:
exerpt: The principle of casualty–that nothing happens without the cause or sufficient reason has been made the bases for denials of human freedom as well as of chance or contingency in the order of nature. Explanation is an inveterate human tendency. The question “Why?” remains after all other questions are answered.

1. Do all things have to have a cause or are some things random (when chance is the cause)?

2. Are people happier when they don’t know the cause of incidents or when they find the cause behind incidents? Give examples.

3. Do you think little things matter by being able to cause big reactions?

Just answer whatever you want to answer.
Thank you guys again!

[Hellfury]

Am bored preparing for exams, will try to mull on it a little.One of the core issues in many of these questions is wether you believe in absolutes or relatives. Sin is in the most used context religious, but must be viewed in a broader perspective.

Emotion
1, emotions are primarily instinctual, but instincts (and as such, emotions) can be conditioned through logic, reasoning, intellect experience etc. ( to prove I am a geek, look at Vulcans in Sci-Fi - Star Trek for elaboration )

2, Emotions can contribute to reasoning with the ability to recognize the emotions for what they are, why they affect us, what that tells us about ourselves and how we can use that for reflection.

3, as I will refer to later, but mention now, I have a fondness for Maslov's pyramid in such questions, connectig Hobbes' view to the two lower tiers, and more Kant/Hume/Locke to the upper 3 tiers. Concept of Humans as flock animals and the emotional (and physical) need for social ties, establishment of social hierarchies, need for belonging and perspective (establishing identity in relationship to others). Emotions at the core of all this.

Sin1
1, I don't recognize the validity of "original sin". no matter which way you read it, we were supposedly given free will, free will not including freedom of knowledge is (in my view) not free will. Sin as a concept in general becomes a matter of subjective interpretation, we might reach intersubjective truths on some accounts, but Kant's categorial imperatives can bite me.

2, once more, "sin" is a subjective matter. Is sinning a goal unto itself? Probably, the act of rebelling against the "established order of things" is not a new phenomenon. It has existed in multiple forms throughout recorded history. Intent needs to be considered. That said, people probably sin because it gives them a kick. The question is what kind of kick, because it is forbidden? or because what is perceived as a sin is simply something they enjoy. Look at sexuality, BDSM and assorted fetishes for example.

3, A definiton of pride is presented, the question is wether that definiton can be accepted. Different people put different meanings into different words in different situations. I reject the narrowminded perspective on pride presented in the question.
Pride might be held as a negative, but it can also be positive, like taking pride in what others have accomplished, in good deeds. It is a term dealing with your feeling of self-worth and accomplishments. It can be a motivator, and can compel us to do the right thing, for honor, for integrity, "our pride demands". It can also be a bad thing and prevent us from doing what needs/should be done.
Everything is bad in excess.

Sin2
1, I do not recognize any religions authority to define my values (but I can not deny the effect religion(s) have had on my society, and as a consequence, how those values have been imprinted on me.)
To sin would be to violate a moral law, regardless of it's origin, that you recognize.
It is not a sin to the individual if it does not recognize said law. It might still be perceived as sin by those who DO recognize the law though.

2, You would need to define what is love. Love is a wide concept, we can love excessively, or too little. We can love ourselves, and others. There's general love for our fellow humans/animals/whatever, there's love for our comrades, family, values etc.
There's romantic love, and so on. What kind of love is right and what is wrong is a subjective matter.
Love can drive us to do things we could not or should not do, a question that can and should be asked wether love is an amplifier of what is already in us, or if it is a director in itself.
Sin can easily be considered to be excessive/misguided love, look for example at pedophiles.

3, why do we sin?
Why do we do anything? We lose our self-control and moral compass, we wish to rebel, to challenge, to prove our strenght, to satisfy our urges. Perhaps show that we are our own masters?

4, on sin: look particularly at age of enlightenment for Europe/NA
Kant (categorial imperative for example), Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Jefferson, Berkeley. is what I can suggest, you should probably look into more aggressively religious sources too though.

Eternity

1,2 and 3. Eternity is a difficult concept, how can the linear human mind really grasp it? I would believe that eternity is "everything at once". The concept has little meaning if it has fixed points. If it has a start or end, it can not be eternal?

4, truths.
Once again we enter the realm where the question is: What is truth?
Do absolute truths exist, or are they subjective, or absolute but contingent upon situations? Kant looked at categorical imperatives and absolutely pure actions,grossly oversimplified, he stated that there actions would have to be true and good under all circumstances. But looking in that perspective, let's take the old time travel/morale question: if you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you? you get an ensuing debate on problems with "what would happen if you did". Another question would be "Would it be right if he hadn't done anything yet." let's ignore the "what would happen", and just look at the issue of right and wrong.
He hasn't done anything yet, can you kill him based on what you know he will do?
Now, looking at Kant's perspective, the effects and consequences are irrelevant, would it be right to kill anyone would be the question. seen in the light of the act of killing as such, the answer would be no. it would be wrong
But looking at Hobbes' perspective:
The SUBJECTIVE truth here would be yes, in this situation you could. You would prevent the deaths of millions and millions. The reason (ends) justify the means. But the truth in that case, is not necessarily the truth in another.
To put this in perspective, you need to look at ancient greek philosophers, who pondered the subject long before Hobbes. Um, from memory, Heraclit, Parmenides, Socrates, Platon and more I can not recall off the top of my head.
Can also just look at philosophies in theory of knowledge in general, positivism vs hermeneutics (recommend a quick peek at this in general for the whole problem solution)

Cause
1, It would depend on perspective, do they have to have a cause? an interesting take on this would be to compare religious and non-religious people and their views. Those who do not have "Gods will" as an excuse, what do they think? Things are random in that absolute full control is not within our grasp, there are on some level always unknown/uncontrollable factors that play in, which would be what might as well be called chance.

2, Sometimes ignorance is bliss, when good things happen, people tend to accept it and just lightly offer their thanks to something, when bad things happen though, people tend to start asking questions why. to narrow it down a little, you could start to look at situations where something has gone bad, and to what degree the "people" might be the cause of the incidents, and if they would want to know or not. You might find that different personality types will have wildly differing views on it.

3, Do little things matter? I would say yes. History is filled with anecdotes about straws breaking camels backs, "God is in the details", lose screws in machinery, old seemingly insignificant grudges affecting events much much later. Marketing management literature is filled to the brim with examples of how the human mind is affected, so is psychology literature.
Supposedly the "Bug"-term comes from when computers were significantly larger, and a literal bug flew into the machine and caused havoc.

I would like to write 20 pages more, but have exams to prepare for alas!

[The_OG_Nelta]

Thank you!

[Cadsuane]

Emotion

1.) Is emotion more related to instincts that both men and other animals can have, or is it more closely tied in with logic, reasoning, and intellect? Elaborate.

I'm inclined to say the former. Reason is dispassionate and impersonal but it only refines behaviour, it's not the root motivation. It's the glandular chemical aspect of biology that keeps it churning, not the electric mechanism of the conscious brain.

2.) Do emotional thought processes always result in opinion, or can they also contribute to reasoning? Why or why not?

I don't understand the line you're drawing between opinion and reasoning.

3.) What role did emotion play in forming the first societies, tribes, and civilizations? What role did they play in politics then and now?

That's a rather unfocused question with any number of broad, unfocused answers. I could talk about group dynamics in psychology or refer to my answer for the first question, that reason alone wouldn't even be able to give us a solid reason for continued existence much less the establishment of complex social hierarchies.

Sin

1.) Original sin is the sin of Adam which has been passed down from generation to generation. What is the difference between original sin and acquired sin? Which do you consider more important in life? Explain.

I don't believe in the concept of a moral law or of a divinity or of sin, so I'll have to interpret this as question of whether personal transgressions or those of your forebears are worse. Naturally, my opinion is that no one is responsible for crimes they haven't commited.

2.) Do people sin for the reason that sinning itself is enjoyed? Do people enjoy a disobedient act because it is forbidden? Explain.

Disobiedience isn't necessarily a "sin" according to a variety of religious authorities we happen to be quoting (unless it's done against God's will, whatever that means) , but making moral choices is really just the ability to externalize costs and benefits onto a collectective which is motivated by the fact that in the long run communal living is easier.

That said, sane people don't make demonstrably immoral choices that they know will make everyone including themselves worse off. This is easily illustrated in any number of modern games with "moral choice" role playing systems in which the "evil" path is so cartoon villainous and/or pointlessly psychotic that nobody can motivate themselves to take those choices seriously no matter how foppishly self-righteous the "good" path is. The examples of historical figures widely considered to be evil and sinful uniformly haven't seen themselves as evil or sinful people but rather they have a variety of justifications for their actions or a belief that what they were doing was serving some greater good in some way. The worst they can be accused of is poor judgment.

I have and continue to enjoy smoking, alcohol, fornication, masturbation as well as a liberal tendency to oppose moral authority figures which are all traditionally considered to be sinful; but my indulgence in these things is less about my enjoying sinfulness and more to do with the fact that I consider self-righteousness, abstinence only sexual education and obsessive conservatism to be morally abhorrent.

3.) Pride is self-love in excess of what the self deserves. Pride is a tragic flaw that makes man forget that they are only men and are subject to the laws of god. Pride is said to be the root of all sin, do you agree? Explain.

No, I don't believe that pride is the root of sin, because it's a roundabout way of saying that servile self-deprication is the root of virtue, which it's not.

Sin (2)

1.) In the Pagan and Judeo-conceptions of sin, sin is essentially the transgression of divine law and a rift in the “relation of man to the gods or to God”. Do you agree with this? If not, what do you consider the definition of sin to be? Explain.

Defining shallow normative judgments is beneath me. Suffice it so say that I think Sin is the attempt of outdated authorities to homogenize and mollify the moral barometres of the swinish masses, which has been great for cementing society but disastrous for the intellectual health of man.

2.) A man’s pride and disobedience are often linked with the very idea of sin. At the core, pride is fostered by a “self-love in excess of what the self deserves” while disobedience is often prompted by “love which exceeds the worth of the object loved”. Although love is most often viewed positively, do you believe that love can also be the “heart of sin”? Is sin a result of excessive or misguided love?

Is there any aspect of man that hasn't been described by some church as base animal garbage? Who cares?

3.) Why do we sin? Why do we in our choice between good and evil, tend to move, sometimes even against the “inclination of our nature, away from good toward evil” and sin?

I feel I've answered this already.

Eternity

1.) Do you think eternity flows forward, or is it a fixed point where everything that is, was, and will be is present at once?

Is eternity basically time standing still?


Questions like these I don't even bother with when taking psychadelics.

3. One of the definitions of eternity is simply something that is immutable; never undergoing change. Is there anything eternal within the realm of time? Or is the term 'eternity' applicable only to the divine?

No. Thermodynamics is pretty inevitable.

4. Eternality has been claimed by two things other than God: truth and ideas. According to Hobbes, whatever "is produced by reasoning aright is general, eternal and immutable truth." Do you think that truths can change? Explain.

Hobbes is articulating a central idea of rationalism and platonism. Yes, I believe that there is truth and calling it immutable is redundant. The converse is absurd.

Causality

1. Do all things have to have a cause or are some things random (when chance is the cause)?

Anyone who doesn't believe in a causal universe will either bring up god or quantum physics which indicates respectively that they're divorced from reality or that they don't understand modern physics.

2. Are people happier when they don’t know the cause of incidents or when they find the cause behind incidents? Give examples.

Absolutely. Wilful ignorance can be tremendously gratifying. Religion is the most resoundingly illustrative example that can be put forth.

[Silenus]

Emotion:
1. I would think emotions would be more instinct/hormonal response than logic and intellect.

2. Fear can lead one to very rational decisions; i.e. fleeing a burning house.

3. Fear and love both bind people together to search for common causes to problems, as well as binds people together for common defense.

Sin:

1. The sins of the father are passed down generation to generation; "acquired" sin would be any violation of any commandment, including the two in the New Testament (Love God, love your neighbor as yourself). Both "types" of sin make you a sinner, just like stealing $1 or $100 makes you a thief, and so are equally weighted. Only one type of sin is unforgiveable; blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. All other sin can be forgiven.

2. People sin for basically three reasons: pride of life, lust of the eyes, and lust of the flesh. The pleasure you get from sin is front-loaded; you enjoy it in the moment, but it bites you in the ass later. And yes, many people do "taboo" things for the thrill of it; that thrill, however, is never satisfied and only leads to death.

3. Pride was Lucifer's main sin, and he and all of his followers are doomed. However, I believe that there are basically three types of sin, as stated above. And the verse is, Love of money is the root of all evil.

Sin(2):
1. Sin is clearly breaking God's law. However, God's laws cannot be perfectly kept by anyone (other than Christ), so some atonement or reconciliation had to be made for the rule-breakers, or everyone would be doomed.

2. God is love; any love that would lead you to sin and therefore away from God would not have come from God. Lust is corrupted love, not true love. Lust causes sin; lust of the eyes and lust of the flesh.

3. We sin because we have fallen from grace. We sin due to the weakness of our flesh; our hearts can know the right thing to do, but our bodies can betray us in their weakness.

Eternity:
1. I think time as we know it is a measure of decay, of entropy. After this universe is over, I do not think there will be any decay or entropy in the new heaven and earth.

2. Eternity is a place with no time because there is no corruption, no decay, no entropy.

3. The only immutable thing in the universe is God, and God promised to deliver us with new eternal bodies that can last forever.

4. Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the light. He also said he doesn't change his mind like men change their minds, breaking oaths, etc. So the only immutable truths would be about the true nature of God and his promises.

Cause:

1. Even if something appears random, that does not mean that it was not known prior to its existence; i.e., if you were to roll two fair dice, and God called out you were going to roll a hard eight, and you did, it was still a random event, but not an unknown one. All things work together for the good, to those who love God and are called according to his purposes.

2. Ignorance is bliss; look around for examples.

3. Don't sweat the small stuff, but it's all small stuff. Everything is connected somehow, and chain reactions are started with very small events.

[The_OG_Nelta]

Thank you guys!

[Zalius]

when's this due by?

[The_OG_Nelta]

Hm, I have til Feb, but I have to gather a good amount of opinions/information so starting now won't hurt.

[Hellfury]

Hm, I have til Feb, but I have to gather a good amount of opinions/information so starting now won't hurt.

I'd like to see the finished product if you don't mind, curious now

[The_OG_Nelta]

I'll bookmark this thread, this is a 2 semester thing, I just submitted the one for this semester, and it adds on to next semester. I will upload the final product if whoever answered would like.