Critical Thinking Film Faqir Wk3 P5

What Faqir Chand states in this film, makes much sense to me. When I think about his claims that nobody manifests themselves to help you in your personal matters, that it is actually yourself, I start thinking about people who create alter egos. People often create alter egos of themselves to portray how they really want to be, in making this alter ego, they live vicariously through them. Envisioning the alter ego as somebody else when in reality it is them. I think the same can be applied to religious figures who are said to appear or provide help to a individual with a lot of faith. I can imagine that many people would disagree, but what's harder than to convince yourself otherwise when its your own mind thats playing tricks on you?...Interesting concept.
When you think about it, the importance of significant figures in religion have been created by people themselves. Whether they're characters from the bible or whether an "enlightened" person was proclaimed as a higher being, these are things that people themselves have created as a source of help. Their faith and their own knowledge makes the power of these symbols more powerful, therefore making the symbols represent their own thought process. They get so used to depending on these symbols that they forget that they are the ones who are actually helping themselves, sometimes not even forget, they never know and give the credit to the deity's or representatives. I wonder how many people would accept this.

Pretext #2 Wk3 P4

It is very difficult to explain the origin of what makes us beings. In this article, David does a good job of explaining how basic we can go to explain ourselves, but we can only go so far. I do agree that every level of is connected to the prior and to the next level. There's no doubt about that, you take one level away and like David's example using "The Great Gatsby", the whole structure would collapse. I don't think we would ever know what's under the "spirit".

To know if there's an actual astral plane or not, in my opinion, the only way to find that out is actually death. But there's no coming back from that is there? Its just one of those things that will always debated. Especially between the spiritual and the scientist. The makings of a soul and the transcending past the brain and body will always be debatable topics. One could talk about these subjects for hours and at the end of the day it would all just be educated guesses, like David said "We can't even explain--in terms of physiology--how we grow hair on our arms...".

Reaction To Expert Lecture By Freeyman Dyson Wk 3 P3

I can't even imagine the complex knowledge that Freemason Dyson possesses. A person with that much technical knowledge, is not a surprise to me that he is not all the way religious, that is, there are some things in religion that does not believe in. He says he describes himself as a "Christian without the theology". Religion is a way of life and not a matter of belief in his opinion. I would have to agree with that, it was very well put. Mr. Dyson does a good job in separating his religious belief with his scientific knowledge. He basically keeps all the morals of the religion and blends it with the factual information of his career. A well balanced approach.


It is an interesting concept the "Three models of mind". The human mind, the molecular mind and the universal mind. I asked myself when I heard this, if the universe could have a "mind", would that point more to "Intelligent Design"? He says that it may not be true, but plausible, I wonder what his position would be on "Intelligent Design". He calls "God" as the "Mind" of the universe, but not the "God" of religious conviction. Also, he says that Science has a sort of restriction, that it cannot explain the universe. That also seems to point to "Intelligent Design" to me. This was a very engaging interview.

Pretext #1 Wk3

David's article was very informative. I never thought of reading in terms of "pretext, text and context". It put a different perspective to literature for me. I think you can see this kind of process when people try to learn another language. Before they can speak the words of the language, they must first learn what each alphabetic unit represents phonetically. After they do, they can move on to texts and say words and understand their meaning. Once that is done, they can put the words together, creating context in sentences, then to phrases till finally they can speak the language in a conversation. Its a necessary process if you want to be successful.

Its interesting how you can apply this process to our own being. I also agree strongly that every discipline should look to the basis of their own domain in order to maximize their understanding of whatever field they're in. If they stray to other forms then it will not work. "Sociobiology" sounds like an interesting concept, I wonder if they'll implement that one day. I'd like to read more into this topic.

Why I am Not A Christian - Bertrand Russell

As soon as Bertrand Russell said that you have to believe in God and immortality to be a Christian, I agreed. Those are two very important concepts in Christianity, without that how can you be a Christian? I too remember thinking about the concept of the First Cause Argument and almost unhinged my mind asking who made the universe, if God, then who made God. It just goes too deep to even imagine the beginning of a beginning of a beginning and so on. It is also true that the role of God does change with the times, due to advances in modern science and intellectual enlightenment, therefore changing the impression of "Natural Law". When these concepts are put under more scrutiny, they seem to be more fallacious.


Bertrand Russell has unmistakably gone in depth in most aspects of Christian arguments and came up with reasons to dispute those arguments. Of course if you believe in something and there's a reason to dispute that, then those beliefs don't seem as strong anymore. Once you start to question your beliefs then its the beginning of losing the position you once held as your perspective changes. He does this without attacking Christianity, instead he's just writing the reasons he is not a reason and I can't say that I blame him. All of the points that he has mentioned are valid. He is definitely not a Christian.

Eleven Film Essay Wk2 Post 5

This was a powerful film. Honest in depicting what happens when people in their ignorance feel like they are doing the right thing, act in the most horrid of ways. Blinded by rage, "Patriotism" justifies their immoral wickedness. 9/11 brought many criticism to the people of the middle east, stereotypes heightened. Many innocent people were persecuted, fear and anger took control of a few who expressed it in "righteous" violence. Some people dared to stand in the way and defended the ones who were treated unjustly. Joshua Williams should be remembered for trying to expose this story, because its only when people understand in depth of these actions is when they realize how malicious and wrong it is to act in such a fervor clouded by ignorance and fueled with hate. This is a compelling film.

A Field Guide To Critical Thinking Wk2 Post 4

"FiLCHeRS" is the way that all human beings should approach things. With this way of going about different topics and theories, there wouldn't be any chance given for mediocre claims or theories to reach popularity and be treated as fact. I think most people involved in the paranormal, U.F.O's, etc., don't apply this method because their beliefs would surely be shattered when it comes to a meticulous form of thinking and finding the evidence to support the theories presented. In all honesty, I believe most skeptics use a less tenacious form of "FiLCHeRS" because, skeptics like myself, are not ready to just believe something without having at a minimum one pertinent piece of evidence. People are intrigued by the unexplained and amazed by the mystery behind things and want to believe, proven or not, that there's something more to the world they live in. As James lett writes "Skepticism means: to believe if and only if the evidence warrants"