Discussion Question-Week 1

1) "For even saintly folk will act like sinners
      Unless they have their customary dinners."
                                            -Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera
From the first of the book I was almost plagued by this statement. Will people act out if thrown into something new/different?

2) When do social ideals and patriotic ties become unimportant, lost or muddled together?

3) Can concrete answers and philosophical theories meet in the middle? Or can realistic theology and ethical idealism meet in the middle?

4) Can we as humans function without some form of politics invading the society we live in?

Free Will or Genetics?

First off, thank you Michael Smith for guiding me to this article.

In this article the author discusses the what we think of as being free will and is it really free will or a product of our genetics and previous experiences.

Do we have free will or are we “condemned to freedom,” in Jean-Paul Sartre’s words?

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/your-move-the-maze-of-free-will/

Langdon Gilkey

Langdon Gilkey: 1919-2004

The author of Shantung Compound and the first book I am tackling in my portfolio. Gilkey was a theologian at the University of Chicago and is considered to be one of the most influential American Christian theologians of the 20th century. A colleague, students of his and readers referred to him as, "the surest theological guide for the joys and terrors of living as a modern Christian in this 'time of troubles.'"

Gilkey had a way of bringing together theological theories and putting them into the immediate lived experience and he did it in an, "imaginative yet concrete way." In Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure, he narrates his own experience while living in a Japanese Internment Camp for two and a half years. During this time he departs for the liberal Protestant belief system that he once held. It was his time in the interment camp that led him to rethink Christianity in the modern "time of trouble." No longer were the traditional symbols of sin and grace for Gilkey, rather with a renewed look at the classical Reformation he dived into the individual, societal and historical estrangement, self-delusion and sin.

His early books document his time, and existential power of his experiences, that started from his early pacifist years to his teachings in China and his time in the Internment camp. His teachers--Niebuhr and Tillich--then molded him upon his return from China and helped him develop his own methods and categories which became a well formulated, powerful and creative theologically vision of his own.

His new take on the theology of history, which was based on a rethinking of the questions of "free will and grace, providence and fate, and eschatology and secular history," grew to become his most important, strictly theological work. Towards the end of his life he became one of the leading figures in the inter-religious and pluralist dialogue for Christian theology.


Source:
http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/04/041121.gilkey.shtml
http://www2.stetson.edu/~ljguenth/group/rel_cul.htm

What is this?

This is my (as I have aptly named) Senior Portfolio. So why am I doing this? Simple, it's for my independent study. Dr. Iron's and I decided that the best way to share and display all the pieces of my portfolio that I will be building over the course of the semester would be to create a blog. In this study I will be diving into modern philosophy and its effects on the world that I live in, my generation, culture and life experiences. In this blog you will find several varying posts, which include:

• My journals-these will mainly be my thoughts on the four books I am reading for the semester (Shantung Compound by Langdon Gilkey, We The Living by Ayn Rand, The Way of Ignorance by Wendell Berry, and Conversations by Luce Irigaray)
• Author Information-Each book I will also post a general overview of information on each of the authors and what her or his take on philosophy is.
• Discussion Questions-these will be the 
• Other: this broad category will include articles, art work, music, poetry, pop culture references, current events or any other thing that I feel can tie into this overall work.

I hope you enjoy and PLEASE leave your "two-cents" whether you whole-heartedly agree or disagree with me!