Unit 4 - Christianity Lecture Flashcards
Manicheism
Council of Nicea decided which books shd be in the bible
Manicheism was pervasive heresy, believed in powerful god and devil with cosmic struggle between them
Mind-body problem
We are in 2 parts - body and soul
Why do we feel like our immaterial soul controls our material body?
Material monism
Intuition is an illusion
Everything in universe is material
Most physiopsychologoists and scientists (eg. Hobbes)
Phenomenological problem
Why is it like something to be me?
Counter-intuitive
Interactionism
Descartes
2 parts with interface between them (pineal gland)
Or whole brain can be panel
Accounts for both sides of the problem
Psychophysical paralellism
Leibniz
Mind/body do not influence each other
Rather, they are in parallel so perfectly that it feels like they are one but are not
Dual-aspect monism
Spinoza
One substance but not physical
Hard to describe in our own language
Both physical and mental
Spiritual monism
One substance that is spiritual
Matter is an illusion
Freewill problem
God is good and powerful
So everything he creates is good
But why are there lots of things that are not good?
Outside of Aug, what do we mean by free will?
Free will
Capacity to make decisions without God
People make bad decisions and create evil
But free will is only a problem if you believe in god
Are people free agents?
- Genetic determinism
- Environmental determinism
(These two are oversimplified) - Combination of the 2 with complex interactions
- People do have free will
Something like executive function?
Kierkegaard
Passion, commitment and leap of faith into Christianity
Thought he was cursed and was miserable
Saw superficial life around him and thought people lacked passion
Quest for meaning
Considered first existentialist
Kierkegaard’s steps for authentic and meaningful living
- Feel passion about something
- Attach that passion to something consistent
- Commit to god
Kierkegaard’s evidence for god
None, you have to take a leap of faith
Nietzsche
One of the fathers of existentialism
Contempt for leap of faith
Nietzsche’s problem in life?
It exists in an irrational, purposeless meaningless world
God is dead and we have killed him
God used to give meaning and now it is lost due to skepticism, science and capitalism
Philology
Gap between reality and our mental representation of it
Purpose of cognition and consciousness
Cognition as an interpretive process
Nietzsche’s view of consciousness
Mental representations and concepts are a social disease
Conscience is an outgrowth of social nature and also a disease
Relativism
THeories as manifestations of elements of the psyche
No interpretation is valid so no theory can claim to be truth
All theories are outgrowths of the person who created them
Nietzsche’s existential problem
The death of god
External return and recurrence - if your life keeps happening over and over again; if not happy then doing it wrong
Must embrace meaninglessness, not run away from it
Nietzsche’s solution
Become an ubermensch (superman) or superior human being
Recognize that theories and social norms are contingent to time and place used to control the weak
Throw off the shackles as an ubermensch
Do what you want and create new set of beliefs and behaviors
Neitzsche’s 2 options
- Leap of faith
2. Acknowledge that everything else is wrong and embrace it
What must we reconcile?
Meaning is fundamental
But life is meaningless
