Taoism and Our World Today

How can Taoism help deepen our understanding of early China? First off, what is Taoism? Taoism is a Religious concept in that life should not have any stresses and you should just "go with the flow". You shouldn't worry about the past or the future, just let life take you on the path it created for you. Taoism is a very interesting concept because it can help us better our understanding of early China and Ho it was at the time. In the article we read today, one of the big ideas was that people of China wanted to bring Taoism back and they liked the idea. What Taoism can help us do is notice how the people of early China were. In our social studies classes, but we learned how the people of other early cultures had strict beliefs and had certain things to do based on their class or caste. In Taoism, we can infer that the people of early China were laid back. No worries. No stress. Even though there is little evidence to enhance our understanding about early China, Taoism helps us to understand it a little. Enter,

Is the World Real?

Is the world as we know it really a thing? Is it just a thought in someone's head? A we just a simulation? After reading the article "Are we a Living Computer Simulation", it has passed through my mind that the world and everything in it could just be a lie, someone could just turn their computer off and we would be gone. Personally, I don't believe what is called the computer simulation theory. This theory states that reality as we know ur, is just a computer simulation. I believe the reality as I always have, it's here and that's how we're living. In reality. Not just in someone's computer. You might think otherwise. Its really just how you perceive the theory. So, is the world real?

The Book of Job, The Haulocost and More Violence

Wow. That's what I have to say about this article. I find this a very interesting tiling to be comparing to The Book of Job because of how well they compare. What happened in The Book of Job and this article are very similar. The author of the article also says something that directly relates to our studies of the Old Testament and The Book of Job."I think if God is so great and so powerful, he could have struck Hitler down before he killed so many Jews. That’s my feeling." This is exactly what we've been saying. If God is great and powerful, why can't he just se that Job is faithful and why can't he just end Hitler before he killed so many Jews. He has no reason to have to kill so many Jews or make Job's life a living hell. He also said "I really don’t understand my father’s faith. I don’t understand why he would risk his life in the camps for a God who had seemingly abandoned him. Nor do I understand my mother’s strange combination of faith and doubt. How she continued to observe the commandments of a God she could not forgive." This also directly compares to what we've been saying because as we see from this quote, both of his parents never gave up on God. Even though they were being tortured and eventually killed, they never gave up faith in God and they never stopped believing in him. Just life Job, his entire family, friends and animals were killed plus the fact that God tortured him, he never gave up on God and never stopped believing or being faithful. Even in the present day, we see how just about 70 years ago, God was still testing people's faith in violent ways.

God and His Tests

Our assignment for this post was to read and write about parts 1 and 2 of the Book of Job. We were then asked to analyze the similarities and differences in The Book of Job and other Old Testament stories. What a perfectly fitting question. From the other stories that we've read in the Old Testament, we've learned that God is a very merciless, self centered character. He doesn't care what's it's like for the person, he will do anything he needs to test this certain person. Is what he does really necessary? I would say no, purely because of the brutality of his tests. For example, let's take Noah's Ark. God has all the power ever. In the story, the people were sinning and disobeying God. Instead of just using his power to solve the problem, he creates a flood to kill everyone and everything on earth (excluding Noah, his family and the animals). This is just like two other stories we read, The Book of Job and the story of Abraham and Isaac. God has all this power, but doesn't know how to use it for the good. He could have just used his power to see if Job and Abraham were faithful, but instead he makes Abraham kill his only son Isaac. Isaac took a very long time to be conceived and God wants him to be killed just for a test? Instead of using his power to test Job's faith, God kills his family, friends, animals and then goes on to make his life absolute hell. I think we can all see a pattern here. God will go to a dramatic point just to test this person. The only differences we see are the little details like the killing methods, the reason for testing and stuff like that. Other than that, the take away here is that in most Old Testament stories, God doesn't care what he does as long as he gets what he wants.