This class will be interesting.
Sep. 3rd, 2008 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athenaltenaAt this point I'm wondering if maybe I should do a minor in philosophy, or at least explore that department a little more.
I had my first class today, Ethics 123, and I think I'm very much going to enjoy it. We did an exercise where we wrote down what our definition of "The Good Life" is, and then we got into groups based on the "8 Minute Dating" concept and briefly shared our ideas. It become obvious pretty quickly that I was approaching the question from a much more Eastern perspective than many of the other students, since I was one of the few who didn't mention anything about material wealth and approached it on a larger scale than just the individual me.
My version basically had to do with Karma and how I believe that you come into the world with neutral Karma (and I don't believe in Original Sin -- yeah, that's my UU background showing) but you can effect whether you have a negative influence on the world or a positive one. I think that a good life is one that adds to the positive, so you don't leave with any debt and have bettered the world with your existence, even (or should I say especially) if it's in a small indiscernible way. You don't have to be Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama, but as long as you didn't make the world worse by your existence I think you lived a good life.
It was pretty obvious that I came at it from a different angle, since most of the other answers had to do with the individual self and self fulfillment, while the way I look at it is that the self and the universe are interconnected and ultimately the same thing, so what you do to help others ultimately comes back to you (once again the UU showing along with some Buddhism, Taoism, and a smidgen of Shinto for good measure). I also ended up quoting Emily Dickinson's "If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain" since that more or less sums up what I think.
This will certainly be an interesting class, and they apparently have an Eastern Philosophy section as well. This'll be fun. :D
I had my first class today, Ethics 123, and I think I'm very much going to enjoy it. We did an exercise where we wrote down what our definition of "The Good Life" is, and then we got into groups based on the "8 Minute Dating" concept and briefly shared our ideas. It become obvious pretty quickly that I was approaching the question from a much more Eastern perspective than many of the other students, since I was one of the few who didn't mention anything about material wealth and approached it on a larger scale than just the individual me.
My version basically had to do with Karma and how I believe that you come into the world with neutral Karma (and I don't believe in Original Sin -- yeah, that's my UU background showing) but you can effect whether you have a negative influence on the world or a positive one. I think that a good life is one that adds to the positive, so you don't leave with any debt and have bettered the world with your existence, even (or should I say especially) if it's in a small indiscernible way. You don't have to be Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama, but as long as you didn't make the world worse by your existence I think you lived a good life.
It was pretty obvious that I came at it from a different angle, since most of the other answers had to do with the individual self and self fulfillment, while the way I look at it is that the self and the universe are interconnected and ultimately the same thing, so what you do to help others ultimately comes back to you (once again the UU showing along with some Buddhism, Taoism, and a smidgen of Shinto for good measure). I also ended up quoting Emily Dickinson's "If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain" since that more or less sums up what I think.
This will certainly be an interesting class, and they apparently have an Eastern Philosophy section as well. This'll be fun. :D
