One thing in this writing jumped out at me more than anything else, and that was when the argument against astrology was made. He says that if it is said that the planets control the actions of man, then it takes the blame for the sinners. And so it does; if you can't help what you do, then why try? However, I find it funny that he can present this idea against astrology, and yet fail to see the argument it presents against religion. It is something I have thought of before; the idea of fate, and destiny, that 'God has a plan', has often irked me. It takes the meaning away from our choices, it's an excuse to avoid change. It is also a way to find comfort from grief, saying that 'god has his reasons'. Though I understand the need to find comfort in even such an illogical fantasy, it does not excuse it. I have heard people say to me, 'no, we control our fate, not god, it's our choices that lead us to fulfill his plan, and our destiny'. Sorry folks, that's called free will, and is, in fact, the opposite of fate, so thanks for making my own argument.
As for events in my life that have led me to my beliefs, I have to say, that if there is a god pulling the strings of the earths fate, he's a sadistic bastard.

Learning from life

Tonight's posting suggestion: St. Augustine was greatly troubled by the death of his friend, which made him reconsider how he thought about life. Have you had an experience that caused you to change how you think about the world and/or your place in it? What was the experience, and how did it change how you think?

St. Augustine's Confessions

The part that interested me the most is the seventeenth entry that concentrates on the relativity of parts to their whole. Richard Mattsson for the past four (close to five) weeks has been my figure drawing teacher and I second his declaration that the class in fact seems more like a situational drawing class because the model only constitutes for a part of the whole of our drawings. Giving to much precedence to the figure alone, Mattsson warned us, would inevitably result in an incomplete documentation of what we have directly observed. The environment around the figure is just as important as the figure itself because the environment supports the mass of the figure and grounds it in space. Thus these parts I am depicting ought to be developed simultaneously so as to do justice to the whole of the drawing and retain a sence of unitfy and uniformity. The addition of information that has no overall effect on the whole drawing should be disregarded as superfluous and something like a smoke screen for greater problems negelected in the drawing. The mojority of the rest of the time St. Augustine just sounded like he was groveling pitifully. A little melodramatic for my taste.

St. Augustine, Confessions

Hmm, well let's see. I quite enjoyed this reading. As I was reading I had a few questions, like one for example is, well he was talking about God, and in the beginning he talked about liking astrology, but still preaching about God. Isn't astrology against the Christian faith, or maybe not against, but frowned upon. Because I know, that for me growing up as a christian I wasn't allowed to believe in magic, or astrology. But anyways, enough about that. It seems that he was attached to many personal relationships, one having a huge impact on him. I really liked what he had to say about friendship. And I also liked the few paragraphs where he had to mourn the death of his friend. What I got from this is, that beauty is having many good relationships, or having a good relationship with a certain someone, or someone who you greatly trust. I'm not really sure, but I'm guessing we'll discuss this in class. I really liked when he said "What a great difference there is between the restraint of the marriage bond contracted with a view to having children and the compact of a lustful love, where children are born against the parents' will, although once they are born they compel our love." Not that I can relate to this, but I'm sure this is true. And well besides that, I think that's all I understood. Maybe I didn't understand that much, but even if I didn't understand the reading, I still found it sort of entertaining.

Augustine

This was a little hard for me to read, but for the most part I think I understood it. I don't really have any strong thoughts or opinions on it at the moment, but I am interested to see what will be said about it in class.

Marcus Aurelius

Sorry if this post seems a little late, sometimes when I try to make a post it doesn't work, so I have to come back when I get chance to write it again.

I loved everything Marcus Aurelius had to say. His method of handling life reminds me of when Plato spoke about art and the irrational emotions it inspires people to have. To me it seems as though Marcus Aurelius tries his hardest to subdue his emotions, irrational or not, and replaces them with cool logic and reasoning. As we all know this is extremely difficult and I can see where writing these meditations would be extremely useful for him. I wonder if emotions can be completely ignored. I aways hear people saying not to bottle up your emotions. When practicing the habits of Marcus Aurelius, am I just bottling them up, or keeping them in check? I feel more capable of doing great things when I'm in his mindset; almost unstoppable. But then morning I wake up in a lazy mood. You know those days when all you want to do is sit around with some friends an watch movies. Then I think of his mediation (64) that laziness and sleepiness are just pain in disguise, that you just need to remind yourself that "I'm giving in to pain". At that moment I just don't care. Yeah so what? I deserve a break. Next time I feel this way I will make a conscious effort to push through those unproductive feelings, not to give in to Freud's Id ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego) I shared this reading with a few friends and they loved it as well. He truly is an inspirational man.