week 8 discussion posts #3-4

On the topic of Providence, Free Will & Suffering
Discussion posts below altered slightly for the purposes of this blog


Responding to Priyanka - I felt that Ariella was implying that humans will inevitably live in a world that includes evil and suffering, because it is not possible for them to be "free-willed" and make the "right" decisions all the time. And I agree with this to an extent, in that yes, humans will inevitably make mistakes, the wrong decisions, etc. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we as humans will breed an environment with lots of negativity and general unpleasantness.

Perhaps such an environment would exist temporarily - but surely it would be possible for humans to exist co-operatively with one another and their surroundings - a Utopian ideal, I know, but if you can dream it, perhaps you can live it too. (I hope all the above makes sense!)

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Miroula had a really interesting question. Perhaps humans had to develop an understanding of right and wrong, good and evil. So the basic emotions such as joy, fear, anger, sorrow were (and of course continue to be) an inherent part of human beings, but perhaps it wasn't until humans were exposed to different situations and a variety of interactions with one another, that they began to develop certain reactions to particular events.. and maybe then they developed a like/dislike of that event, which then caused their mind to separate the 'good' from the 'bad'.

Basically what I'm trying to say is, perhaps humans developed a sense of what was evil and what it meant to suffer, from their own feelings during certain life experiences.. so it didn't actually exist to begin with, it was a human concept, in a similar way that Time is considered to be a human concept (I think?).