Being Picky When Befriending

During my life, I have had to move to a different places a number of times, and one thing I learned from the experience, was the art of sizing people up so that I could choose friends quickly and smartly. I discovered that if I chose a friend who’s human values were worse than mine, that I would surely lose my morals in a short period of time. I had to be intimate with someone who had equal or greater morals than mine. Identifying someone’s personal way of living is not as easy as alalyzing their appearance. I had to, as Confucius says in Book 4, verse 7, “Observe closely the sort of mistakes a person makes—then you will know his character.” I knew that everybody makes mistakes, but I would observe how people would react to the mistakes they made. If they simply shrugged at the equivocation, or really endeavored to make amends. This is a great way to identify a person’s heart, the strength of the conscious of the person. I believe I actually got the hang of it after failing a couple of times, and I think this is a skill that everybody should develop. To be in company with equal or greater persons than oneself is the ultimate method of self-improvement.

A Good Public Speaker

Obama uses a considerable amount of Pathos during his acceptance speech, like when he mentions the task at hand, “…for there are new jobs to be created, new schools to build and new threats to meet, and alliances to repair.” (min. 6 Pt. 2) He employs ethos when he states how honest he will be to the people of America in minute 7 of part two. His pathos and ethos statements can be identified as deliberative.  I identified a fallacy when, in minute 8 of part two, he says, “lets remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the republican party of the white house; a party founded on the values of self-reliance, and individual liberty, and national unity.” This is a Non causa pro causa fallacy because he implies that he is as the man who first carried the banner… and in turn, will cause the enforcement of the stated values.

I believe that his gestures are acceptable only if one pays no attention to them. It is nice to feel that the speaker refers to the whole audience, but I believe that he switches his viewing side too often, and may cause a distraction for those who pay attention to it. Otherwise, it’s a great method for making everyone feel patriotic.  

Do We Deserve To Die?

Bad things happen to good people so that bad people realize how much worse off they can be if they continue to be bad. People are testes, not punished for  being good so that if they pass, they are really good, but if they fail, then they’re just average. People’s goodness is tested, kind of like quality control, so that God can sort the ones who are really good from the ones who are lemons. Good people who are good just so that they can be rewarded, question their loyalty when bad things happen to them. It is only to the good people who bad things happen and leave their faith intact. In other words, if you’re going to start the trip, you have to finish it. As one can’t be half Jew, half Christian, one can’t be half believer, half doubter when presented with benefits and losses.  

 

Our Faith In Its Teenage Years

We were asked to read Night along with the book of Job so that we could observe the power of our faith, and what it takes to be broken. In Job, he was falsely punished, the thing that destroyed his faith, questioning his prayers and his loyalty to an all-powerful God who was all-demanding. He thought that, if God was unsatisfied with the perfect loyalty of Job, what was he satisfied with? He concluded that God could never be satisfied. Job’s perception of God can also be observed in many parents of present day. For instance, one father may never be satisfied with his son’s athletic or academic performance, while a mother may never be pleased by her daughter’s appearances. This is something that causes the child to lose faith in their parent’s judgment, but after a while of struggles and disappointments. In Night, Elie’s god died within him when he experienced God’s indifference towards the events of the Holocaust. He was shocked at how cruel God can be when standing there, watching the horrors from the outside. In this way, I believe these texts try to show us that God can often display adolescent traits, like mood swings. He can defend someone he favors, or punish whoever he dislikes, simply because of a whim. God’s inconsistency is demonstrated when he doesn’t act during the mass murder of his people, but does help his people to expand. In other words, God chooses to enable expansion as well as suppression of his people. His helping-hand is picky on where it chooses to aid.

The texts we read are chosen to show us during which conditions are people’s faith for God maintained. It is wrong to believe in God only when he helps you. Like a friend, you must not only be someone’s companion when it works to your favor, but vice-versa as well. In other words, you shouldn’t be someone’s friend only when they let you copy off their notebook, but when you let him copy of yours too. In the same way, we shouldn’t have faith in God only when God aids us financially, socially, etc… In the same way that we trust God when he helps us, we should also trust him when he doesn’t.

Faith, in turn, can be limp when being evoked in different circumstances. We should be consistent with it as we are with our daily lives (unless one is a teenager). The inconsistency of one’s faith can be compared to the inconsistency of the emotions one feels as a teenager:

The reality is that, people who don’t often pray choose to do so in a moment where their life is at risk. For instance, people choose to pray while the bank they’re in is being robbed, but never rely on God when his presence is not desperately needed. It shouldn’t take a desperate situation for one to believe and to ask for God’s help. Our faith for God should be like our parent’s love towards us, unconditional. If it is unconditional, then the God in our souls shall become immortal, shall become immune to the events of our lives. If we love God unconditionally, then he will never let us lose faith, as Elie Wiesel says in his book, “You must never lose faith, even when the sword hangs over your head.” Pg. 29.

It's Dr. God, Not Mr. God

Assumptions, as Murphy's Law states, are the "Mother of all mess-ups". It has happened to me that, during an important speech, like for example an NJHS induction ceremony, I confuse an important person's title for one that is lesser than the one the person rightfully owns. I believe I messed up Mr. Bookwalter for Dr. Bookwalter, a mistake I came into account of right after committing it. I now realize how demeaning it must be to be treated as something lesser than what one really is. I imagine God to feel wrathful when he was treated as a human who could be judged for his choices. God gets angry at Job for cursing him and in that way, implying that he's worthy of being cursed. He is not a human to whom one can simply insult without expecting repercussions. The beginning of his anger started with disbelief, as it usually does, when he questioned, "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?". God is obviously pissed off by his incarnation made by Job. Faith in the LORD must be unconditional, in the good as well as the bad times.  

Presidential Fallacies

1. "Instead of having a discussion, let me ask you as a coda to that. Would you give Congress a date certain to reform Social Security and Medicare within two years after you take office? Because in a bipartisan way, everyone agrees, that's a big ticking time bomb that will eat us up maybe even more than the mortgage crisis." 

Here there are two fallacies. First, there is the hasty generalization fallacy when Brokaw states that EVERYONE agrees with his reasoning. Another fallacy that can be found here is the "either or" fallacy which he uses to say that either the Social Security and Medicare is reformed, or a "big ticking time bomb that will eat us up maybe even more that the mortgage crisis", will go off. 

3. Obama uses an "either or" fallacy when he states that, "We're going to have to explore new ways to get more oil, and that includes offshore drilling. It includes telling the oil companies, that currently have 68 million acres that they're not using, that either you use them or you lose them."

4. Obama uses a slippery slope fallacy (also called a Camel's Nose fallacy) when he says that "If they can't get a loabm that means that they can't make a payroll. If they can't make a payroll, then they may end up having to shut theur doors and lay people off."

Be Grateful Or Be Poor

My black Labrador’s trainer told us that we should give her a bone and while she is feasting on it, that we should take it away from her so as to demonstrate our superiority to her. He said that this was important because if we didn’t do it, then one day, she would rebel against us and growl when we deprived her of something. We were supposed to maintain our command status very clear. In this way, I believe that God’s actions have an intention of proving his superiority (not to mention, make us stop taking everything for granted) so that we don’t compare ourselves with him. When “[JOB 12.19] He leadeth princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty. He removeth away the speech of the trusty, and taketh away the understanding of the aged. He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty. He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death. He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the nations and straiteneth them again. He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way. They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man [JOB. 12.25].”

 

Thus my explanations proceeds: God gives and takes to prove that he can do so, and to teach us to appreciate what we have, which is what he has given us. If we don’t appreciate our possessions and senses as a product of his kindness, we are rid of them, we are rid of his generosity.