Pamela's Virtue

I wrote this for a class I am taking on Women Writers. You can read the original blog post, and my classmates' own writing on Pamela, here: http://blogs.baylor.edu/britlit/category/pamela/

If you or anyone were to sit down and describe Pamela to me, I would insist that she is one of the most irritating characters I have ever heard of, and I would make a point never to touch a copy of Samuel Richardson's first epistolary novel. She has wisdom beyond her years but digs herself into deeper and deeper holes with everyone around her. She is clever and pert, but so easily shaken by verbal abuse alone that she cannot leave a room without clutching the wainscoting and promptly collapsing outside. She is pretty and nice, and that seems to be all that most people who meet Pamela require of her. I cannot say as much, but I can say this: Despite all these qualities, I like Pamela.

When Mr. B. goes after her, I tense up. When Mrs. Jewkes is cruel, my face scrunches into odd and angry shapes. When even Mrs. Jervis occasionally betrays her, I am nearly as upset as Pamela is.

I think this is because Pamela is a critical thinker.

It can be very hard for readers in this day and age to relate to someone who is all virtue. I'm sure even readers in Richardson's time would have had an issue understanding and relating to someone who was as morally strong as Pamela (this is not an indication of total support for Pamela's moral compass, rather support for how voraciously she follows it), but the differences between socially popular moral theory in 1740 versus 2013 certainly increase the gap of understanding. However, Pamela has trouble with one virtue that was considered absolutely necessary in her time (especially for her station and her sex), and that is obedience. This is not to say Pamela is disobedient all the time, but she is certainly critical of her and others' orders and instructions.

When asked to stay at Mr. B.'s to finish flowering his waistcoat, she does that; but when asked to stay another fortnight to consider a marriage arrangement, she tries to leave under the radar. Her pertness arises from finding clever and witty ways to be obedient and/or responsive without actually doing what Mr. B. wants.

Furthermore, it is clear that Pamela is not disobedient merely to push boundaries--that would make her more irritating, rather than more relatable--rather she disobeys because her moral compass is critical enough to tell her when she must disobey.

Despite the fact that Mr. B. is her master, and everyone else in the novel seems to think that his word is the word of God, she refuses his advances again and again. She refuses his gifts over and over and over. When Mrs. Jervis betrays Pamela's confidence because Mr. B. asked to hide in her closet to listen to the conversation between them, Pamela cannot understand how Mrs. Jervis, a good woman plus or minus some blind obediance, would do such a thing. When he or Mrs. Jewkes (under Mr. B.'s orders) try to keep Pamela from writing, she divides her ink and pens and paper and hides them all variously, and this brings us to the matter of Mrs. Jewkes! It is in a particular dialogue between Pamela and Mrs. Jewkes that the matter of critical obediance and disobediance becomes all too clear. Pamela questions her whether Mrs. Jewkes would do anything, anything at all that Mr. B. asks--of course she would, he is her master. Would she slit Pamela's throat, if commanded? Well, no, that would be murder-- but then, would she assist Mr. B. in raping Pamela?

Well, yes, obviously.

Mrs. Jewkes says that men and women were made for each other, and Pamela is a pretty young thing and so Mr. B. must desire her, and if he sees it within his grasp to get what he desires, then Mrs. Jewkes sees no reason why he shouldn't have it, with or without her help.

This above all is what disgusted me with Mrs. Jewkes, and this above all is what I found to respect in Pamela: that she not only cannot obey an order she thinks is morally wrong, she cannot possibly conceive of how anyone else could ever do so.

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (VIII/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Epilogue: So What?
Summary
     This may be unfair, but this epilogue is so short that it can best be summarized in the following quote from it's own text: "The conclusion of this book was that, on significant balance of probability, there is a God. If you accept it, it follows that you have certain duties. God has given us life and all the good things it contains, including above all the opportunities to mould our characters and help others. ...if we have any sense and any idealism, we cannot leave [duty] at [a moderate amount of worship and obedience]" (122-3). Swinburne then proceeds to introduce new points like so (is that really necessary in an epilogue?) and then explain that god wants us to do our best and achieve great things, and since he created us we have a duty to do our best and achieve great things--he might choose to help us, but it is our duty to try whether he does or not, because he has already paid it forward more than we can ever compensate for.
Christian Response
     This isn't so much a Christian response as it is my response to this book and Christianity, but I feel like I am on the same page as Swinburne right up until the epilogue. I guess it's because worship is a weird thing for me. I've always felt like saying thank you and doing my best were the best ways to honor a god, rather than getting down on my knees and telling him/her/it how awesome he/she/it is and how I cower before him/her/it. I guess I feel like that would be awkward for god, because it's always really awkward when someone does that kind of thing to me. I am only human, though. I don't know. That's unrelated.
     What IS related is that I think a Christian would maybe feel a bit unfulfilled at the end of this book, just because it is, in the end, a theist book and not a Christian book. It is a book about there being a god, not about Jesus being the son of god and so on, and I don't think this book ever once mentioned Jesus. If Christianity decided Jesus and the biblical stories weren't so big a deal, though, and decided instead to just concentrate on ethics and being a moral person, then I think a good Christian could feel wholly supported by this book. That is, after all, what it's about: there is mostly likely a god, therefore you should do good stuff. If you're looking for more detail, read my previous eight blog posts or check out the book itself.
Personal Response
     Throughout this book, Swinburne provided plenty of support for the idea that there being a god makes sense. According to the points he makes, it does indeed make sense, and it obviously makes sense to me as I do believe in a god (that the god I believe in is not the Christian God is irrelevant). However, only in chapter 4 do I see him provide anything that could be considered proof of a god. Of course, there may not be such thing as proof--perhaps a better way to say it would be to say that chapter 4 is the only chapter in which he actually argues for a god being the most reasonable solution rather than simply saying that the existence of god is one reasonable solution among many he does not describe. That said, the reasons he gives in chapter 4 are the reasons, among others, that I believe in a god, and perhaps it is a good thing that the whole book does not read like a door-to-door evangelist, as I would have enjoyed reading that even less than reading what Swinburne did, in fact, write.

THE END

(...of this project, anyway; I fully intend to continue posting on this blog!)

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (VII/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter VII: How the Existence of God Explains Miracles and Religious Experience
Summary
     Swinburne makes many points in this chapter, very few of which really act towards the claim in the chapter title. The only point he makes which does seem to prove that the existence of god explains miracles and religious experience is that "humans need help" (108), and therefore it is in god's best interest to help us to see his creation work towards beautiful, good ends, and as a purely good being (established in chapter 1), that is something he would do. This does make sense. We as humans are limited beings, and we cannot accomplish everything we set out to do unless we sorely limit what we set out to do--even then it is still likely we will fail once or twice. But, God wants us to succeed, because if there is a god, he is good (according to Swinburne, anyway--this is one point I do not feel he ever fully addressed), and we are his creation, and a good creator would want his creation to succeed at doing good things. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that God would intervene to help us achieve good ends every now and then, though not too often, as I will talk about in my Christian response below.
Christian Response
     The first thing that struck me in this chapter is the following sentence: "[God] will not... intervene in the natural order at all often, for if he did, we would not be able to predict the consequences of our actions and so we would lose control over the world and ourselves" (100-1). That is to say, referring to the previous chapter, God cannot allow us to experience the greater goods and happinesses of responsibility for ourselves and our world if he intervenes too much. This is, I think, a very valid point and a fantastic response to the common Christian supposition that the age of miracles is over, that the world we live in now is mundane. I do not think that just because Jesus does not walk the earth in human form any longer we are doomed to live unmiraculous lives every second that we are alive, but miracles are obviously rare--rare enough that when they do occur to you, most people will not believe you. We are a world full of skeptics, even those among us who call ourselves Christians. It is smart to be a skeptic to an extent, but if Christianity teaches one thing beyond simply a moral code, it is that faith is a necessary component of happiness, whether it is faith in the universe or faith in god or faith in other people, and I think it would be good for Christians to show the learning of that lesson by having in faith in the possibility that miracles could still occur, and knowing when to trust the word of another human being. I know this is a delicate line to walk,  the line between being trusting and being gullible, but it is just something to think about.
Personal Response

     I'll admit I was a little surprised at first when I read the title of this chapter. I thought, "Well, of COURSE the existence of God explains these things. How could it not?" But I then thought back to chapter one, and there really isn't anything that says God would do this kind of thing, and I thought about science, and over time it seems both more likely and less likely that science will be able to explain "supernatural" experiences--more likely because we get closer and more advanced, and less likely because the closer we get, the more complex everything appears to be.
     I also really liked a point Swinburne brought up about how "we may be mistaken in believing that an event is not a divine intervention when really it is, as well as the other way around" (106). This is so true. We have no right or reason to expect that we should know when god intervenes in our world or not, that we should be privy to his actions on our plane. God may have intervened in our lives several times when we passed events off as mere coincidences (although I no longer believe in coincidence, which makes me more likely to ascribe something to an act of god which was in fact only happenstance). This doesn't prove that there is a god, so may not be entirely relevant to the purpose of the book, but it shows that a healthy agnosticism in all things is a good thing, because we never know everything, and we never really know anything for certain, whether there is a god or no.

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (VI/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter VI: Why God Allows Evil
Summary
     In a nutshell, the reason Swinburne gives for God allowing evil is this: God would like to allow greater and more fulfilling goods into our life than simple happiness and contentment, such as "great responsibility for ourselves, each other, and the world, and thus a share in his own creative activity of determining what sort of world it is to be" (85), but those greater goods are simply not possible without allowing evils to pass. For example, he cannot give us responsibility for our successes if we do not experiences consequences for our failures. Some of this is simply that physical negative events must take place for great positive events to take place, but part of it is that we cannot properly experience great happiness, joy, and good without having something to contrast it to, without having properly experienced sadness, trouble, and evil.
Christian Response
     Swinburne's reference to God wanting us to take part in creation tickled me a bit, as this is a point J.R.R. Tolkien makes over and over in his writings, especially in the writings compiled in Tree and Leaf, and most especially in the poem "Mythopoeia" (a poem written to C.S. Lewis to convince him to believe in God--it worked). 
     I cannot think that the Christian response to Swinburne in this chapter could be anything but complete agreement. Swinburne makes sense, and his proposition explains many of the ills that come to pass both in the bible and throughout history since then. Without darkness, there cannot be light; without death, there cannot be life; without hardship, there cannot be success; without evil, there cannot be good.
     I always find myself in an interesting predicament when it comes to assessing the Christian response--as a Wiccan (who is in this sense best described as a monotheist, something for which many Wiccans would not call me such) I certainly believe in god and I certainly consider myself a moral being, but I am never certain just how that aligns with Christianity and where it splits off into something else. More and more as I examine Christianity I find that at it's core it is so similar to my religion and to every other well-respected religion (though I'm not sure it is fair to say that mine is among the well-respected religions of this world, and it is likely not), and that the only real difference is how we connect with god. But then, maybe I am being too forgiving and too openly interpretive of Christianity in the hopes that it will align with my own morals.
     There is one thing Swinburne mentions in this chapter that is a very Christian concept not in the sense that it is unique to Christianity (because it isn't), but in the sense that it is necessary to Christianity: "Being allowed to suffer to make possible a great good is a privilege, even if the privelege is forced upon you" (89), he says. Many times throughout the bible and across history post-bible, you hear of people acting as God's servants, or of God acting through people, or of people sacrificing themselves to God's cause, and this, when done properly, is what I think Swinburne is talking about. It is a very Christian view of suffering, and honestly a very beautiful one.
Personal Response

     I had been particularly excited to get to this chapter since I read chapter 1, which explained that God, if there was such a thing, was entirely good, and thus everything he created was perfectly good. How then would he explain evil? I will say that in the form of Wicca which I practice, the explanation is that while there is a perfectly good force within all things, everything happens for a good reason, and sometimes bad things need to happen to teach good lessons, or to set bigger good things into motion. 
     I think this is one of the most important chapters in this book if not the most important, as it is one of the biggest questions people ask when doubting the existence of a god. Many people become atheists in times of hardship because they feel god has not answers their prayers or seen to their needs, without realizing that there is indeed a sound reason for all evils. This is also the first chapter of this book in which I have been thoroughly interested.

     

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (V/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter V: How the Existence of God Explains the Existence of Humans
Summary
     Swinburne essentially states that god is a limitless superhuman soul unlimited by a human body. He describes the difference between physical events (things anyone can observe just as well as anyone else) and mental events (things that can only be observed by the person actually experiencing them), and then argues that the life of mental events each person experiences is our soul, and that "me" is greater than the sum of "my" parts. Christian Response
     It is difficult for me to respond to this section in a distinctly Christian way, because they bible is not a good reference when it comes to modern science--the bible says nothing about sub-atomic particles to my knowledge, and as far as I know it says nothing about brain surgery and the Frankenstein-ing process.
     However, I suppose that part of what I am  supposed to be learning in this class is not just the factual content of the bible, but Christianity and Christian ethics as practiced by real Christians, and real Christians tend to look to custom, intuition, and reason as well as to the bible's scripture. Reason gives us no means to argue with Swinburne on the value of "me" versus "my physical parts," and intuition certainly does not, for where does our intuition come from but from the "me" that is greater than its parts? I don't know how much experience can teach us about this, although I suppose comatose patients are a good example of a functioning body (sum of parts) without a functioning soul ("me"), even though recovery sometimes occurs. If recovery from a comatose state occurs, it is rarely full recovery, and often the "me" is very changed. A logical Christian would have no choice but to agree with Swinburne on this matter. Personal Response

     ...and, for that matter, a logical person. I'm not sure philosophy books are my thing, though. It's a little (read: incredibly) annoying having someone write out thoughts over pages and pages that my brain can process in a few milliseconds.

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (IV/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter IV: How the Existence of God Explains the World and its Order
Summary
     Swinburne explains his personal viewpoint that the simplicity of god as a solution makes it the best possible answer for anyone asking "but why?" past the level of the materialistic existence of sub-atomic particles and their properties. He agrees completely with science on evolution and scientific theories of creation (the Big Bang), but denies chance as a possibility for why it all happened because the improbability of things happening the way they did is so high that it simply makes more sense for everything to have been caused by a limitless person with intent, viz., god. Christian Response
     I think the average Christian does not arrive at this conclusion because of repeatedly asking "why?" until there is not more scientific "why." Faith is a big part of Christianity, and I think, at this point, that actually trying to prove the existence of god goes against that faith, that it is a way of saying "the bible is not enough, I need to KNOW." I have never been a Christian, and I am well aware that there are many different kinds of Christians, but I think there is a point where Christian faith says "stop asking." Personal Response

     I was relieved that Swinburne not only addressed but agreed with science. I find his argument unconvincing because he relies on the idea that god is good--I have faith that god is good, but I have no real reason to suppose so. I personally have been very lucky. Others have not been so. Is it my business to know if god is good? Is he? I don't know. In any case, it bothers me that much of his argument relies on certain things being good, and whereas he tells us we need to ask for an ultimate explanation of things, he offers us no ultimate explanation for said things (people, beauty, god) being good other than that it is his personal opinion. You know there's something wrong with his argument when I agree with him and I still don't think he's convincing--clearly not biased.

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (III/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter III: The Simplicity of God
Summary
      Swinburne talks about the search for an ultimate explanation. If you've ever been, been related to, conversed with, or met an annoying child, you'll know what I mean:
-"Where are we going?"
-"To the grocery."
-"Why?"
-"Because I need to buy groceries for dinner."
-"Why?"
-"Because we don't have everything we need to cook."
-"Why?"
-"Because we finished off the chicken last night."
-"Why?"
-"Because there was a limited supply of chicken in our house."
-"Why?"
-"Because it goes bad if you buy too much at once."
-"Why?"
-"Because bacteria break down the proteins."
-"Why?"
...and so on until you get to a "why" you can't answer. Swinburne says that there will always be a why to which no human can reliably provide a concrete answer, and with this he goes on to provide that "god" is that answer; that the reason for the basest laws of the universe is simply that god made it so because god is good, and so it goes. He does this after providing three solutions: materialism (that everything has an inanimate explanation), humanism (that personal action cannot be explained in inanimate terms, and inanimate action cannot be explained in personal terms), and theism (essentially).
     Theism is perhaps the simplest answer we have yet come up with, as it is literally a single simple answer to all of the most basic questions, leaving nothing unanswered if "Because god made it so" is a satisfactory answer for the querent.
Christian Response
      So far as I can see, the Christian should agree perfectly with the beginning of Swinburne's proof of theism. Christians believe in a god that is good, all-knowing, all-powerful, and ever-present, and this is absolutely an explanation for the basest laws of the universe, and can often be an explanation for events far above that basest level. If one is a Christian, it is in part because one has found completely inanimate explanations unsatisfactory.
Personal Response
     I honestly cannot tell whether Swinburne is biased or not in his description of materialism and humanism, because I agree with him, at least thus far. I, too, find materialistic explanations dissatisfying after a certain point, and I thought his explanation of humanism was too short to be clear in addition to sounding like a form of evasion of the questions asked--it provided not just an unsatisfactory answer, but really no answer at all. I cannot tell if this is simply because I do not understand it and Swinburne did not take the time to explain it, or if it is because I truly would find the answer unsatisfactory.
     It is so like me to complain every time Swinburne explains something I understand and then complain again when he doesn't explain the first thing I know nothing about.
     Also, I am interested to see how Swinburne goes about "proving" that his god figure is perfectly good. The only way for god to exist is for him/her/it to be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, but all-good is not inherent in godliness. I do personally believe that the force within all things (which I guess I can refer to as "god") is all good, but I personally believe (along with Aristotle, Locke, and a good number of others) that people are, too, and that, as far as I am aware, is not the Christian doctrine.
     Lastly, I believe there is a rule that disallows one from proving a solution with reliance on that solution, similar to the rule which prevents one from defining a word using the word being defined. However, this seems to be exactly what Swinburne is doing. He tries to prove the existence of god with the nature of god. I'm not sure how fair or accurate this is. I almost wish I were an adamant atheist reading this so that I could perhaps more easily spot biases.

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (II/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Chapter II: How We Explain Things
Summary
     In which Swinburne spends 6 full pages trying to teach inductive reasoning without ever using the phrase "inductive reasoning." Swinburne then proceeds in a rather Holmesian manner, outlining the process of justifying a claim with 4 criteria: data; simplicity; background knowledge; and a criterion which, try I might, I cannot simplify into a short catchphrase ("However well some proposed law satisfies Criteria 1-3, if there is an incompatible law which satisfies those criteria even better, since they cannot both be laws, the former must be rejected." 26). He makes at least one good point that I have not seen better worded elsewhere, and that is this: "[Criterion 1] is satisfied to the extent to which a law or theory leads us to expect many events. The more it can explain, the better. The more varied events it can explain, the better." (29) Now at least I can see how this chapter will apply to the rest of the book--it would appear that Swinburne plans to show that the theory of god (theism) explains more and more varied events than any other claim possibly could.
Christian Response
     As I began to touch on at the end of my summary of chapter 2, Christians should very much approve of this chapter, as it prologues a "proof" of god, if there can be such a thing (it would perhaps be more accurate to use the phrase "argument in favor of," or the word "claim," as Swinburne does). This chapter does not, however, actually cover an ethical issue or in fact anything interesting at all, so I'm not sure how anyone could disagree with it.
Personal Response
     If I have to read another chapter of nothing but definitions I am going to vomit. If I wanted a step-by-step proof I would have read a geometry textbook. Perhaps that's where I went wrong in selecting the title "Is There A God?"

"Is There a God?": Notes on the Book by Richard Swinburne (I/VIII)

For more about what's going on here, see this post.

For those of you who'd like to follow along, this is the book I am reading:
          Swinburne, Richard. Is There a God? Revised ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
Since I did not say so before, I will add now that I chose this book because I had already bought it for another course (Honors Colloquium) before finding out I did not, in fact, need it for that course. In other words, I already had it laying around, and it happened to fit this assignment perfectly.

Chapter I: God
Summary
     In this first chapter, Swinburne provides a definition of God by theist standards. He says that according to theists (Christians, Jews, and Muslims, among others), there is a God who is sexless, genderless, ageless, eternal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, good, and free. 
Christian Response
     Swinburne raises one point in particular which I find interesting, and which I think is in need of questioning, especially from the Christian perspective. Again, I'm placing a disclaimer on my Christian perspective, because I think it's probably unreliable, as I am not a Christian and am only just beginning to try to understand Christianity. Comments and complaints are welcome. 
     The point I'm referring to comes up most noticeably on page 17, near the end of the chapter. Swinburne says, "the obvious goodness of at least one universe [containing some persons of limited powers such as humans] makes it quite likely that he will create one." Earlier, he says on page 16, "however many [human persons God] creates, it would be even better if he created more (perhaps well spaced out in an infinitely large universe). Given that human life is in general a good thing, the more of it the better. God cannot create the best of all possible worlds, for there can be no such world--any world can be improved by adding more persons to it, and no doubt in plenty of other ways as well." I personally was under the impression (and correct me if I am wrong), that according to Christianity, all humans are sinners because of the fall of Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden, saved only from the fires of hell by the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. In other words, pre-fall, this quote makes perfect sense--but post-fall, is it necessarily true by Christian standards (or by any standards) that where human life is concerned, the more the merrier? Is more better? If God is perfectly good as Swinburne claims, than he can only make good things, and so human life must be good; but if God is omnipotent and responsible for the creation and maintenance of all things and their powers, as Swinburne also claims, then from whence came the serpent and the apple? Swinburne says God has given us limited free will, which is the only explanation provided that Adam and Eve might have fallen, but if God is indeed all-powerful and all-good, then perhaps the only answer to that question is that temptation is not all bad, and that the lessons we learn and experiences we gain from having fallen and from living in a post-fall world are important. Perhaps God created both the tree of life and the tree of knowledge knowing humanity could eat from only one, and gave Adam and Eve free will so that he did not have to decide. Perhaps, because we chose the tree of knowledge (even unknowingly), the pursuit of knowledge will lead us to know why the two fruits are mutually exclusive? Or perhaps that is a question the answer to which it is not our business to know, and we are meant only to pursue goodness and godliness that we may eat from the tree of knowledge on earth and from the tree of life in heaven.
Personal Response (and a defense of my choice of book)
The question of whether or not there is a god may not seem in and of itself to be an ethical issue. However, it does absolutely affect our ethics. I am not sure I can say that I am a good person because I believe in a god, and I certainly cannot say that I believe in god because I am a good person, but I do think that those two qualities are linked for logical believers. I say "logical" believers, because there are many examples of people who I do not think live their lives as good people, but who do believe in god, and who perhaps even act out of service to god, however illogically. This is an extreme example, but I will use Westboro Baptist Church: WBC members absolutely believe in god, absolutely act out of service to him and to carry out his word, and absolutely think they are doing good deeds. There are Bible verses that support what they do, but so far as I can see, the Bible in general is a book of love, and it is illogical to me that a person (or organization) would use hate to spread love, although I think that is what they are trying to do. I respect their right to their beliefs, but I absolutely believe that they are wrong and illogical, and that their acts are not good deeds.
However, my original point is that it is absolutely an ethical issue, whether or not there is a god, because belief in god can and will cause people to act differently. If you feel that there is some sort of karmic system, some system of crime and punishment or of good acts and rewards, and that the overseer of that system is omniscient and omnipotent, you are far more likely to try to do good acts--which is where much of the debate over what is good and what is bad begins. In other words, whether or not there is a god is the very root of all ethical debates.

Before I Begin,

Allow me to introduce myself and this blog.

My name is Erica, and I am an eternal student, and a student of the world. I am also a college student, but that is somewhat irrelevant to the definition. What I mean by "eternal student" is that I intend never to stop learning. I will hopefully graduate college in a little over a year and a half, but that will by no means be the end of my education, whether or not I go on to graduate school or culinary school or what-have-you. My degree will be little more than my excuse to go out and learn more on my own, my own way. Every failure and every success has the chance to be a learning opportunity if you let it teach you. This is also what I mean by "student of the world." I am not merely a student of books, or classes, or teachers, or Wikipedia (although I am a student of all of these as well). I am a student of experiences, travels, sights, sounds, conversations, people, creations, and everything on either end and in between. 

I once went to my father at the end of a day, complaining that the day had been wasted, it was useless, and I wished it hadn't happened. In response, he asked me what I had learned that day, just to name something, any one thing. When I did, he quipped, "See? Your day wasn't wasted. You learned something." Before I could even begin to argue, he added, "If you can learn one thing every day for the rest of your life, you'll be doing pretty well. You'll be doing better than a lot of other people, anyway."


You could say I've taken that conversation up as my standard. After that, I set my phone's greeting message (you know, what it says when you turn it on?) to ask me what I'd learned that day. My dad might ask me what I'd learned when we spoke in the evening or afternoon, and I would always come up with something. On the rare occasion that I couldn't come up with anything, I'd go off and endeavor to learn something. This is the way I live my life, and I wholly believe that I am a better and more well-rounded person because of it.

One of my favorite quotes is one you will probably recognize as something Thomas Edison once said: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." It's disputed whether he ever actually said it or not, a point which is completely irrelevant to the universal truth of the quote. Anything can be a learning experience if you approach it that way.

Now, a confession: I plan to continue writing this blog, and certainly have plenty of things planned out to say on it besides the reason for which I created it specifically, but I have admittedly created it as a class requirement.

I am in the BIC program in the Honors College of Baylor University. This program requires a class called "Biblical Heritage," BIC3358.02. I am taking the course with Drs. Novokovic and Whitlark. This course requires that I read a book centered on some aspect of ethics and religion. It must either be written from a Christian perspective, or I must read it through a Christian lens. I will be required to respond to it in at least 8 sections over the course of 8 weeks or more.

I have chosen to read "Is There a God?" by Richard Swinburne. From what I can tell before having really read it, Swinburne is a theist but not a Christian. I believe in full disclosure, so I will say that I personally am a pagan, mostly Wiccan with some Asatru influences, and far more spiritual than religious. 

The book is laid out in 7 chapters and an Epilogue, so it has already been very neatly split up for me. I plan to respond to each chapter in three parts:

1. a summary, in which I will briefly recap what Swinburne has said in the chapter and attempt to make sense of it;
2. a response through a Christian lens, or my best attempt at it (I really will give it my most honest attempt, although I have no clue how I'm going to go about this);
3. and a response from my personal point of view, which may or may not have anything to do with my own religion/spirituality, but I'm not making any promises.

If this sounds like a plan to you, then I'm glad we're in agreement. If not, feel free not to stick around for the ride. I'll be here either way, because I'm graded on it. Afterwards, I'll probably still be here either way, because I am the kind of person who has things to say.

Wishing you all the best,

Erica