I'm constantly amazed by the quite genius and frighteningly accurate theories the scientists mentioned in this book spew out just from observation. The respect I have for them I feel will never truly match up to the amount they deserve. I respect them for having the courage to stand up and challenge a prevalent belief that predated them greatly. For Kepler to revise Copernicus' nearly correct theory of planets having a circular orbit around the sun and instead claiming they orbit elliptically is extraordinary. His proposition that planets speed up when near the Sun and slow when passing is something that was so easily overlooked. Learning of Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation was nothing new to me but I imagined being him and sitting under a tree, watching an apple fall from a tree. Unlike Newton I never would have stopped to ponder as to how or why the apple fell, much less compare that situation with the relationship between the Earth and Sun. Galileo’s Law of Inertia blows my mind the most. To have the thought that an object in motion or rest will stay in that state of motion or rest when no other force acts upon it is something I still can’t wrap my head around. Especially knowing Galileo was surrounded by forces on Earth that could have and should have stopped him from realizing what he did is phenomenal. These early philosophers have helped me come to terms with me never proposing a theory as grand or as accurate as theirs. It's safe to say my self-esteem has plummeted in that respect, but at least I have the audacity to admire and not envy; though at this point there seems to be a very thin line between the two.
Real Life Connection:
Reading the five arguments
between Theism and Atheism forced me to reflect on my personal beliefs and
recognize areas where I swayed and areas where I stood firm in my assumptions. I
am the type of person who listens to arguments others present and at the end of
the day I commonly find myself taking the opposing view into consideration and
really allowing myself to see to which side I am tugged to more, or if in the
end I float in limbo between them both. Nevertheless I found myself drifting
towards the Atheist’ objections much more frequently than that of the Theist’
ideas. The class discussion after reviewing the arguments kept me on my toes.
The question thrown at my teacher of why he changed from Atheist to Agnostic
threw me out of balance. His response was that at some point in his life there
were too many coincidences that kept coming his way and he felt that some force
could be behind them. This got me thinking, I never felt as if there were
coincidences that were too perfect to be anything but coincidental, but I do
believe there are forces that cannot be explained in this world. I don’t think
the force(s) I’m talking about has any major role in the world we live in, in
fact I feel as though they have minor roles and they are not orchestrated by any
person or being of any sort. I don’t think there is any chance of someone
planting ideas or tweaking with our lives but I do think things like
reincarnation and soft determinism do exist. I do believe in my own version of
reincarnation though I don’t think it’s ‘purpose’ is what is generally thought.
I don’t believe at all that someone like God can or could exist but I do know that
I believe there are unconscious forces in this world that aren’t controlled by
any. In the end I’m not sure if to be Agnostic one has to be on the fence with
the existence of God or if one can be considered Agnostic while believing there
are only the existence of forces. For
this reason I honestly still don’t know where I fit in.
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