Usually in past time
periods, philosophy and religion were kept separated. All of this
changed when St. Augustine emerged as a former Platonist gave his
life to Christianity. Even though he was a hundred-percent Christian
he never fully turned his back of thoughts of philosophy. Instead, he
made a point that reason and religion can go together but reason
cannot get as far as faith when answering questions. I am a Christian
myself, but also like St. Augustine, I believe in reason and facts as
well. St. Augustine was the first person to ever think of combining
Greek philosophy and Jewish belief. Even though in a sense he
combined these thoughts, he made sure to prove that he did not
believe they actually came in conflict; having them combined help
make more sense of things. I think that is why I like his approach to
his beliefs and philosophies attract me the most. As I have mentioned
before, I am a true believer in Christianity and God. However, I do
agree with some factual sides of philosophy. The way that St.
Augustine was able to take Christianity and back it up in a way with
Platonic philosophy makes sense to me.
One belief system
that I tend not to agree with is Hellenism. This was a period of
mixed Asian and Greek cultures and focused around the Cynic school.
They believe in little personal comfort and wealth. They do not care
for other people's well-being which I do not agree with as well. I
believe to have a successful society, everyone should in a sense look
out for each other, care about each other. If we had a society where
every single person was selfish and only cared for themselves,
nothing great could be achieved because the greater good would not be
in the minds of the people. This type of belief focuses only on the
individual. Yes, I agree that some time should be spent focusing
mainly on yourself, but I believe that should be only a small
percentage of your focus.
I think I reside
deep inside the rabbit's fur. Philosophers are the type of people
that want to get down to the bottom of things, see what's going on
the tip of the fur. I want to learn about new things, but I usually
do not tend to force myself out to learn and answer my curiosities.
That is why I tend to think of myself as the type of people who live
deep inside the rabbits fur who sometimes do not even realize what is
actual going on. Reading this novel has opened my eyes a little more
to see that maybe I do need to turn into the type of person who in
fact resides on the top of the rabbit's fur to stare directly into
the magician's eyes.
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