Natalie Wilson

Is All For The Best?  In the book Candide, the author, Voltaire,  portrays a story about a young naive boy and his journey where he is forced to discover the harshness of the world and that life is filled with many evils. The young naive boy, Candide, was brought up in a castle and was taught lessons by an oracle named Pangloss. Pangloss held and taught the philosophy that we live in the best of possible worlds, everything is necessarily for the best end, and everything that happens, no matter how bad it appears, is for the best. This philosophy seems apocryphal and unrealistic. However, from a Christian standpoint, the question arises that Pangloss’s beliefs may actually be true. Even though Pangloss’s philosophy has a questionable impression, it has the possibility to line up with the Christian view of God and the Bible.  When Voltaire is introducing the tutor Pangloss he says, “ Pangloss taught metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology. He proved admirably that the...

Is Anything Real?  Rene Descartes wrote the book “Discourse on the Method.” Throughout this book, Descartes gives his method on how he guides and directs reason. Although he provides us with his approach to reason or his idea of getting to the truth, he admits that it can be doubted or false. He brings to attention that knowledge as people know it can be doubted or false. Because of this, Rene Descartes created the question “can anyone know what is absolutely true?” In his book, he attempts to use his method of reason and his belief in God to develop a plausible answer. Rene Descartes discusses truth many times in his book. He talks about how he determines what is true and what is not or if anything can actually indisputably be true. Descartes states, “I came to think that I should do the exact opposite and reject as completely false everything in which I could detect the least doubt, in order to see if anything thereafter remained in my belief that was completely indubitab...

Natalie Wilson Dr. Jacobs GB II 14 April 2019 Too Far Gone? Dr. Faustus is a book written by Christopher Marlowe. In the beginning, this book appears as if it is about the main character, Dr. Faustus, wanting to practice dark magic by bringing people back from the dead. However, if one looks closer and reads farther, they will see that is not what this book is about at all. Faustus is a man full of pride and thinks of himself higher than others. This book is about deciding how far away from God one can go until they cannot return or if they can return at all. This question is portrayed by Dr. Faustus’ deal with devil and regretting what he had done later when it happened to be too late. It is in the first scene that we see a hint of how Faustus’ personality and what he thinks of himself. As he is talking about practicing his necromantic magics, he mentions, “All things that move between the quiet poles / Shall be at my command.” (Scene 1, Pg 5) He believes that he can ...

Natalie Wilson Dr. Jacobs GB II 30 March 2019 Emotionless Utopia is a book written by a man named Thomas More that is about a perfect society. More explains what this place is and how the civilization works. Everything in Utopia is described as beautiful and perfectly practical. However, if you go deeper, one will realize things are not as good as they seem.  People are given no options on how they get to live their life and do not have a problem with it. People there do not have normal human reactions to certain situations. Things that are normally important and bring forth emotion, do not have the same effect on the people in Utopia. The people of Utopia seem to have no issue or seem to question how things are in there community.  The society expressed in Utopia may be functional and good on the outside, but really there is no sense of humanity, personal opinion or choice, or emotional connections between anyone that lives there. One of the best things Utopia do...

Easy Breezy Dante is an author of beautiful interpretation, certain theological authenticity, and influential writings. Dante is most well-known from the books Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. All of these books are written to show the representation of the afterlife of a christian. His version of Purgatory is not exactly a simple one, although it may seem like it is. One gets taken to the gates of Purgatory, enters, works their way up to heaven, and cleanses themselves from all of their sins on the way there, right? Wrong. There are so many details, complications, tough actions that need to be done, and difficult situations the people in Purgatory must go through in order to get to Heaven. For example, Purgatory includes the Ante-Purgatory and seven terraces. The Ante-Purgatory is made up of those who were either excommunicated from the church or repented of their sins late. A man named Manfred told Dante that “It’s true that if you die intransigent against the Holy Church, y...

The Consolation of Phone It’s morning again and I begin my routine. The first thing I do every morning is unplug my phone from the charger and start scrolling through Instagram. Then, I check all my Snapchats. After that, Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. Finally, I actually get out of bed and start to get ready for the day. While I am getting ready, I continue to make sure I Snapchatted everyone and liked all of my friend’s posts on Instagram. All of these forms of social media began to consume me. I do not even realize how much time is going by. I check the clock. “Oh no. I am running late for class,”  I said. I run outside and get in the car. I begin driving and get to a stoplight. I check social media. I get to the next stoplight and I check social media. This happens all the way to school, during school, and after school. I even stay up late in order to check all my social media. I eventually go to sleep, just to wake up and do this all again tomorrow. The next night on...