Kate Delle
Dr. Adam Johns
Seminar in Composition
10/1/08
What are people for?
Although I do not consider myself to be extremely religious, I do believe in the teachings of the Bible. From the very beginning in the book of Genesis the Bible has made it fairly clear why and how man was created. “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28) According to the Bible, God created man to rule over His other creations such as everything in nature. He wanted them to rule over nature, as He would do however: through love and compassion. Genesis also states, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created Him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). Humans were made through God’s own image and therefore our significance on Earth is to carry out His wishes. Some of these wishes include being a demonstration of God’s kindness that we did not deserve His grace. This is expressed in Ephesians, stating, “that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus; for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:7, 2:8). One final reason I believe people “are for” is to praise God and to spread His word. The Bible states, “And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him” (John 2:28, 2:29).
Lee Silver’s book, “Challenging Nature” provides a counterargument to that of McKibbon’s and my own. Silver borderline attacks spirituality and religion. He is open about his own atheism and believes that humans are here to “remake all of Mother Nature in the image of the idealized world that exists within our own minds…” (xvi, Silver). He continues to argue that neither Mother Nature nor God has a plan for what is in store for us in the future; therefore, it is the responsibility of humans to have a plan. However, Silver fails to acknowledge that the sources of this “plan” are conflicting for people in our society. He believes that humans need to create an “idealized” world but not everyone’s idea of a perfect world is the same, nor will it ever be the same. I disagree strongly with Silver’s opinion on “what people are for” due to the difference that he does not believe what the Bible says about why we were put on this Earth and I do. I believe that God has a plan for all of us and that it is not our responsibility to try to create an “idealized” world that is impossible to create. Also, Silver admits to seeing “humankind purely as a product of evolution…” (350, Silver). Since he believes that humans came about through evolution he provides a complete counterargument to my own personal beliefs.
Overall, I believe that the answer to “what are people for?” is that we are here to fulfill God’s wishes of inhabiting this Earth to do good as though He would do himself. The Bible tells us that we were created in the image of God so it is our responsibility to act through this image and therefore not try to create a utopian world that He didn’t intend to be created. A perfect world such as the one that Lee Silver purposed we create is not what God would have wanted humans to work toward. Bill McKibbon’s opinion on why humans are here is one that I can agree with more because he expresses more traditional values and he has the reader recall our creation using the book of Genesis as a source of truth.
3 comments:
Your paper is written well with a valid argument. However I would have to challenge this point of view. I do not think people are here to simply live in God's image. I believe that people are here to better themselves as human beings through individual achievements. People are supposed to reach goals or become enlightened which in turn betters society as a whole. An example of this self-improvement is when McKibben discusses running. He says, "Running is an outlet for spirit, for finding out who we are, no more mandatory than art and music."(7) Through running and similar activities we are testing ourselves to improve upon what we are. The actions of humans are to improve themselves on an individual level. When people educate themselves, exercise or do any other challenging task they are trying to better themselves. Each person is born with a clean slate in life and as we grow we all try to reach goals and milestones that we set to become the person that we want to be. This is done throughout all of society, which causes mankind as a whole to improve. This is similar to the point of view Richard Scarry puts forth in "What Do People Do All Day". In this book people work towards individual goals to better themselves and their lives. All individuals live out life in this manner and that is why we are here.
Kate Delle
Dr. Adam Johns
Seminar in Composition
10/5/08
What are people for?
What are people for? This is the age- old question that has been in controversial debate for hundreds of years and is asked and commented on in many literary works. In particular, it is commented on by Lee Silver in his book “Challenging Nature” and also in Bill McKibbon’s “Enough”. It is my personal belief that the question “what are people for?” refers to “why were people put on Earth?”. The answer to this question in my opinion is that according to the Bible humans were created in the image of God so that they could express and contain Him. This belief can be extrapolated from McKibbon’s book due to his traditional values and conservative views on religion and spirituality. However, this belief is contradicted in Silver’s book due to his own deism and view that humans are here to expand the world into becoming “idealized”. Others may also agree with Silver and believe that the purpose of humans is to simply work toward our goals with the hopes of bettering society as a whole. However, I believe that we are here to do these things as an expression of God. Overall, I agree more with Bill McKibbon’s views toward the reason for our existence. People are here to express and contain God and it is not our responsibility to reshape the world into becoming a utopia such as Silver suggests.
Although I do not consider myself to be extremely religious, I do believe in the teachings of the Bible. From the very beginning in the book of Genesis the Bible has made it fairly clear why and how man was created. It states, “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28) According to the Bible, God created man to rule over His other creations such as everything in nature. He wanted them to rule over nature, as He would do however: through love and compassion. Genesis also states, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created Him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). Humans were made through God’s own image and therefore our significance on Earth is to carry out His wishes. Some of these wishes include being a demonstration of God’s kindness that we did not deserve His grace. This is expressed in Ephesians, stating, “that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus; for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:7, 2:8). One final reason I believe people “are here for” is to praise God and to spread His word. The Bible states, “And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him” (John 2:28, 2:29).
In his book, “Enough”, Bill McKibbon would most likely agree with the religious side of the argument that says that people are meant to carry out God’s kindness. Although he never specifically says that he is a religious person, some of his beliefs are implied by the way he describes some things. For example, McKibbon refers to a quote by Erazim Kohak that states, “It is precisely in investing life, love, and labor that we constitute the world as personal, as the place of intimate dwelling.” (94) By referring to the meaning of life in the sense of work and creating a home for oneself McKibbon displays his spiritual thinking. We can infer that McKibbon believes in the teachings of the Bible also because he brings up Genesis saying, “The God of Genesis looks around the newborn creation and pronounces it all good. Not just the sun and the stars, not just the plants yielding seed and the trees bearing fruit, not just the “great sea monsters” and “everything that creeps upon the ground”. Us, too.” (114, McKibbon). McKibbon is agreeing here that humans were created to do good from the very beginning and even though “we’ve damaged the environment, we’ve enslaved our fellow man, we’ve slaughtered on a vast scale” (113) we need to remember what God created us to do, which is to do good through His own image.
To further explain his beliefs about why humans have been put on Earth, McKibbon reminds the reader what the world was like when it was closer to its creation. He states, “Our hunter-gatherer ancestors inhabited a very different world from ours, a meaning saturated world where very plant and animal was an actor the way people are actors, where even rocks and mountains and canyons and rivers could speak” (44). McKibbon insinuates the fact that nature reminds us of why people are on Earth and our connection with the land. Since God created man and nature to live together harmoniously McKibbon’s thoughts on nature connect to spirituality.
Lee Silver’s book, “Challenging Nature” provides a counterargument to that of McKibbon’s and my own. Silver borderline attacks spirituality and religion. He is open about his own deism and believes that humans are here to “remake all of Mother Nature in the image of the idealized world that exists within our own minds…” (xvi, Silver). He continues to argue that neither Mother Nature nor God has a plan for what is in store for us in the future; therefore, it is the responsibility of humans to have a plan. However, Silver fails to acknowledge that the sources of this “plan” are conflicting for people in our society. He believes that humans need to create an “idealized” world. The source of conflict within this belief though is that not everyone’s idea of a perfect world is the same, nor will it ever be the same. I disagree strongly with Silver’s opinion on “what people are for” due to the difference that he does not believe what the Bible says about why we were put on this Earth and I do. I believe that God has a plan for all of us and that it is not our responsibility to try to create an “idealized” world that is impossible to create. Also, Silver admits to seeing “humankind purely as a product of evolution…” (350, Silver). Since he believes that humans came about through evolution he provides a complete counterargument to my own personal beliefs.
People other than Silver may also disagree with my belief of living through God’s image being our purpose on Earth. It could be argued that the purpose of humans is to simply work toward our goals to try to better society and ourselves. This is true to an extent; however, we are doing these things as God would have done Himself. I believe that we are working toward these goals (or should be anyway) through acts of benevolence. As said in Luke 6:37-39, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.” God wanted us to go about reaching our goals in a certain way: through practicing good will, as well as through patience, strength, forgiveness, and faith. Yes, part of our purpose is to fulfill goals and to work toward bettering society, but we are here to do so as God wanted us to do.
Overall, I believe that the answer to “what are people for?” is that we are here to fulfill God’s wishes of inhabiting this Earth to do good as though He would do himself. The Bible tells us that we were created in the image of God so it is our responsibility to act through this image and therefore not try to create a utopian world that He didn’t intend to be created. A perfect world such as the one that Lee Silver purposed we create is not what God would have wanted humans to work toward. Bill McKibbon’s opinion on why humans are here is one that I can agree with more because he expresses more traditional values and he has the reader recall our creation using the book of Genesis as a source of truth.
Andre - I like how you use Scarry here, but I sure wish you'd explained or justified your own point of view, rather than just asserting it.
Kate- Your first paragraph is rather anarchic, pulling in several directions at once. As a Bible nerd, I'd like to know what passages you're talking about; I'd also like to know more about why you're bringing in Silver and McKibben at once, rather than stating your argument clearly and then bringing them in for support.
In the long paragraph on the Bible, I'd like to see more continuity. To say that we are made in God's image is not the same as to say that we are to praise him and spread his word, for instance. God's will here is marked as at least four different things, which is fine to a point - but nowhere in here are you dealing with the ideal of "containing and expressing" God. In short, you have a series of related ideas which don't form a complete argument that I can see - especially not in relationship with McKibben.
I think you have a good handle on McKibben and Silver's points of view -- one thing I'll point out in passing is that Silver's "idealized nature" is, in some way, almost like a secularized version of the New Jerusalem.
What isn't here, though, is something to bind all of your ideas together. You bring together disparate biblical passages without really explaining how they generate your own initial concept, then do an ok job explaining McKibben and Silver, without showing how their ideas are more than tangentially related to your own.
How could you have done this? You might have used *your* ideas to show that McKibben is right and Silver is wrong about some issue, for instance. Or maybe you might have argued that both of them are fundamentally flawed. Or you might have done more to expose/discuss McKibben's implicit theology.
At the end of the day, I'm reasonably clear about what you think we're for, but less than clear about how that's rooted in your particular biblical texts, let alone Silver & McKibben...
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