What is Love?

Page 334.  The general point made by Helen Fisher in her work What is Love? is that there are three different kinds of love that all come together to truly love someone.  More specifically, she suggests that everyone gains these experiences in a different order.  She writes, “Love can start off with any of these three feelings.  Lust (sex drive), romantic attraction, and attachment” (p. 334).  In this passage, Fisher is suggesting that everyone is different when it comes to the order in which these three kinds of love happen.  In conclusion, it is Fisher’s belief that everyone falls in love in different ways.

            In my view, Fisher is right because every human being is different in everything they do, even the way in which they fall in love.  For example, in the movie Made of Honor, the boy and the girl are best friends.  They have been best friends since college and spend most of their time together.  However, it isn’t until the girl is about to get married to another man that the boy realizes he is in love with his best friend.  Although Fisher might object that people can fall in love only after they have experienced the three stages of it, I maintain that you don’t have to experience all three to truly love someone.  You can marry someone and truly love him or her without having sex with that person before the marriage.  Therefore, I conclude that everyone really does experience and fall in love in different ways because every human being is different in their own way.

The Qur'an / Week 12 Reflection

1.      The work says that the relationship between man and Allah is one of both respect and fear.  Mankind’s responsibility to Allah is to always praise and follow him as well as pray to him and worship him only, and sing praises to him.

2.      Women are to be treated unequal to men because Allah is only forgiving of men.

3.      The “people from the book” are the Jews and Christians of the world.  Their relationship to the revelation of Allah and to those who accept Islam is mostly friendly and tolerant.

4.      In the Koran, god seems to be very forgiving and understanding without really caring a whole lot of what his people do.  In the New Testament however, God is more forgiving if His people are truly repentant and sorrowful for what they’ve done.  They both have a Judgment Day that they talk about though.

5.      The Koran tells the Christians to believe in Allah and they will be saved.

6.      One could accept this revelation because it says that those who do not believe will be sent to Hell on the Judgment Day.

7.      The role of the prophets in general is to help keep their people on their path of righteousness.  The role of Muhammad in particular is to basically warn all the unbelievers so they can be held accountable at the Judgment Day.

8.      The evidence given for this being at work of revelation is that their prophets have received revelation from him that it is true.

Week 11 Reflection

One leads a 'moral life' by just being a kind, decent human being to other people according to these texts.  Live in moderation and find out who you are.  Become independent and love yourself.  The Buddhism text was definitely easier to understand and a lot less formal than the Dhammapada or the Tao.  The result for 'bad behavior' is basically Karma.  If you live good, you will be rewarded by the laws of nature.  If not, it will come back to get you in the end.

Buddhism, Dhammapada & Taoism

Page 145.  Gotama starts out by telling his story of when he was a young boy.  He tells of how his parents always gave him everything he wanted and made sure everything was taken care of for him.  He started noticing this and wasn’t pleased with it.  He decided to leave this lifestyle and set out to try and find out who he was.  For a little while, he denied himself of food and other things necessary for life.  After that, he traveled to quite a few different places and meditated and found his path of life that he was supposed to take.  He became the Buddha over the course of his life journey.  “Though my parents wished otherwise and were grieving with tears on their faces” (p. 146).  Often times, young adults need to leave their parents and figure out who they are on their own without their parents help, and often times without their approval.  “They quarrel and fight – people seeing one side” (p. 154).  People that are close-minded often have a hard time accepting other people’s opinions, even though they may both be correct.  To lead a moral life, people need to take care of their bodies as well as take care of other people.  Everyone needs to be kind to others and themselves and always be honest and healthy.

Page 155.  In these passages, it is basically talking about a few of the principles on which this religion is based.  It talks about how to live healthily, how to be happy, to not be evil, etc.  I really liked the phrase “’She abused me, attacked me, defeated me, robbed me!’  For those not carrying on like this.  Hatred ends” (p. 155).  This shows that you need to let go of grudges to finally be happy.  I also really liked the phrase “Do not consider the faults of others or what they have or haven’t done.  Consider rather what you yourself have or haven’t done” (p. 156).  I really liked this because it shows that you shouldn’t judge others before taking a good, long look at yourself to see what you need improvement on.

Page 165.  These are just a few verses from the book of principles based on the religion of Taoism.  “In this way we harvest eternal importance because we never announce it” (p. 165).  This is really profound because the most amazing things in life are unspoken.  Actions speak louder than words.  “The spirit of life never dies” (p. 166).  I really like this phrase because it shows that no matter who you are or where you come from, you can carry on the spirit of life within you and show it off to the world.

Week 10 Reflection

The beliefs are connected to the exact geographical location in the way that each place is seen as being made in a different way by every different culture.  Everything is made differently, therefore, each culture is going to have a different interpretation on how things came to be based on their environment.

In my myth, the location, being Hawaii, reflects upon and informs it's readers of the way in which all the creatures of the sea came to be.  The star fish are called Sea Constellations and are each creators in the myth as they were the gods of Hawaii.

My Creation Myth

In the beginning, there was blue.  There was a rainbow of color immersed in the wet, shiny, blue.  The Sea Constellations were the Creators of all the beings under The Blue.  The Sea Constellations could travel into the sky when they needed some time away from The Blue.

One day, one of the Sea Constellations named Peach wanted to make a being that did not rely on The Blue to live.  She started fiddling with one of the beings that lived under The Blue one day and created a turtle.  This being could live both on land and under The Blue.  After that, She had the brilliant idea of creating a being that could just live on land.  She wanted to make it clear that The Blue and the land were very separate.  She created a tree, formed after the image of seaweed and all other sea plants.  She wanted the tree to be happy, so she created Man to climb the tree and use the tree for all its resources so the tree could feel useful and be happy alongside Man.  The Sea Constellation Peach wanted all the beings of the Earth and of The Blue to realize how She wanted everyone to live in harmony with each other.  Since she wanted everything to live in harmony with each other, she decided that she would make a being that could live in both land and water.

She decided to make a creature that could live on the sandy beaches or in The Blue.  She wanted the creature to be able to defend itself while on land because of all of its unknown dangers.  She gave the creature claws and called it a lobster.  At first, the lobster seemed to be doing great and loving life but then things changed.  It became mean and tried to hurt the animals on land with its sharp claws.  So, Peach decided she needed a new creature that was nicer.  It took her years and years to make a new prototype of a nice land and sea animal. 

While she was taking such a long time making the animal she decided that the animal should live very long time since it took so long to make.  She also wanted to give the animal a strong outer shell for protection.  Finally, on one sunny day, Peach finished her master creation.  Thus the Sea Turtle was born.

Once Peach had created the Sea Turtle, all the other beings wanted to try as best they could to please Her just like the Sea Turtle did.  Peach continues to live as a Sea Constellation today somewhere out in The Blue.

THE END

Myth Questions

Questions

1.      In all these stories, how do the gods behave?

2.      What is the place of human beings in these stories?

3.      How does God behave toward Man?

Omaha Creation Myth:

1. The god just gives the people what they want, which was a place to live.  The god behaves charitably.

2. The human beings were lost and didn’t know where they belonged.  They were obviously not as glorious as the god or they would have made themselves a place to live.

3. He behaves as though he wants to help the people he created.

Pawnee Creation Myth:

1. Mother Corn behaves very powerfully.

2. They are ever indebted to Mother Corn.  They weren’t anything before she created them.

3. She is very commanding toward her people, but also very protective.  She wants to help them in every way she can.

An African Cosmogony:

1. The god in this story behaved very sickly.  He vomited everything up that was created and after that didn’t do much.

2. Humans came from the god that vomited them up, so the place of humans in this myth is to help keep the earth clean.

3. He helps man to learn how to create fire.  He wants to help them.