Thoughts

So I kept meaning to write a post yesterday and didn't and now I don't know what I was going to talk about so instead I'm gonna rant a little about my philosophy class, please excuse me the venting space. So yesterday in my philosophy of mind class we had the really cool assignment to watch The Matrix, read a philosophical article about whether we could be living in a Matrix, by David Chalmers and then write a short paper about whether or not we believe that it is possible for us to be living in a matrix right now. It was a lot of fun. Class wasn't quite though. We started the discussion about whether or not it was possible that we lived in a matrix. I contended it was possible but probably not provable either way and that it didn't really matter because this is the reality that we're stuck with. Now I don't mind people disagreeing with me, it makes for a good debate but what I do mind (especially in a philosophy class) is a flat indefensible statement that I'm supposed to respect and not attack. Here I'm speaking of the girl in my class who asserted that there is no matrix and this she knows as an absolute fact because she believes in God and doesn't have to defend her ideas because she reads the bible. She came to her unshakable faith on her own, she says she was not indoctrinated by her church, and yet she has no defense of it, it's just something she knows. Firstly I'd like to say that unshakable blind faith is something magical and wonderful to me, I sometimes wish i had it (and something to believe in) because it would make my religious life easier, no more questing for truth and evidence for it, i'd just have faith. That being said I think if she couldn't come up with something to further the discussion she should have kept her mouth shut. It is extremely socially unacceptable to argue someone's faith in God, I've found that since I was a young child. I've also found that people feel it's perfectly ok to tear my agnosticism, religion and faith in science to shreds. Or to try anyway, with such arguments as "if you reread the Bible believing that it could be the word of God then you will see that it is". I decided that i really couldn't say much about her faith in God. After reading the bible myself I find that there are many descriptions of God in it and that they tend to be contradictory. I do not believe that any of the version could possibly exist and I certainly don't believe that all versions are able to exist in one being, however I also believe that the God of the girl in my class is absolutely real because her faith makes Him real, for her. I decided to try the tactic of maybe we're in a matrix that God designed and was told by another girl in my class that God doesn't write in computer code, cause He's a divine being and divine beings don't do that so we're not in a matrix. It is so frustrating to be in a philosophy class which is supposedly based on logical arguments and be running into the brick wall of faith. Grrrr. ok rant over.