Please watch the short video above to provide some context to Part 2 of Wide Sargasso Sea (and to give you some hints about the questions below!). After you watch it , answer this brief question as a comment (or
send it with your Part 2 questions):
Q: What is something in the world that you believe in, but
don't really know? (to quote Christophine from the video). In other words,
discuss some idea, concept, or reality that you know to be true (or know that
everyone else thinks is true), but you have a hard time believing it
personally, or making use of it in your daily life. How can we know something
but also not know it? And what does it mean when a belief seems to
contradict reality, like England
This is a difficult question. The only thing that comes to mind is that people keep saying the nation will return to normal. I believe that, yes, we will eventually be able to leave our homes, go to the movies, eat at a restaurant,etc., but I don't know if life will be the same. I realized that life has been filled with unnecessary things, but being at home has clarified what is actually needed or important. So, I do not think things will return to normal, even if only on a personal level.
ReplyDeleteYes, great point...we know life will resume at some point, and go back to some semblance of normal, but how? When? And can people really be comfortable sitting elbow to elbow with a stranger in a crowded room? That seems impossible now. So yes, I can't really see or understand this...and yet, I believe it will be possible, some day. Hopefully in Fall 2020!
DeleteThis is one of those thought spirals that can last forever!!
ReplyDeleteI subscribe to the idea of the relativity of truth. I do not believe, for instance, that God's word as found in the Bible is absolute. I do not think that my own personal beliefs, that I arrive at from thought, study, and conversation, are absolute, not even just for me. As the physicist Neils Bohr said (and which I learned about from the author Gretchen Rubin), "There are trivial truths and great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true."
It can be difficult to have a conversation about topics like this with, say, a convicted Christian who believes in the Bible as absolute truth. But when I think about it - if I think that it is a great truth that truth itself is relative, could it also be a great truth that truth itself is NOT relative? Could that person also be right? Could we both be right at the same time?
I have no way of knowing for certain, but it helps to keep an open mind. ��
I love that idea--that the opposite of a great truth is also true. I had a long, long debate with some Mormons at my front door one day, and one of them told me, that if I were to prove that even the smallest tenet of his faith was incorrect (for instance, that Joseph Smith didn't do this or say this in exactly this way), then all of his faith would be false. And I argued the opposite--that all the details could be wrong if they upheld a greater truth. He didn't see it that way, I didn't see it his way. But we're both 'right' in that our views give meaning and purpose to our lives. There are things we can never truly know but we believe because they are important to us--they form our identity. To me, I think he should be willing to say "I don't know if this or that happened, but I don't care...it's still true in the bigger picture." He couldn't accept this, and I think that can be dangerous--you can have a severe crisis of faith one day like that. Doubt is an essential ingredient of fate, and only doubt permits you to truly believe (I think). Because doubt is thought, and only a truly thinking mind can establish lasting pillars of belief. So I don't know anything for sure, but I believe in my own way, because I'm comfortable with not knowing. Because I don't think you're damned to hell for not knowing what cannot be known!
DeleteCarla Torres:
ReplyDeleteI also think when it comes to this question about what is going on today. I do believe in everything that is going on with the Corona Virus but it is difficult because I do not know the unknown or the future for that matter. Life can be really hard and especially today, it is very hard for numerous people throughout the world. However, I would be lying if I did not say that this has been easy, being at home like Helm mentioned can be very helpful because it allows you to know what you need (based off of what you use everyday) and what you don't need. We know what is going on with the virus today, but do we really know everything? There is so much unknown in that itself. This belief is contradicting because we do not know when things will go back to "normal" and it will/could be difficult to understand/comprehend it.
Great points--we don't really know anything about the virus or its impact on our lives in the future, yet we believe we can survive it, and that life can go on the way it did (in some form). But how? When? We don't know. So we believe without really knowing. Just as I believe I'll be teaching in a classroom again at ECU...though right now it seems so impossibly far away. :(
DeleteSo many people seem to believe in the media in today's society, but I just can't bring myself to do so as well. People are panicking from COVID stats when there's a lot of actual medical professionals saying that they're being exaggerated. And whether it's about COVID, politics, or anything else, a lot of it seems fake, altered,covered up, or exaggerated to me. So, I know that most of these events that they are reporting are happening, but I don't think they're happening in the way that they're describing. And I think that a belief contradicting a reality is the same thing as a contradiction of perspective.
ReplyDeleteSome people think that the Earth was created in a “big bang, ” but according to my beliefs, God created the Earth. We do not contain the knowledge to know how the Earth was created, but we do have the option to believe in certain events. The concept of religion is based on belief, but there is no way to know what will happen in our futures or what will happen after death. Faith produces hope. We willingly place our lives into the hands of God, who has complete control over our destinies. Heaven and Hell are both places that are real to me, but we do not know what will happen in the afterlife. When belief contradicts reality, we become aware that it was not meant to be. For example, when I pray, if I do not receive what I ask for, I have to believe that something better is to come.
ReplyDeleteSomething I believe in is the virus going around right now. What I do not believe in is opening the state back up at this time. There are so many more cases popping up drastically. If we open back up and let people be around each other again it is going to cause even more cases to arise and then we will be back where we started in the first place. Everyone else thinks it is a good idea, and don't get me wrong i want everything to go back to normal. I just think if everyone actually just stayed in their house for a certain time this would be eliminated fairly quickly.
ReplyDeleteCallie Farley:
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Yolanda and Tameca about the Corona Virus. I don't believe that our world will go back how we were before the pandemic and I don't believe that we should be opening some places up just yet like restaurants, for example. I think that we should keep social distancing and maybe just start by opening other stores that aren't restaurants so we can slowly go back. However, I'm hopeful that we will all learn from this and try to be more sanitary. I don't believe that it's a good idea to just go back to how things where before because that could cause the virus to come back and then we will all have to leave school and our jobs again. We should listen to medical professionals.
Isaac Bellinger.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I believe in but don’t know for sure to be true is my belief in Jesus. The thing about this belief is that we will never know for a fact if all of this is true until we pass. The whole idea of Jesus is that he came down from heaven and lived a perfect life but was crucified on the cross, everyone knows the story. What we don’t know is how true this actually is and no one can prove it to be exact. That’s why you see all of the debates about this very thing. It’s a never ending argument because no one knows for a fact what the absolute truth is.