Sixth Class

Hello, current reader, I am back once again to talk about how my most recent existentialism class went. There was some really great discussion as we have seen in many of the previous classes. We started this particular session with Kierkegaard who is an older philosopher which leads to many of his ideas being centered around religion, god, and faith as well as what it means to be truly faithful or to have faith I should say. Kierkegaard seems to think that reflecting on whether there are things about religion worth questioning or thinking twice about is self-evident of a person with little true faith. Essentially, if one needs evidence to truly believe in something like a god then they do not count as a true believer. The only way one could be considered a true believer would be to practice their religion vigorously and, for lack of a better world, religiously without needing solid evidence or proof that the religion they are practicing is the correct one or not. To Kierkegaard, a person who could be this devout to religion is truly faithful and doing it right. As we live in the modern era where science and experimentation are held up much higher than religion, for the most part, this comes across as a very strange philosophy or way of going about one's life. I have tried to understand Kierkegaard's perspective on this but I am truly struggling to understand why a philosopher - someone who is of the profession of thinking and reflection - would advise against such thinking and reflection especially in the face of the possibly contradictory or otherwise questionable information religion often gives! I can sum it up to simply Kierkegaard being a man of his time where religion reigned king and the people who questioned it were either ignored or ostracized but I would like to give more credit to who is regarded as one of the world's best philosophers in history - I'm just not sure I know how. I don't think I can truly take Kierkegaard's philosophy seriously since he is essentially advocating for blind belief in an ideal rather than taking a logical approach to comprehending the ideas of existentialism. The fact that Kierkegaard would look at many other philosophers who utilize logic and call it a shortcoming or failing of their character really gets under my skin. The idea of blindly following faith or the belief system you know is the reason we see radicals and extremists do terrible things in our world so that is another big reason why I do not agree with the ideas Kierkegaard proposes. It only makes sense to me that thinking things through logically and looking at the bigger picture of things would lead one to a higher understanding of the world and self-awareness as well - not simply blindly following the first thing you are taught to be passionate for. While a devoutly religious person may certainly be happy, even blissful, in their beliefs, I still value the pursuit of knowledge and true understanding in humans as opposed to taking the easy route by sticking simply to what you know without ever questioning it for a second.