Throughout Sophie’s World Jostein Gaarder introduces many philosophers all through the book. The philosophers I agreed with most were Spinoza, Hume, Kant, and Freud. Someone that I completely disagreed with was Darwin; I do not believe in the majority of what he thought.
Along with Spinoza, I believe that God controls all the natural laws. I believe that God is the only, truly free being in the universe. Though we can decide what we wear each day, or what to eat for our meals, I am convinced that God has a plan for everyone on the earth and knows every decision that we will make even before we make it. A point that Alberto makes is that, though God does control things, he is no “a puppeteer”. “So God - or nature - is the ‘inner cause’ of everything that happens.” This is something I do agree with greatly.
Some of what Hume believed and thought really stood out to me. I do agree with some of the things that he came up with. First, when he mentions an angel being a “complex” idea, I understand what he is saying. Every year at Christmas, my family and I put some sort of angel ornament on our tree. It’s always been accepted that angels exist and they exist in human forms with wings. However, since I have never seen an angel, I realize that they are, indeed, a complex idea as Hume stated. However, I do believe in the idea of an eternal soul and I also believe in God, unlike Hume.
The third philosopher I agreed with was Kant. He believes that there are things that us humans cannot know the answers to because they are beyond human reasoning. Unable to reason through these questions, he believes that we are able to find the answers in our faith. I also believe in this strongly. We are only human, and we are not omniscient. We cannot think of everything ourselves, therefore we need someone with much more knowledge to guide us through difficult parts of life. I agree with Kant and believe that we can prove natural laws. While Alberto is explaining Kant’s theories, Sophie says, “We are - in a way - a tiny part of the ball that comes rolling across the floor. So we can’t know where it came from.” This is a good analogy and causes me to think about this statement. Though we can never truly know exactly how the world came into existence, there are things seen every day that point to a higher power that is out there.
The last philosopher that I agreed on their thoughts was Freud. He believed that we have unconscious urge that influences our actions, even though we may not know about them. Accompanying this, he believed that people buried certain events deep in their unconscious and these events caused their unhappiness. There have been times that I have simply tried to forget about things that have happened; it always comes back to me somehow and ends up being worse than it was first.
I do not agree with the ideas that Darwin had. Darwin "had to distance himself from the church's view of the creation of man and beast." Darwin believed that all vegetables and animals were descended from earlier, more ancient forms in a type of biological evolution. When learning about Darwin, I have been told that he believed humans descended from apes. I do not believe in this evolution in the least. I believe that God created the world and everything in it. I have always been taught that God created Adam and Eve within the six days that He created the rest of the world.
Lastly, I do believe that I am somewhere buried underneath the rabbit’s fur. I would like to learn more about the amazing and wondrous world that I am a part of, but seem to be lost while doing so. I am trying to get out and unfold the mysteries of life.
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