The Descartes and Spinoza chapters in Sophie's World very much connect to what we have been discussing in class, because the majority of our conversations have had to do with fate vs freewill, reality, or religion. These philosophers touch on all of the above criteria. In class, some people have had similar views to Descartes, where by thinking we are indeed real and also have a form of free will, and some have had more similarities to Spinoza by seeing us as a direct piece of God and having only God's plan to guide us through our lives. Some people in our class also agree with both of the two when it comes to doubting what we can't explain and believe if what we can with reason, and others have looked at it in more of a theological way, by depending on fate rather than reason. The majority of our class has also taken the side of Spinoza on the issue of the Bible. Spinoza was the first to truest critique the Bible, and I think that many of my class mates would agree with him. Our class is made up of many agnostics or atheists, and I believe that many people see the Bible to have little credibility. The two philosophers that we have most recently read about, directly connect to our class discussions and the real world! From what we have discussed in class and read in the book, I have started to think of many examples in the real world. People believing they have complete free will or thinking they follow God's path. People believing anything that they are told or that their senses tell them or people choosing to only believe reasonable and logical things. A lot of our discussions in class and a lot of the teachings of the two philosophers in the book directly relate to some of the groupings of people in today's society.

Most recently in Sophie's World, we read about the lives and ideas of two very important philosophers, Descartes and Spinoza. To begin, we learned that Descartes doubted much of the philosophical ways of thought that he had heard throughout his life and also realized that he really didn't know all that much himself. He set out to try and piece everything together through reason into one big, philosophical grouping. He tried to explain everything through reasoning and doubt anything that he couldn't. I like that idea, because if you have no evidence or reasoning for something, then there is no way you can believe in it completley, there must be some degree of doubt. Through his work, Descartes created something that brings him the most fame. I think, therefore I am. While he was trying to discover the reasoning for everything, he realized that by thinking, he didn't need to doubt his own existence. According to Descartes, there is one thing we all can know for sure, by thinking about what to write for our blogs or thinking about what I have written here, we all really exist. Next we read about another famous philosopher, one who admired Decartes, Spinoza. Spinoza agreed with much of what Descartes, however he did not completely agree with his ideas of mind versus matter. Spinoza focused much of his ideas on God and the Bible. He believed that our ability to think did not make us free, but that it was just a piece of God himself through us. He believed that God controlled everything and also that we should be able to critique the Bible. His ideas on this matter brought lots of hatred upon him from almost everybody, including his own family!! Finally, where Descartes thought that our mind brought us freedom, Spinoza thought that only God had freedom, but that did not mean we couldn't still achieve happiness.

The chapter that I alluded to in my last post, and what we have been learning about in class, tremendously relates to the real world in a multitude of ways. What I am referring to is religion. In class, we have discussed whether there is a God, we have discussed different philosophers arguments for if there is or isn't a God, and whether we have fate or free will. Plus, as a talked about in the last blog post, the book has talked about different religions basis' and cultures. This connects to the real world for a few reasons, one being much of he world follows a religion and another is whether there is a God or not had been one of the biggest debates our world has faced for centuries. This arguement can rile many people up because some are very passionate about their religions and some are very passionate about scientific explanations for everything. Religion is one of the most "popular" thing on Earth. Tons of people believe in some sort of higher power and it can shape the way many people live their lives (as we see in the cultures we learn about in the book). Without religion, our world would probably agree on a lot more honestly, and we would of never had many of the great battles or stories of our history.

From what we have recently read in Sophie's World, I have chosen to talk about the two cultures chapter. A big portion of this chapter taught us about a few of the monotheistic religions (those who believe and worship one God), including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I enjoyed this chapter, because although I do fall into one of these categories (Christianity), I didn't know many of the basics of cultures  of these religions. Something that I thought was very cool is that all of these religions some what connect in a mysterious manner. For example, the Jews prophesied of a future messiah years before the birth of Jesus Christ (the Christian messiah). It shows you that even though hear religions do have some different beliefs and cultures, they still do have stuff in common. A connection that the teachings of this chapter to the story going on is uncertainty/mystery. You find a lot of uncertainty and mystery in religion (lots of unanswered question and some wonders or doubts), just like we see in the letters Sophie is recieving from Alberto. She is still very uncertain on what is going on and on what a lot of what he is trying to tell her. All in all, I enjoyed this chapter, because I found the lesson interesting and I enjoyed on how it ties into the story line!