Dante's Hell

Dante's idea of an afterlife, specifically hell, I very much different as compared to other idea of hell. When you look at the main religions of the world, it's either heaven or hell, and maybe purgatory. In a humorous way, his nine levels of hell gives just about everyone a slice of eternal damnation; a piece of the birthday pie. But each hell isn't going to be as bad as some of the other hells. I believe he is trying to make people comfortable with the concept of going to hell, and might just possible support the ideas that its ok to sin. He might want people to be ok with going to hell in order for us to seek out our pleasures. "It's ok that you stole, the guy to your left who murder and raped everyone in his village and is going to the hardcore hell where bad country music is played on the daily and it smell like suffer (eggs)", says the guy in hell.

New Testament in the Modern World

We all need some type of love for our fellow man more than every in the times we live in folks. Lets face it, we have been killing each other for years, but with the advantages of the digital world, we can stay connected no matter where we are (with some signal limitations of course). A person from Kenya can email someone from Dallas, and with this we can try to connect with each other in harmony for the first time. The new testament is one of the many religious books that everyone, no matter their background, can learn something from. It is stated in the new testament that ". . . love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back" Luke 6:35. We should take this and bond with everyone regardless of race, sexuality, and religion.

Same as it is Different

Besides just obviously being old religious scriptures that teach the word of god, both the new testament and Quran are similar in other ways. I believe that since Islam and Christianity are both monotheistic and have biblical ties to each other, both higher powers (God) in each religion are the same God. Let's look at purified life in the Quran and New Testament. The Quran states that "Whoever does good, whether male or female, and is a believer, we shall certainly make him live a good life." (Nahl, 97) and in the Bible it states "For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come" (Hebrew 13/14). Both believe in some form of eternal life or, purified life, and that after life is the same (my opinion).

Confucius Presidents

I personally don't really believe that any of the presidential candidates live up to the expectations of Confucius teachings, except for one. Confucius once said, "Silence is the true friend and never betrays". When we look at many of the popular candidates, we find them out spoken and always talking about someone or some other candidate. Confucius is really talking about being humble, and people who are humble (means being modest in one's own importance) generally don't get into conflicts with others and people like them to the extent of friendliness. Honestly, who has ever wanted to hate someone who was humble?! Ben Carson is one of the most humble politicians (even though he is not, he is a neurosurgeon, but we will consider him as one in regards to the presidential race) I have ever seen (granted, I've only lived for 20 years) and always put humility and faith as the primary characteristics of his person to get him to the white house. Even with the criticism over his comments connecting America and Nazi Germany, and his opinion of Muslims, he has stayed humble and still remains on of the most popular candidates to Americans.

What do you think? Is Carson humble? What do you think about some of Carson's controversial comments? Please leave a comment!

Opposites of Life

I'm no philosopher so pardon me if I might not truly understand Daodejing, but I believe everyone can see something different.

Opposites in Daodejing are thing that are balanced, so one without the other, neither can exist so they complement each other. It's the concept of yin and yang, hot and cold, nice and mean, tortoise and the hare. for example, in life we have fast and slow, but without things being fast, slow computers could not be distinguished by speed, if everything was fast, we would never know the meaning of slow. With darkness there must be light, because if there is no darkness, we would never know light. If light only existed, we would not know light because again we could not distinguish it with darkness so to us, light didn't exist.

Opposites in Daodejing are independent elements of life that are dependent of each other and are what makes life truly wonderful and equal. It gives use the appreciation and desire we seek, and without the the opposite of what we appreciate, we can never appreciate it.

What do you think? Do agree with my annotation of opposites in Daodejing? What things do you appreciate and what is it's opposite? Would you be interested in traveling to Nepal? Please leave a comment!

War

War is something that has been around forever and being in the National Guard, I believe war is natural and so is peace. When you look at the issues, and I mean all all sides of it, in Syria and ISIS and Russia and U.S. and people being affected, I'd say it's a just war (but that could be some bias since I am a soldier and without war, no army, means I'm out of a job) but a war we should fight for human peace. I believe we should all unit with all nations to fight crimes against humanity, and if that government is the culprit, we will unit with the people because they are what makes up the nation. Sadly we are sticking our nose into Syria for political reasons, but we do need to stop the blood shed ISIS and the Syrian government have been committing.

What do you think? Are you pro or anti war in the Middle East? Would you be willing to be drafted into the conflict in the Middle East? Please leave a comment!

Next Stop: Eternal Life

Most religions and societies in the world have some form of eternal life or cycle of life itself, Valhalla, Heaven, Nirvana, Reincarnation just to name a few. When I talk about eternal life, I'm talking about your soul going to some form of haven or cycle of life which you partake for eternity. Usually to attain this eternal life, one must be good in nature or have faith in a higher being. But lets look at the good naturedness of being able to have eternal life, mainly because eternal life isn't usually associated with bad deeds because that would usually lead to unforeseeable things in your moments after you pass (probably why we don't associate eternal life with hell). Eternal life might generally run around some form of karma system that affects our eternal soul, which is a soul that continues on forever to some form of other life itself. Many believe that we need to live on the moments of good and adventure because you get one shot before starting over because we will never remember in our other life. Which is why many do bad things because they think this is the only life they get and their is no eternal glory of any form.

What do you think? I feel like I just babbled about the topic. Did I make any real point on my topic? Do you believe in something that is eternal? Please leave a comment!