Jo You: Groundhog Day (Movie Post #1)

After watching Phil's life is permanently changed due to his experiences in the movie, Groundhog Day, I immediately thought the most memorable scene in the entire film was Phil asking the two gentlemen at the bowling alley “What if there were no tomorrow?”. When one of the guys responds with “That would mean there will be no consequences, there will be no hangovers, we could do whatever we wanted”, I thought of a world where nothing mattered and we were free to do whatever we pleased. In many ways, it is similar to a tale told in Philosophy, specifically Plato's Republic, where a man named Glaucon talks about a ring that makes the wearer invisible (Ever wonder where Tolkien got his ideas?). By using this ring to make yourself invisble, the wearer could technically be just like Phil – free to do whatever he wanted in a world of free reign.

Glaucon's ideas behind his story of the ring of Invisibility is to justify his argument that the idea of Justice is only a manmade convention, and that men are driven not by Justice, but by advantage, or gaining the upper hand. Glaucon essentially thinks that 'true' Justice is rarely every used – people are constantly looking for opportunities to one-up the next competitor. He then explains that if his ring were duplicated, and one invisibility ring given to a 'just' man, and the other to a 'unjust' man, the viewer would ultimately find that both men who possess this ring of Invisibilty would be the same – the just man would become unjust, and the unjust man just. They are one and the same.

In the same vein, what constitutes Phil's actions as Just or Unjust? When he tries desperately to revive the dying hobo on the streets, is he doing it out of sheer justice and good-will? Or is he doing it to make himself improve and therefore seek personal gain? Were this a matter of personal opinon, I would take the latter stance.

Nicholas Dease :Personal Blog 1

On the Superiority of Religions

In Rudolf Otto's introduction to the Idea of the Holy, he notes that certain religions may describe their deities in terms of "clear and definite concepts." Attributes, be they physical or no, may be associated with the divine, and to this extent, the beliefs are "rational." Directly afterword, he notes that a superior religion is one that contains many of these conceptions. He states "it should admit knowledge--the knowledge that comes by faith--of the transcendent in terms of conceptual thought." Furthermore, he claims that conceptions within Christianity indicate a "very real sign of its superiority over religions of other forms and at other levels." (p. 1)

This inspires one to pose question: what is it about clarity that indicates a religion's superiority over others? Truly, can one even legitimately make that statement? While it is true that Christian doctrine is, if anything, well expressed in regard to conceptions of the divine, its significance surely must be determined by different factors. Even if a religion is ambiguous, can it not still produce the same level of meaning for different individuals?

Redick Introduction

Enter your blogs with the title as indicated in this intro blog.

Reading and Reflection Blog:

Each student will engage in the practice of journaling on the world-wide-web–this is called blogging. Your class reading and reflection blog will be compiled and posted at the appropriate blog site: the title of the blog is Religion in Film 2012 and the address is http://cnurstdfilm2012.blogspot.com/. Make sure to start the blog with your name and the subject of the entry. Blog entries will be considered informal writing assignments and as such will be graded more in relation to content than style. Blog entries will contain questions and answers to questions, as well as reflections which relate to daily classroom discussions, completion of exercises, and reading assignments. Any questions the student has when reading or completing assignments should be written in their blog. Reflections may relate to connections the student makes between discussions in this class and those in other classes, between arguments raised in the readings in this class and those raised in other classes or in informal conversations. Students are encouraged to apply the ideas learned in this class to activities that take place outside of the class. These applications make great reflections. The student should bring questions from the blog to class and ask those questions which were raised in specific blog entries. As those questions are addressed and answered in the classroom discussions, the student should make note of the discussion and answers within subsequent blog entries. This class blog will reflect the quality of the students daily classroom participation and completion of homework assignments, and will be graded with this in mind. The student may submitt the blog for grading at several times during the course of the semester. The blog is not the same thing as a compilation of class lecture notes; it is the product of written personal reflection related to the class. A good blog will contain at least 15 entries. 5 of the entries must relate to films the class views that do not have formal assignments. 5 of the entries must be reflections on outside readings, something not assigned as part of the class requirements. Finally, 5 of the entries will be centered on a topic of the student’s choosing. Each blog entry should be dated and given a title related to the subject of reflection.