Sydney Smith's Archive

Viktor Frankl

3 Commentsby   |  12.02.13  |  Second Blog Post

I have also found the Holocaust to be very interesting. It is apart of history that makes you sit there and think how such things could happen just being under the power of one person. Viktor Frankl and a select few of others saw a meaning to life and not only helped themselves out, but others around them in the concentration camp. I would place Frankl under the Fall because even though his world was crashing under him after losing his family in the camps, he did not let it stop him from finding that meaning of life. “Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” From what we experience in life, by our choice we either embrace it as a blessing or just something that happened because of a wrong decision. Even if what we experienced was bad, we always have the choice to change the meaning. I just feel like if we do not exercise our freedom, then how can we find a purpose in life, grow from it, and move on from past experiences.

William James- emotions

5 Commentsby   |  11.01.13  |  Second Blog Post

Williams James reversing the traditional belief that emotion results from the perception of an event, should be placed under the fall category. As humans we go through different emotions a thousand times a day. Whether it be happy, sad, angry, depressed, or frightened we cannot stop ourselves from feeling some type of way. As James said the emotions we feel depends on what we do. Besides the beat example, when some people are in a relationship and they are cheating on their significant other, they just might be as happy as they are with the person they are cheating on their spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend, but once they get caught they are sad, angry, maybe depressed. The emotions we feel depend on what we do. We necessarily do not act the way we feel. I think that if we did a lot of things out of emotion everything would be different. Especially if others actually expressed their anger to the max. We are tricled in ways to make ourselves feel the opposite of how we actually feel, even if we are happy, somehow we end up being sad with the snap of a finger. Our emotions can either make us or break us, we can either learn for our mistakes or just let it kills us, but in the end our emotions will have some type of effect on our lives.

Free Will

5 Commentsby   |  09.20.13  |  Second Blog Post

Along with Mengyuan Tang’s post, I agree that free will falls into the Creation category. As Erasmus defines free will as “the power of human will whereby man can apply to or turn away from that which leads into eternal salvation.” With our free will, we are deciding the path of life we want to live and that would lead us to whether we are going to be granted eternal salvation or end in hell.  As God as our creator, he is the only one that knows how we will live our life. “…human actions are predestined that “it would be dangerous to reveal such a doctrine to the multitude, for morality is dependent on consciousness of freedom.”” I think that if we were to know the paths we were going to take in life from the day we were born, we would change up our mind from either the wrong path to the right path while not living your life freely and the world would be a total different place. I believe God granted us life to of course make our own decisions and live by our own choices. I’m actually kind of back and forth with Erasmus and Luther because I do in ways feel like in this world we live in slavery. As Luther states, “In all things pertaining to salvation or damnation, man has no free will, but is captive, servant and bondslave, either to the will of God, or to the will of Satan.” As we do decide how we want to live our life, we do choose who to worship and that puts us under their control based on our decisions to end good or bad.  I do question though to why God would allow us to make some of those bad decisions and end in hell, instead of being granted the eternal salvation. As Luther states, “in other words, God only knows.”

Sydney Smith's Comment Archive

  1. Sydney Smith on Not Just A Kanye West Song
    12:35 am, 12.05.13

    Your title is so hilarious. Great post Irene! You had some really good points and I liked your comparisons.

  2. Sydney Smith on Man's Fork In The Road
    12:27 am, 12.05.13

    I love reading your post. Frankl himself has made me think more about life and the things we are faced with each day, good or bad. We as human beings have to realize the things that happen to us can and cannot be explained, but we do have to live with what has happened and move from it.

  3. Sydney Smith on Therapy and Restoration
    12:23 am, 12.05.13

    I agree with your post, I like how unconditional love can be placed under restoration. is it is important that we are reminded each day not to judge cause God does not judge us.

  4. Sydney Smith on Creation - John B. Watson
    10:44 pm, 11.18.13

    It is shocking how we can let our behavior manipulate us in different ways. Just sitting here thinking about it, it’s crazy to think we could have changed up so many things from our younger years up until now and how we felt about that situation too could be so different.

  5. Sydney Smith on Jung
    10:37 pm, 11.18.13

    Very interesting post. I agree with you that apart of your faith was not knowing. God didn’t give us answers for a reason, we had to learn on our own and have our own opinions to learn about everything around us. If we couldn’t come down to an answer, we did turn to God to find the asnwer.

  6. Sydney Smith on Knowing there is a God
    10:26 pm, 11.18.13

    I really liked your post. As I grew up I was always heard Jung’s comment in the video. It is very interesting to know everyones thoughts on how they feel about different things either believing in God or Christianity in general.

  7. Sydney Smith on The Whole Heart
    11:15 pm, 11.04.13

    This is exactly what we need because it is so hard to not judge a book by its cover. We need to a whole view the person as a whole. I feel like most people need to focus on the life God gave them instead of making it their job to judge someone the minute they wake up until the end of the day. Relationships will form and last longer if we can do this.

  8. Sydney Smith on Evolutionary Psychology and the Power of Redemption
    10:52 pm, 11.04.13

    I totallly agree with you on your post. We are not guaranteed a full life to live so God granting us to be able to adapt and evolve should mean something. I mean really, where would we be if we did not have that ability. I think it just means so much more the way you explained it.

  9. Sydney Smith on Gestalt and Redemption
    10:25 pm, 11.04.13

    I love the connection you made between gestalt therapy and redemption. It is very important that you build a relationship between therapist and patient, you have to build the trust in order to open up between each other.

  10. Sydney Smith on Hume and The Fall
    11:14 pm, 10.21.13

    Great post, I like how you placed Hume in the Fall category. If you don’t believe in God and the principles of God, that is when you fall short of your purpose. Morality plays an important part because if you are not strong spiritually, your physical body will be attracted to anything and suffer greatly.