Final Post

http://thespacebetweenthespace.blogspot.com/2011/09/bible-and-me.html

In this post The Bible and Me I wrote about my own personal thoughts and feelings about the bible.  I discuses my own personal religion and reflect on my personal beliefs.

http://thespacebetweenthespace.blogspot.com/2011/09/enuma-elish-and-metamorphoses.html

In this post The Enuma Elish and Metamorphoses I compared the two texts.  I used examples from the text to drive my point’s home.

http://thespacebetweenthespace.blogspot.com/2011/10/was-beowulf-crazy.html

In this post Was Beowulf crazy?  I examined the text to find if Beowulf was crazy.  I looked at key points and evaluated his actions.

I chose these because I find them to be my best work.  They represent a verity of different type of writing I did from over this semester.  In The Bible and Me I did some self-reflecting.  I had to look in words to discover some self-truths and face my own prejudices I held.  In post The Enuma Elish and Metamorphoses I did comparing of two texts to find the similarities and the differences of them.  I did a good job at finding key elements in the story’s that supported my thoughts.  This is one of my best because I feel like I got the best text from the story to support me.  Finally in my post Was Beowulf crazy?  I had to examine a story and draw my own conclusions about it.  I found I did a good job of reading a story and interpreting it.  I demonstrated knowledge of the text and that I am able to analyze a text.  I find this is one of bet posy because of the level of analyzing that had to be done and I had to find the right examples to prove my hypothesis.

I have taken different literature classes in the past so I feel like my thoughts on it are the same.  I have always loved literature and this class just reinforced that.  The readings we read where written a long time ago and yet they remain.  These stories have stranded the test of time.  The thing I learned from this is it does not matter when a story was written it can be relevant at any time.

How would I evaluate myself? Well I feel like I did a good job on my blog assignments.  I always try hard on them and I feel it turned out nice.  I feel like whenever I have something to say I do it well.  Also when I set my mind to something I feel like I can do very well on it.   I may not have done the best on my first essay, but that was my fault.  I feel like I could have done better on that essay and for that I feel like that was my biggest weakness.  I tend to put everything off till the last minute to do it.  I always get my stuff done but it makes me stressed doing it at the last minute.  Also my spelling and grammar are weak but that is something I have always struggled with.

I feel that I should get an A in this class.  I feel that way for a few reasons.  First off the bat I show up every day and on time.  That in itself is a big things saying by the end of the class some people stopped showing up all together.  Next I try my best on my work.  I might not always have a lot to say but I get my point across when I do.  Also you get the privilege of teaching me twice.  That in itself is awesome.  Because of all of this I feel I should get an A in your course.

Punishment

This Idea of Punishment is huge in the Inferno.  Everyone in hell is being punished for whatever reason.  For some the punishment is never knowing god’s love and for other it is pain that fills every second of their life.  The only constant in hell is that everyone is being punished.

Even Satan is being punished for his sins.  No one is exempt from punishment.  Satan is trapped in ice and has to live in it forever. Always freezing cold and he can never get any warmth.  That is because he is as far away from god as possible.  Because of his treachery he is banished from god’s grace completely.

In the upper levels of hell the punishments are not a severer as the lower depths.  In the first level of hell their only punishment is not being by god.  They live virtues lives but they never accepted god as their savior and Jesus as their savior so they can never go to heaven.

Even Dante in the story is being punished.  He has to go through hell and experience everything.  He has to see everyone suffering.  He has to have the knowledge of the pain everyone is going through.  His love is in danger and he has to save her.  His punishment is the journey he must go through before he can reach god.

Dante put his own views into the story when making the punishment.  He was a man who loved his land and was banished.  He felt betrayed so because of this the punishments reflect that.  His personal anger is felt in his writing.

Response to Matt

I will be responding to Matts open post on Dante http://lwithforce.blogspot.com/.  I agree with his statement that “that its version of Hell is the scariest I have ever seen.”  The story is that of a visual experience.  Dante holds your hand through a very real and scary place.  Matt talk about it being so scary because it is all individualized.  Dante touches on topic and fears that are still relevant today.  I find his writing to hold up extremely well for how old it is.  He gets to the core of the human mind and is able to put every reader in their own personal hell.  To me that is one of the biggest things this story has to offer.  Everyone can take away their own things from the story that some on ells might not have really looked at that hard.  It is stories like these that really inspire people and survive because it will always remain relevant.

Dante’s Inferno

I found this to be a very interesting story.  It is one I have read already just for fun last summer.  The story revolves around Dante on his quest for true love.  The mental picture that is painted by this story is just so vivid.  The hell he described becomes this tangible place where you can really see the people suffering.  Each level has its own distinct feel to it.  No two punishments are the same and each reflects the sin that has been committed.

The first level of ell did not seem to be too bad.  There was not punishment except for not being with god.  What I found the most interesting part of this section was the massive amount of baby’s.  This is where all the unbaptized baby’s go too.  Back in the day al of baby’s die young so this level would have a lot of baby’s in it.  That would be the worst part of being in this level.

What I found to be especially interesting took place in the 7^th level of hell.  That place is reserved for suicide.  The people there come back ass trees.  When Dante was in the 7^th level he went through a forest.  In that forest he saw strange trees with black leaves and thorns.  Upon breaking of a branch the tree started to cry and it said “Owww! Why’d you do that, man?” and then it bleed black blood not sap.  Dante was horrified by this.  He did not know that this was the forest of suicide.  But if Dante had listed to Virgil earlier Virgil would not have let that happen.

Response to “What happens after death?”

As Jake talks about in his blog http://jakeslitblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-happens-after-death.html what happens after death is on everyone’s mind.  Death is an inevitability that everyone must face.  Some people spend a lot of time thinking about it, while others try to avoid thinking about it.  But any way you look at it death is important.  And the reason people think about it because of the afterlife.  There are as many different beliefs about the afterlife as there are different groups of people

Jake talks about the Christian views on the afterlife.  Being that one must turn their life to Christ to be saved, and if you don’t you will be sent to hell.  As he says “men only die once” and that “eternity is a long time to spend in hell” that is true.  That is a very powerful statement.  Hell is a power deterrent in Christianity.  If you mess up you go to hell.  If you warship the wrong deity you also go to hell.

There is much to learn from the christen views.  I personally do not follow them but I can respect them and learn from them.  The idea of being a good person is an important one.  People need to live their life to the best of their ability’s.  That is a cove value that everyone can learn from.  I may not follow the same set of rules as Jake but as long as everyone try’s their best to be good people it does not matter what religion you follow.

Afterlife

Death is something that people have always struggled to come to terms with.  Just about every culture out there has their own myth and beliefs about what lays on the other side.   There are just as many different afterlife stories’ as there are different cultures. Some people take solace in their religious beliefs on death while others feel like death is the end of the road.  The two I find most interesting is the Buddhist beliefs and the Egyptian beliefs.

In Buddhism death is viewed differently than other religions.  It is not a bad or even a scary thing.  In Buddhism when one dies there soul is judged based on their karma or their personal actions.  Then the soul is put into a new body and the quality of life they will have in their next life will depend on the quality of person they were in their past life.  This means that even animals can become human and vice versa.

After doing my research for presentation this week I now want to talk about the Egyptian afterlife. Originally the pharos where the only ones that got an afterlife.  They were mummified and preserved so that their souls could come back in at night and recharge.  During the day the souls would go the underworld ruled by Osiris.  Every morning they would raise with Ra the sun god and go with him on his journey before entering the underworld.  Latter it was changed that everyone could have an afterlife.  Their souls would have to be pure to achieve it though.

To me both these topics are important.  Being Buddhist I would care great deal about their afterlife.  Reincarnation is something I have thought a great deal about and find it fascinating.  Also I have always had a fascination with ancient Egyptian culture.  So much so I have the eye of Ra tattooed on my body.

Small-Group Discussion

To prepare for the small group discussion I had to do things a little differently.  I read the questions before I read Beowulf so that way I knew what to look out for during my reading.  And when I found it I marked the page and made a mark in my book to show me where it was.  I had to explore the text more to come up with questions I had and try to know the text in case I did not get a question I wanted.  Witch ended up being a good thing because I ended up getting a question I did not have pages for, but since I knew the text and questions I was able to answer it.  Other than that I actually finished the story a few days before class.  I normally put it off as long as I can but not this time.

I learned from this experience that it is ok to join in the discussion.  I normally am fairly quite in discussions but I need to speak my mind more.  I have things to say I just never feel like speaking up.  Also Beowulf has a whole lot of filler in it.  The good parts of action seem to go by fast and we are left with a whole lot of filler.  I also learned that I should not put off my reading to the last minute because it causes way to much stress.  I for once finished this story a few days early and it was so much less stressful for me.  It also gave me time to revisit parts of the story.  I found this means of discussion to be better for me.  It forced me to be part of the discussion and give my point of view.  That is something that I would probably not have done without it.