Can the next prophet please stand up?
This week in class we spent a lot of time talking about peoples negative perceptions of other cultures and religions. This idea kind of goes hand in hand with my post from last week. For the average American our only view on other cultures are what we are told by the media. We are discussing Muhammad in class whose religion is is Islam. All of us are very aware of the way Americans perceive them.
Is it right or fare? No. Have we been brainwashed to think this way? Yes.
Would a prophet like Jesus even be able to to fix everyone's cynical perception of people different than themselves? Are we to far gone to be saved? Would a prophet make a difference?
My book analysis is on Taoism and I think one of the concepts really works for this argument. Taoist believe that being one with nature is key, and to be one with nature you must go back to your natural form, like a block of wood. You can carve a block of wood into anything. Just like our perceptions can be carved into anything. Can we get back to our natural way of thinking and decide for ourselves how we perceive the world around us?
In class, Professor Silliman spoke about how we need more prophets right now. We need people who are not afraid to try something radical, who are willing to take risks. In regards to your question, I think it is possible for a prophet to help fix the image and perception of something, but it is a person's job to finish the rest. Jesus can go halfway and preach and perform his miracles, but initially it is up for the person to believe in HIM. I think we can get back to our natural way of thinking if we allow ourselves to. We can each be our own prophet!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree as well that we all do need to re-think the way we perceive all different belief systems in the world today. However, I said this in one of my earlier blogposts this year, I personally am not sure how the world would take someone who is radical in their beliefs like Jesus or Muhammad was. I feel as if there are way to many people in the world at the moment, but then again I could be very young, because in our world today I do agree we need one, I'm just not sure how one person could influence mostly everyone in our world at this point. Matt and Alex both disagreed with me in a blog discussion earlier, with perfectly legitimate arguments. With all of this being said, I do like Feeny's point, we can each be our own prophet. RIght now it is a great time to be young in the world, I understand there are many issues we have to face, maybe more than earlier generations, but we are all open minded and hopeful people. I think at some point there will be a major reform movement throughout the world, and maybe there will be a prophet who leads that movement, or maybe it will just be all different people coming together as one! Either way I do agree that we need to allow ourselves to think differently, and that a prophet is indeed what we could use to do just that!
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