Rayhan Mohammed, Period 7, 1/10/22

 Rayhan Mohammed, Period 7, 1/10/22

Literacy & Learning

Write about your thoughts regarding any of the fiction or non-fiction covered in class.

Why do people suffer? The Book of Job explores a question that has a large impact on how you view the world around you. Job’s friends believe that he must have committed some sort of sin, for he would not be suffering this much if he had done nothing to deserve it. It relates to the problem of evil, which wonders why an all-righteous and all-powerful God allows evil to happen. Either God does not want to stop evil, or he is unable to. The Book of Job, however, seeks to look at the limitations of human perception when considering evil in a fascinating way. The wisdom of humans like Job is limited, and they lack the knowledge that God has in order to properly judge the universe. This is why people with different backgrounds and perspectives can come to wildly different conclusions on what is morally right or wrong. The lessons in The Book of Job differ from the idea that people get what they deserve, and that the good and faithful are rewarded and the wicked are punished. There is an overarching idea that people do not have the ability to comprehend God's creations in their entirety.

Reflect on any new information you have learned in English class by considering how that learning influences your critical perception.

I think that learning about this in class has got me to rethink the idea of right and wrong and how it is affected by the human perspective. This also ties into learning about the Norse, and how different their set of values were. The Norse considered violence and plunder against anyone who was not one of their own fair game. While judging them by our standards of morality, they immediately appear barbaric and immoral, but they did not live by our code of morals. They had independently come to a completely different set of values that demonstrates the effect of human perspective on morality. I think it has taught me about realizing my own biases as well. I have my own set of experiences, beliefs, values, and perspectives that I apply to every person and event that I attempt to draw conclusions about. This also applies to every other person, and I think that understanding other people’s perspectives is important. Obviously, that doesn’t mean that you cannot make a valid judgement on someone else’s morality, but realizing how your biases affect your worldview is important.

How is what you’re learning applied to any other classes/the world around you?

I think that learning about Special Relativity in Physics is an interesting place to apply the idea of the limit of human understanding. The class has gotten me to think more about the big questions about the universe that we cannot answer. The more I learn, the more I realize that I do not know. I think that it is important to acknowledge how little you know and that furthers your understanding. It relates to God speaking to Job, where God reminds Job how much more of the world he controls than Job can even comprehend. I also think how people view suffering also affects their viewpoints on social issues as well. Believing that people get what they deserve can cause someone to look down on people who are struggling and did not actually do anything to deserve their situations. This can create negative attitudes towards people who are in troubled situations, through things like assigning negative stereotypes towards people who just need help at the moment. For example, if someone is struggling with poverty, believing that they deserve their situation and are therefore either not working hard enough or just making bad decisions can be harmful by failing to address any of the real problems faced by people in poverty. The real life stakes of the question of suffering makes it important for me to acknowledge the randomness of human suffering and The Book of Job helps address that.