Paper

A blank piece of paper holds a limitless possibility to what it can become. It could become a piece of artwork, a novel or even a paper airplane. This paper is much like the entire world with the potential of becoming just about anything.The person writing/drawing on the paper has a great impact on it as do people living in earth. We have the option of protecting it and making sure it is filled with beautiful animals and plants or destroy it with pollutants to the point where we can no longer see its beauty. The paper can be recycled and used again to be made into many different things by doing this it is able to help reserve the earths beauty. Also, the paper unlike most man made things was once a part of the earth. It was once part of a tree, a tree created by the earth. It stayed a tree for years and benefited humans by producing oxygen before being cut down and made into paper. No matter what happens the paper has and will always benefit the earth. That's how the paper is able to hold the entire earth, it holds its past and now its future.

Free will?

The more I think about religion the more I begin to question free will. Even if God doesn't exist and no one in a completely different world is writing our story do we still have free will? Society no matter where you go plays a factor to what we do and don't do, the government sets up laws that its citizens are required to follow and our parents values are usually passed down to us.  There's always outside influences controlling our lives. For example, I come to school everyday because I know it's the right thing to do. Why? Because my parents have always told me it was, it's illegal to skip school and society frowns upon those who are less educated.  I don't really think of all this at the moment it's become almost instinct for me to go to school so I feel as though it is a choice I have made. But did I?

Kierkegaard vs. Nietzsche

To Kierkegaard the ultimate goal of life is reaching the stage of religion. To enter the religious stage one must first pass through the aesthetic and the ethical stage. It isn't until they finally reach the religious stage that they achieve eternal happiness. Nietzsche on the other hand believed in living in the present and celebrating life.

To defend Kierkegaard's point: Belief in a higher being is what gets a lot of people through any dark time in their lives. Like the example from class, a man holding on to a branch is going to die, unless there's a miracle, the branch will probably eventually break  but that submission to faith and trust in God is what makes life better at the moment. Coming to accept death makes life at the moment easier this is similar Nietzsche's belief  in living life for the present.

To defend Nietzsche's point: What if there is no God? You wasted your whole life living the life a God that never existed told you to live. Wouldn't you be much happier making the most of the time you had on earth in case there is no salvation? Death is inevitable part of life and I don't think Nietzsche would argue against that but it seems more rational to enjoy life then constantly think of death in hopes of finally gaining happiness that can't be guaranteed.

Hume

If you can't trust your senses what can you trust? Yes, reason is important, but without your senses what is there to even think about? What is the use of reason without senses? An idea must come from another idea. If you see a horse and then you see another house you connect those two horse as being the same creature. It was through your senses that you can make this conclusion. You know that the sun will rise tomorrow because you have seen the sun rise the day before and everyday since you were born, to come to the conclusion that it probably will rise again tomorrow.
 If you see and smell fire you shouldn't sit there and analyze whether it's real or not, at that time you have to trust your senses and run. Yes, your senses can't tell you everything, like that wax from a candle is still wax, but you must first observe the wax melting off the candle before you can come to the conclusion that its property did not change. We take in everything in the world through our sense then use our reason second to better understand it. Therefore, senses come first and reason is second.
Also, Descartes argues, that an imperfect being can't think up the notion of a perfect being so therefore God must exist. But everyone has a different perception of a what a perfect being is to them. So everyone's God has to exist to make his theory true. Also, there is no way to prove what perfect is. As an "imperfect being" how can you be sure that what you're thinking to be perfect is actually perfect?