Based on the article, how can Taoist texts can help deepen our understanding of early Chinese history?

Maia Kirschner

Based on the article, how can Taoist texts can help deepen our understanding of early Chinese history?

Based on the article, Taoist texts can help deepen our understanding of early Chinese history because they give us lots of information on the Taoist religion and from that we can connect it to other early religions and civilizations in China. For example, Taoist texts provide information on their political structure, what their theocracy was based on, which is “tinashi” (celestial masters), and information about their priests. The Daodejing is a philosophical work associated with Laozi and Zhuangzi. The priests teach a set of rules and mortality, but there is little mortality in the Daodejing. Taoism, the religion, really has the same value structure as any other Chines religion. It is full of very detailed codes of conduct that everyone has to observe.  

Are we living in a computer simulation?

This article has made me question our existence on Earth, however I don't agree with the point they are trying to make. It doesn't make sense that our world is simulated because I don't think we have enough evidence to prove.  I think it's just another crazy idea that scientists have came up with. I think maybe we could have realized something suspicious when astronauts go into space. It's a very interesting thing to think about, so I hope scientists are able to tell us more about this theory in the future. In the article, it says the odds are 50-50 that our existence is a program on somebody else's hard drive. I think that this is insane, we don't even have that much information about this! A physicist at Harvard also disagrees with this theory, saying, “It’s just not based on well-defined probabilities. The argument says you’d have lots of things that want to simulate us. I actually have a problem with that. We mostly are interested in ourselves. I don’t know why this higher species would want to simulate us.” She admitted she did not understand why other scientists were even questioning that the universe is a simulation. “I actually am very interested in why so many people think it’s an interesting question", she continued. I agree with her points of how scientists could actually believe this is true. The last sentences affected me the most. “What happens,” Tyson said, “if there’s a bug that crashes the entire program?” Then I guess that's how the world will end. Our world is real, we aren't in a simulation of any sort.

Job and the story of Moshe Yosef Daum and Fela Nussbaum

Maia Kirschner
Job and the story of Moshe Yosef Daum and Fela Nussbaum

The Book of Job and the interview of Menachem Daum both have some similar details to each other. God kills Jobs family - his wife and kids. Fela, Menachem's mother had to give away her baby to be killed in order for her survival. Both Job and Fela had children taken from them and killed. Job ended up getting another family back, and Fela ended up getting married and having another child, but both Job and Fela are scarred from the passing of their early children. Another similar concept in the Book of Job and the interview is that Fela and Job both had happy times in their life before anything bad happened. Before Job was tested by God, he lived in a life of luxury, with lots of money, servants, animals and a mansion. Fela was happy when she was a student in Beis Yaakov, the network of Orthodox schools for girls in Poland. Although Fela's life could not be compared to this life of luxury, this was a point of time for both of them when they were happiest. Also, Job and Manachem's were both physically tortured. The Book of Job and the interview of these people was also very different. In the Book of Job, Satan was a character, who was not in the interview. It is also different because Job is one person and the people in the interview are representing many people who experienced the Holocaust.

The Book of Job Part I

Maia Kirschner
The Book of Job Part I

The Book of Job Part I is a story in the Old Testament. This story is similar to other stories we have read in the Old Testament. It is similar to the story of Abraham and Isaac because God puts Abraham and Job both in a terrible situation. He tortures both of them just to see if they will stay faithful to God. This is very cruel and it's unfair of God to use his power in this way. This story can also be compared with the Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh and Enkidu are friends and when Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh is devastated. Job's friends are very upset too that he is being tortured by God, so it shows that these people care when their friends are in bad situations. God's characterization is similar throughout all the stories in the Old Testament. He usually abuses his power and his harsh to his people. In The Book of Job, the part where it says that Job had “seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses" reminded me of Noah's Ark ark and all the animals. The Book of Job is also different from the other stories in the Old Testament because Job complained to God about God's actions, unlike the other people in the stories they did not complain to God. Chapter 3 is called Job's complaint.