why would a mom kill her child?

The question we were asked is why do mothers do the unthinkable and kill their kids. I think that the article we read has a correlation with the Ancient Greek play we're reading. In the play, Madea plans on killings her children because her wife decided to leave her for a younger, prettier girl who also happens to be royalty. She is obviously killing her own kids to get revenge on her husband. She gets this idea when she meets a man who can't have kids himself and says that killings kids is the worst punishment. The article states the possible reasons why a mother would kill their child include:

●“Altruistic filicide,” the most common motive, where a mother rationalizes that killing her child is in the child’s best interest.

●“Acutely psychotic filicide,” where a mother kills without an understandable motive, possibly hearing voices.
●“Fatal maltreatment filicide,” where a mother does not necessarily mean to kill her child, but death occurs after cumulative abuse.
●“Unwanted child filicide,” where a mother believes her child is a hindrance in her life. ●“Spouse revenge filicide,” the rarest for mothers, where she kills her child to emotionally
strike out against the father. 

Of these options, "spouse revenge fillicide" relates most to Madea 

How can Taoist text help deepen our understanding of Chinese history?

The Taoist text can help deepen our understanding of Chinese history because from the text, we learn how the philosophy afffected the way the  Chinese lived. For example, the article states "China had never had an alternative political model other than the emperor." this was the model followed for more than 2,000 years. Until Taoism. Unlike the previous Chinese mode, Taoism is a theocracy based on tianshi, or celestial masters. The celestial master was supposed to establish a new political structure, the “Great Peace,” in which every individual would be treated justly. This provided an important alternative to the norm of Confucianism. This was a new ideaology for the Chinese. We can also see that the present day mainstream Tasoism is a descendant of the second-century religious movement. First of all, Taoist printers still use many of the same terms and practice the same things. In addition, the ideas are the exact same, "The world of the dead is like the world of the living. Taoist priests are like cosmic lawyers. They can go up to heaven and extricate the dead from difficulties. Taoism gives you a way of controlling  your fate in another world." This has always remains the same. However, today the Chinese consitution guarantees freedom of religious belief but not religious practice. According to the New York Times article, "Much of what a traditional Taoist priest did is now illegal. They are allowed to do rituals but cannot claim to have actually accomplished anything with the ritual, or else it is called superstition. If you claim your ritual will actually heal someone or save their relatives, you can be thrown in jail for fraud."

Is our life a computer program?

    I think that the idea of someone, or something, being capable of controlling everyone's lives with a computer program is not only mind boggling, but also quite legitimate. It's scary to think that our lives and everything we know is possibly embedded into a computer. In social studies today we learned that the Hindus believe that the earth we live isn't real because everything around us, including our selves is never the same because it's always changing. I think that you could apply this to Neil DeGrasse Tyson's question in some sense. Also, when I used the google virtual reality thing, I was really surprised about how realistic it was and have thought that in the future, at the technological rate we are increasing at now, in the future we'll probably be able to recreate all the senses we feel now in virtual reality. I don't agree with the theory though because if we were a computer program, why would we be programmed to think or wonder that we were a program?

The holocaust and Job

The stories of Moshe Yosef Daum and Fela Nussbaum Is similar to the story of job because as Abernethey says “The fact that there are Holocaust survivors who, after all they endured, can still keep faith, is itself, the greatest miracle of all.”During the holocaust, many Jews and their families were killed in this form of genocide. This can relate to the story of job because after all of Job's suffering (loosing his family, house, animals, and belongings), he still remained faithful to God. Both stories features a terrible way of suffering for Jews. Weather that means losing loved ones or losing belongings. At this point most people would question why god would just observe all of this terrible behavior and not do anything to stop it. However, the survivors of the holocaust and Job's opinion on god and their belief in God remained constant.

The stores of Moshe Yosef Daum and Fela Nussbaum is different because during the many Jews lost faith in God after and during holocatust whereas Job was always confident in god. Mr. Memachembaum says I try to continue my parents’ ways, but to be honest, I do it more out of respect than out of conviction. I really don’t understand my father’s faith. I don’t understand why he would risk his life in the camps for a God who had seemingly abandoned him. He chooses not to forgive god for not doing anything during he holocaust. Job consistantly had assurance I'm god throughout his unfortunate events. Some Jews were able to justify gods actions because saying they were meant to be misunderstood by humans, others chose not to forgive god.

 

 

The Book of Job

The Book of Job part one is similar to the others story we read in the Old Testament. In these stories, God is usually testing someone to see if they are truly faithful and Is truly fearful of God and shuns evil. In the Book of Job, God made Job suffer by taking everything he knew and loved away from him, like his family and farm animals, after Satan said the only reason why Job had faith in God was because Job had nice things in a materialistic stand point. The story is similar to the story of Abraham's sacrifice. When God wanted Abraham to prove his faith in him, by telling him he has to sacrafice his son Isaac. In both stories, God see's that each character is fully devoted to God by putting them through severe tests. Also, in both stories, God is proved to be feared by the tests. In addition, God takes away or attempts to take away member/members of ones family. 

The book of Job is different to the others stories we read in the Old Testament because unlike the other stories, the book of Job features Satan. Satan appears as a character in the book as the character that is suspicious of gods servant. When God asks Satan if he considered his servant, Job, Satan says he only fears God because he has so many possessions and is content with his life. Satan tells God to take away these things and expect to be cursed in the face. The book of Job is also different from others stories in the Old Testament because it shows God going to much harsher extremes to prove someone's commitment to him. Unlike Abraham. God decided to put Job the real test rather than interrupt when things started to go bad like he did when Abraham was about to stab Issac. 

First month of high school

So far, the best thing about high school is the freedom. I'm able to go out for lunch to get pizza or even get my nails done if I wanted to. Unlike the middle school I had to stay in for lunch but I can do whatever I want during a free period in high school. I honestly hated the middle school. I also really like all of the older kids I'm meeting. They're teaching me how to handle high school and I'm making a lot of new friends. We also go iPads which is really good for taking notes and studying or doing projects. The worst thing about high school is the amount of work. Taking multiple honors classes is difficult because there's so much work and you have a lot of subjects to focus on. For example I want to focus on my math but then I have so much to do for social studies too. Another bad thing is how big the school is. Even though I know how to get to my classes I still get lost all the time. In addition being a freshmen means that you're the youngest in the school. In the middle school, last year we were the oldest but now it's the opposite. 

Indirect characterization of God

Reflection:

Overall, I was surprised to learn new things about God. In the story God decides to flood the earth and kill everything because the humans were being violent and evil. I used to think that he was very forgiving and perfect but after doing the indirect characterization I found out that he seemed like the opposite and not very lenient and I saw one of the mistakes he made.

Instead of forgiving humans for being corrupt and filled with violence, he killed them all with a flood."Everything on earth shall die". 

God also is not prefect. He was sorry and regretted putting man on Earth. He regretted it so much that he killed them off so he could start over.

Who's to blame for Adam and Eve being banished from the garden of Eden?

In the story of Adam and Eve, the two characters get banned from the garden of Eden, but who's to blame?

I think that Eve is to blame for her and Adam being banished from the garden of Eden because she ate the apple. The serpent fools Eve and says that even though God said that eating the apple will make you die, the truth is that eating the apple will open your eyes and make you know good and evil, like god. In Genesis 3 it says "when the women saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." The serpent tempted Eve so she couldn't resist eating the apple, but she disobeyed God. From eating the apple Adam and Eve could see good from evil. Before they were comfortable with being naked, but after eating the apple they were embarrassed and hid from God because they were exposed. Then God said "the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." because Adam and Eve became like God in the sense that they knew good and evil, they were banished which is all because Eve ate the apple. 

Flood Stories in Different Cultures

In many cultures, there seems to be a similarity in the subject of a myth: a great flood

As seen in the epic of Gilgamesh, the story of Utnapishtim describes to Gilgamesh is about how the gods decided to destroy humankind because the gods couldn't sleep. They said they would have a great flood that would wipe out everything in its path. One of the gods by the name of Eatold Utnapishtim to build a boat. On the boat, Utnapishtim was told to bring his family and the seed of every living creature on Earth so that the Earth would repopulate after the flood. 

A fairly similar story to Utnapishtim's is from the Romans. The God Jupiter was very upset by the evil ways of humanity. He decided he wanted to destroy mankind. At first he thought of setting the world of fire but realized heaven could be set on fire as well so ended up going with a flood. While everything was being destroyed by the flood, Jupiter noticed a man by the name of Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha taking refuge on a boat high in the mountains. Jupiter saw their piety and let them survive the great flood but withdrew food. Deucalion and Pyrrha repopulated the Earth by "throwing your mother's stones" behind them, each stone then became a person.

Some similarities between the story of Utnapishtim and the Roman myth are that in both stories, the god(s) are mad at the way the humans were acting and wanted to kill them off. Both gods also decided to kill them off by having a great flood. Utnapishtim and Deucalion and Phyrra all used a boat to help them survive the flood that occurred, all these characters were also pure which is why the God allowed them to survive. In addition, the gods chose those people to repopulate Earth after the flood destroyed everything.

Some differences between the story of Utnapishtim and the Roman myth was that unlike the god's in Utnapishim's story, Jupiter initially wanted to burn the Earth. Utnapishtim also repopulated the earth by gathering the seed of every living created whereas Deucalion threw your mother's stones behind him. In the end Utnapishtim got the reward of not only surviving the flood, but also receiving eternal life when Deucalion was only granted survival of the flood.

Welcome to my blog!

Hello, my name is Charlotte Levin. The only reason why I'm making this blog is for my 4th period freshmen humanities class. I genuinely think this idea of a student blog is a cool idea and way for the students to interact with the teacher and eventually students over the Internet. It's kinda interesting to think about the fact that anyone, anywhere can see this. After this school year I probably won't post on the blog but when I'm older (and if I remember) I will check out the blog to bring me back to freshman year and look back on memories.