PHILOSOPHY 110
EXTRA CREDIT ASSIGNMENT
-By Jatin Udwadia
0196259
Instructor: Aarti Valia
Discuss the conception of God from the ancient Greeks to the modern rationalist thinker Descartes.
Which of the two thinkers - Plato or Descartes appealed to you more? Why or why not?
Answer: Ever since man started living in groups, during the primitive times when he was solely dependent on hunting and gathering for his survival, all he thought of was his survival and nothing else as his intellectual capacity did not enable him to appreciate the changes, whether good or bad taking place around him. As time went by, man became more organized and started cultivating roots, bulbs, vegetables and fruits and he would always wonder the reasons for nature to react and behave in a certain manner. The elapse of day and the onset of night were probably the questions that man might have always tried to answer. He analyzed that the sun was the primary source of life and thus, it is this sun that revolves around the earth. But, it was later corrected that it is the earth that revolves around the sun and not vice-versa. Recently, we have the aid of science which answers some of our concerns but there are a few unanswered, questions that even science failed to answer and thus began the faith in an entity above all, known as God. Different mythologies have evolved, the Greeks being one of the most ancient. Though the cosmologists differed in various respects, each of them had a different point of view to offer, while some of the reasons laid down by most of the cosmologist were outrageous.
But, the Greeks had a pantheon of Gods, much like Hinduism. For Love, there was a Goddess called Aphrodite, Hades was the God of the dead, Ares was the god of war and Athena was the ...