Reflection Paper

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Monday, I started my second semester here at UCO. I was pretty excited coming to class, to be honest. I know you don’t hear many people say that but that’s just the kind of person I am. I’ve always considered myself to be fairly thoughtful. When I was little I would ask my parents complex questions about life, the universe, and why we’re all here. I wasn’t always satisfied with the answers I received but that just fueled my ambition to learn even more. So naturally I find myself pretty content coming to class each day.
The first class I had on my schedule was Composition 1 with Mrs. Bettis. Out of all my classes, I would say this one I was looking forward to the most. Ever since I learned how to read, I have had a passion for writing. Also, …show more content…

Naturally, I don’t get much enjoyment out of small talk as it feels so programmed and meaningless. Deep conversations have always been a great pleasure of mine. Whether it its religion, politics, family issues, I just really enjoy learning what goes on in people’s mind. Unfortunately, I feel like conversation is a lost art these days. Often I find myself exhausted of how shallow and thoughtless the majority of what comes out of people’s mouths is. One of the highlights from last semester was philosophy course. I didn’t quite know what to expect from a college philosophy course so I was a bit nervous; however, I was not disappointed.
Recently, I found myself thinking about my old Philosophy professor. Before taking his class, I had only ever studied Christianity and things relating to the Bible. He expanded my understanding of other religions, as well as my views on relationships. At first, I wasn’t sure what I thought of him. He was quite unorthodox and he was not afraid to challenge people on their beliefs. However, I grew to love his class. Every day I walked away thinking about something I had never thought about …show more content…

This time, it was on the theories of absolutism and relativism, which I had never even considered. The two theories are, in a sense, a lens which people look through when concerning ethics. Absolutism is “making normative ethical decisions based on objective rules. It maintains that some things are always right and some things are always wrong. They are fixed for all time, places and people”. On the other hand, relativism states that nothing is intrinsically right or wrong. Both have clear advantages and disadvantages. As a Christian, I wanted to lean toward absolutism as it seemed to coincide with the Ten Commandments. However, I began to think about the commandments that I thought, under the right circumstances, were appropriate to break. I think that the majority of them are appropriate to break in the interest of the greater good. That being said, I started to examine relativism and I was not a fan of it either. With relativism, there is a lack of moral standard; everyone has their own code of ethics. This can quickly lead to problems. Just because there are different moral views, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are all of equal value. For example, the Nazis believed that they were right to kill millions of Jews, homosexuals and disabled people: surely it would be wrong to say that this had the same worth as other moral views. Cultural Relativists would not be able to criticize the Nazis as they

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