Ursinus Intro Ethics Blog - Section B

Some of the many words to describe the Supreme Being are Heaven, Tao, God, the One, and the Divine Mind. It’s amazing that the Chinese considered there terms to be interchangeable and I find this position to be very appealing. The Man-Heaven continuum fascinates me for I agree that there is an element of the eternal inside every single human. By cultivating the Ren mind the individual becomes more in tune with the Eternal Being. The more the Ren mind has been cultivated, the closer the individual body is to the eternal creator. While most faiths have some way of connecting the daily life of the individual with the concept of eternity, I appreciate Confucianism’s idea of having an ethical mindset to guide one’s actions towards the eternal. This seems to connect to the Jewish concept of the Sabbath, for one day each week is devoted to nothing but the eternal. While this does not continue throughout the week like Ren, it’s still an important ritual designed to focus one towards a figure outside of the temporal realm. The ritual in Islam of praying five times a day is similar for there’s constant times for reflection and appreciation of the concept of Heaven or God. I think atheists or agnostics would do good to devise a way to appreciate the Eternal Sovereign. This way they would cultivate an appreciation beyond the temporal.

-- posted for Jimi James Foehrenbach