Reflection on a Philosophical Essay

I just finished writing a few pages for another class about whether or not I think, philosophically, that God exists. Since I'm not yet sure what the proper tone is for this blog (do I go casual, like I do with my other blog, or should I at least try to maintain an academic face?), I decided to discuss my thoughts after finishing the assignment; in particular, the difficult choice that I faced that very nearly stymied me before I even began. Am I allowed to do that? Write about another class for a class? It seems like meta-gaming the system, at the very least.

Anyway.

The basic premise of the essay was that I was to defend a position, either in favor of or against the existence of "God." This created a problem for me, due to the fact that God in this context has a very narrowly defined set of characteristics, essentially, all-good, all-powerful, all knowing, created everything, etc. While I understand the necessity of having a standard in order to insure that the discussion does not diverge into wild tangents about "who and what God is," I found it very troubling in that I wanted to answer the question posed by the prompt earnestly; that is to say, I wanted to voice my actual beliefs and my reasons for having them, yet I felt that the nature of my choices forced me to defend a position that was not wholly my own. I didn't feel quite honest in listing all the reasons I have for believing in a God with the whole list of "all-everythings," but I can't argue an atheist position since I do very much believe in a deity, just not... you know, the deity described in the outline.

It probably troubled me far more than it should have, but for some reason, even as I wrote my position, I felt somewhat dishonest, as if I was disrespecting the spirit of what I had been told to write even while I was obeying the directions that were explicitly given. I would say that I'm thinking too much about this whole thingy entirely, except that, well, it's a philosophy class! All we are supposed to DO is think!

I'm not quite sure what the solution is. After all, as I said, I can completely understand the need for why it is necessary to determine the foundation for the discussion ahead of time. I mean, in my other philosophy class (it's my minor, can you tell?) there was actually an argument about whether or not any actions can be considered truly moral. One individual asserted that morality itself may not even exist! Which is a perfectly interesting philosophical question to ponder, unless, you know, the class you're in is the "philosophy of moral problems" and it's sort of necessary to assume that morality is a real thing if you hope to make any meaningful progress.

If I may allow myself a purely unguarded moment, I personally believe that it's that kind of... let's call it discussion... that makes philosophy so poorly regarded in many circles as a "waste of time." And I don't necessarily think that detractors are wrong for thinking that; certainly not when it seems like the default defense is to declare "well, we can't really know anything" when you cannot articulate a properly reasoned argument for your assertion.

That just seems unproductive to me. And also a little bit rude. Somewhat analogous to trying to win a chess game by throwing the board across the room.

Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration. Only slightly, though.