Essay on Mind and Philosophy

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Yvette Arroyo
December 10, 2014
Philosophy

During my college experience, I have never been so impacted by any other subject the way philosophy has. I will have to say that philosophy definitely changed my way of thinking, my decision making, and most importantly, my life. Throughout life, (without having any knowledge of basically anything) I always wondered about people, God, (once I started getting a grip of what was going on around me) government, politics, and the media. While taking this philosophy course, I have questioned and learned a lot about my beliefs and why it is that I believe in them or why I don't believe in them any more.

I would like to start with the existence of God. I came into class with a strong belief in the almighty God and convinced that nobody who was anybody would convince me otherwise. Let me start by saying that there was a point during the course when I hated philosophy because it challenged my existing views. We then started reading about how we are who we are because of our experiences and environment which made a lot of sense to me because I was raised by my biological mother and stepfather. I took after my stepfathers anger issues. The reason I am connecting the way I was raised to God is because I am thinking since I agree with d'Holbach about the environment rubbing off on me later then I thought, well how do I know if God is real? After this dilemma in my life I decided to make a choice and just act freely and not to the will of God. For some odd reason I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders. I didn't start a lifestyle of stealing, killing or lying (what the church would consider sinning) but I kept living my life. Not just living my life, but living my life and knowing that I can have sex if I wanted to or lie to my mom without being condemned to hell. I'm not an atheist either, deep down I do still want to believe that there is a God and I frequently find myself talking to God. Then I ask myself why do I do this? Is it a habit or did it make me feel something that I liked feeling? This is what philosophy does. "Socrates took the stand that it is not the responsibility of philosophy to answer our questions; its responsibility is, rather, to question our answers." (Hunt 14)

Philosophy not only challenged my views but also helped me become a better reader and thinker. At first, I struggled with the reading causing me to re-read each sentence over and over again. After I merely mastered reading philosophers writings, I breezed through other reading books non related to philosophy. "... philosophy sharpens the
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