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Al-Ghazzali begins life in modern-day Iran. When he, as an adult, realizes he is Shiite Muslim only because he was raised that way, he decides to figure out what he in fact wants to be. His identity journey considers all the options at the time, and he ends up a Sufi Muslim.
(1) Do you like the options for identity American culture offers to you? Do you find alternatives like straight/gay/queer, cis/trans, white/person-of-color, believer/none, Democrat/Republican, successful/loser, good choices, i.e., ones that genuinely tell you and others what you most truly are–or are there better ones? Or should we, in your view, not “identify” ourselves this way at all?
Al-Ghazzali thinks he can abstract away from his upbringing and choose an allegiance, a belief to commit himself to. He ends up with a different version–more emotional, less doctrinal, more committed–of what he started with: Islam.
(2) So in your case, is your identity most properly determined by “ascriiptive” criteria–things that are true about you (skin color, chromosomal sex, place raised and language raised in, height, etc.), and which (maybe?!) can’t be changed–or by “optive” criteria–choices you make, and could make differently?
Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy begins with Alighieri himself getting a tour of the underworld from the Roman epic poet Virgil. The explanation for starting with the “Inferno” is that “in order to show him the need for hope, he must first see the depths of hell.” Dante initially encounters the upper, or least punishing, levels of hell, and finds people who are pagan, Muslim, and so on, not Christian, who are not being punished at all, although they are also not being rewarded.
(1) So if you know your friend is wrong on topic X because you know what is right/true about X, then you should have what attitude towards her?
Dante actively tries to learn from his pagan guide, and other non-Christians he meets during his tour of hell. St. Anselm engages extensively in courteous, civil discussion with people he disagrees with.
(2) So: who or what today is your enemy? Could you imagine learning anything from him/her/them/it? What kind of thing could you possibly learn from an enemy?
Anselm says that knowledge helps his faith, and his faith supports his knowledge.
(3) What do you have faith in–technology? yourself? human nature? progress? science? your religion’s God? the future? How does that faith help you…think?
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