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Friday, April 24, 2009

My Job Project

For my rhetoric class, I did a paper and a presentation on the Book of Job. The book is an exposition on the problem of pain. My thesis is that Job has become such a favored piece of literature because of its ethos arguments. Job argues with his friends for a long time about whether or not he deserved his "punishment," but their arguments don't satisfy. Ultimately God comes and settles the matter, but he doesn't explain himself, he simply introduces himself. The idea is that the best answer to the problem of pain is putting faith in God--accepting his ethos. Essentially, having faith is the same as accepting God's ethos arguments.
Logos=appeal to reason, logic
Pathos=appeal to emotion, passion
Ethos=appeal to personal authority, essence or character of the speaker

If none of this makes sense, just smile and nod so I'll feel better. For my class presentation, I put together a slideshow to introduce the problem of pain:

If God is good, he will want to prevent suffering
If God is omnipotent, he has the ability to prevent suffering
Therefore, God is either not good, or not all powerful

This issue gives a lot of people real problems. They have a hard time accepting religion because of all the suffering in the world. Religious scholars have argued back and forth about this problem for centuries, but like I said, I think the real answer lies in the issue of faith--accepting God's ethos. This life gives us opportunities to test our faith.

WARNING: THIS SLIDESHOW IS HEAVY, SOME MATERIAL MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN. WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK...
...I'M NOT JOKING
Click to play this Smilebox slideshow: Job's Rhetoric

3 comments:

Ben and Anna said...

Thank you.

Larsen's in Wyoming said...

That was heart wrenching! Seeing children suffer is the hardest thing imaginable.

Angie said...

Thanks for the reminder that we are so blessed. What did your class think?
Also thanks for the ride! Love ya