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Julian Montoya, Examination # 1, Ethics and society “My Confession” Leo Tolstoy Ideas in the reading 3.1.1 In the reading of “My confession”, Tolstoy discusses a spiritual crisis that he experienced late in his life and how he found a solution to it. Tolstoy, late in his life, enjoyed what would be considered a successful existence; he tasted fame and respect among his peers and colleges. However, he began feeling overwhelmed by concerns of the real and more profound meaning of life. He started to question himself about his actions on his live and why he should care about things that he formerly cared about it. In the end, he found that is very difficult to provide answers to these questions. As a result, he was feeling like his life was empty and like someone else is playing a mean trick on him. He felt like life lacked of meaning. Tolstoy notes that before this crisis, he was able to find satisfaction in taking care his family. He also found pleasure pursuing his love for the arts and poetry. In the middle of his crisis, caring for his family no longer seemed as significant as before; he wonder why he should care for them. After all, they had the same destiny than him, which was to die. Tolstoy also notes that art for him lots all kind of significance because of the seeming insignificance of life. As art reflects life, it could do nothing other than reflect the unhappiness of Tolstoy that felt in life. Tolstoy also notes that science is not able of providing answers concerning the fundamental meaning of life. According with Tolstoy Science only can provide methodical descriptions of what human life is like, of what it consists of. However, Science is unable to explain what the meaning of live is. 3.1.2 In the end, Tolstoy concluded that that faith could provide a complete meaning to life. While he was observing different kind of people, he noticed that the great majority of people are not consumed by a feeling of meaninglessness in their lives, even those that live in extremely difficult circumstances. This people had something in common, all of them have faith in their lives. For Tolstoy, Faith provided him all the answers for questions that were concerning him about the purpose and value of his human existence. Although Tolstoy himself believed that faith is in conflict with reason, he believed that faith was the only thing capable of answering all the questions that were consuming him and what he ultimately embraced it. 3.1.3 Rich and powerful people tend to invest all their trust in science and people of the intelligentsia elite because this people can provide them tangible results, they like rational knowledge because deals with what is temporal and material, rich and powerful people tend to be materialistic. Consequently, they tend to have emptiness in their lives, because they are scared of irrational thinking. Powerful and rich people want to be in control all the time; they dislike the idea of something that is beyond of their command. On the other hand, peasants believe more in irrational knowledge, this irrational knowledge is called faith which by itself can provide the meaning of life. As a conclusion, for Tolstoy peasants and hard-working people tend to have a better understanding of the meaning of life. 3.1.4 Although Tolstoy was a Christian, he is not inducing anyone to convert to his religion. He exhorts people to try to find what is true and false. Tolstoy said that faith is the relation of the finite to the infinite. He states that real faith is that which alone gives meaning and possibility to life. In addition, He exhorts people to try to find what is true and false. For Tolstoy, his definition of "truth” changes through the reading. At the beginning of his “confession”, truth was attempting to live comfortable. Then, he finally concluded that truth is faith. On the other hand, for Nagel, religion is the explanation that does not explain anything. According to Nagel, we are capable to understand the world from different points of view that are either internal or external. The problem that Nagel with God is that it seems to be something that can explain everything, but cannot be explained by itself. If a person rely on religious meaning of life, they just have to accept that there is something which gives a meaning to life and it does not have to be explained. 3.2 We can assume for the reading that Tolstoy had a strong religious background. However, he did not question his ideas about faith and God until late in his life. This entire crisis started when Tolstoy´s struggle with confronting what is inedible in life, which is death. Tolstoy found an answer to his questions among Russia's peasants, whose simple, hard lives were enriched by their faith. I certainly agree with Tolstoy´s Idea about faith for many reasons. I love science for a very simple and fundamental reason: because science works, I strongly believe that our society should invest more of our resources in science. However, Science has a dark side, because science focuses exclusively on the material world, science point of view becomes materialistic and It forgets the inherent part of any human being, which is spirituality. This represents a great danger for our society for many reasons. Fundamentally, because people believe that ethics and morality are tied to the spiritual side instead the materialistic side. Therefore, If we forget our spirituality, ethics might be eliminated. I think that ethics is connected to the spiritual, in a very fundamental way. And I think a ethics can be refined by science and spirituality. At first sight, science and spirituality seems to be the opposite. However, I think living a life guided by reasonable principles does not conflict with immaterial concerns. In fact, living by reasonable principles seems to be the central of ethical life. The real danger of spirituality is religion. Religion in history has provided with ethical advice to humanity since the beginnings of history. Although some advice has been good, other has been incredible devastating. For instance, The Catholic Church is one of the biggest charity institution of our actual world, they have imparted education to the most remote parts of our world. In addition, it has produced real saint people such as Teresa of Calcutta, which is a truly paradigm of what is good in life, and she was probably who was due to her Christian teachings from the Catholic Church. However, the Catholic Church also has a very dark side. The Catholic Church was the biggest criminal institution in the human history. With the inquisition, which lasted more than seven hundred long years, they were against the advance of science. They produced the darkness during the middle age. Moreover, with their crusade against birth control they are the responsible of a great demographic grow. The demographic bomb exploded in our face. As a Conclusion, I think is important the balance between spirituality and science. Extreme in any of them can be negative for our lives. If we life a completely spiritual life were a losing the opportunity to know better our environment. Nevertheless, if we only rely in science, our understanding of the world becomes purely material, forgetting our spiritual side.