4th Individual Essay of Humanistic Study

By Nur Afilin


Are Chairs Created by Themselves?

                 Many researchers and scientists conducted some researches in many fields related to human life, including religious. I think it is a good step in order to make us more critical in what we do in daily life. Perhaps some religious people in the earth, including Indonesia, do some worship because their forefathers did so as well. Some other people do that without knowing the essence of what they do. I think it is not really good for us as we are educational person. We have to think beyond what previous people think. And religious study takes this place.
            Unfortunately, I think many experts who considered as scientists did their researches with many tools and methods that created by themselves. In my opinion, it will cause the result of the researches can not attain the real fact of what they want to observe. Why did I say so? I agree with the definition religion as follow:
"Human recognition of superhuman controlling power and especially of a personal God entitled to obedience" (The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1990)
I think this definition is quite similar with what I have heard from Ms. Saras Dewi when she explained us the basic definition of religion. It is also almost similar with my religion, Islam, which tell me that Islam itself basically means salvation or obedience. It is absolutely clear that we can not believe in something fully if the thing that we believe in is not perfect. It has to be in form of something with powerful authority and has the greatest power among all things in this universe. I have heard a simple parable for it. He said that a chair will never become skillful than the creator of the chair. Even a sophisticated product, such as a very high technology machine or robot, the creator will become cleverer, smarter, and the product can not replace the position of the creator. In addition, the product also can not think or get the real answers about the creator’s identity fully. It is because what the product can do is happened because of the creator’s intention. Regarding this reason, we have to refer to the guidance that the creator has given to us if we want to know the essence of something. So do religious study. If we do not use this guidance, our tools will become less valid because we measure something with the tools that have not met the requirement.
            However, what scientist did still can be regarded as the prominent resources that we should appreciate. Nobody is perfect, isn’t it? What about the God’s existence itself? What methods we use to know that God is exist? Because we are like products, I think the best way to find out the answer is referring to the “guidance book”. I am a Muslim, so I just want to cite as follow:
“Wahai manusia! Sembahlah Tuhanmu yang telah menciptakan kamu dan orang-orang sebelum kamu, agar kamu bertakwa. (Dia-lah) yang menjadikan bumi sebagai hamparan bagimu dan langit sebagai atap, dan Dia-lah yang menurunkan air (hujan) dari langit, lalu Dia hasilkan dengan (hujan) itu buah-buahan sebagai rezeki bagimu. Karena itu, janganlah kamu mengadakan tandingan-tandingan bagi Allah, padahal kamu mengetahui.” (QS 2:21-22)
Based on the verse above, actually we can capture and know who our God -as the creator all things in this universe-is by looking all “products” that He has made. After that, we need to think beyond, are those all things appeared by themselves unconsciously? If so, how can everything become very harmonic each other? As the thinker creature, I believe that someone with the unlimited power created all those things. He did it by Himself. There is no help from someone, because it will decrease His majesty if He did it with other’s help.
            In conclusion, because all the things in this universe are created by the God and we including to those, I think we have to prove our belief. Proving the belief here means we have to do whatever our God ask us with our full consciousness and knowledge.

Resources:

Al-Qur’an.
Dewi, Saras. (n.d). Kesengsaraan Demi Tuhan. 

http://www.debslessonslearned.blogspot.com (picture)

Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. (1997). Definitions of the word "religion". Retrieved        December 9th from: http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn1.htm.
 

Category: , 0 comments

3rd Individual Essay of Humanistic Study

By Nur Afilin


Don’t Stop Here!
            It is interesting to study about prejudice, stereotype and discrimination because we probably do those things consciously or not. Basically, those are not always negative. We perhaps will do it since we feel get a threat from our environment. For example, if we will do an assignment in a group with new friends. There is a little bit doubt whether someone in our group will involve well or not. It happened because we are scared if our assignment will get bad score because we don’t do optimally because of him/ her. I think in the very beginning of experience it is not really wrong. However, it will become a bad thing if we do it again and again. What should we do then?
            As we may know, in simple way prejudice is judging someone before having enough knowledge and experience. I have an experience about this one. It happened when I was in my first days in SSE. At that time I acquainted with a female friend who is talkative. Firstly, I assumed that she was not a smart student. I do not know why I thought like that actually. Maybe it was because I had ever read that usually someone who is talkative is trying to cover up his/ her weaknesses. I did not try to understand more whether it was based on research with trustable result or it was just an assumption. Then, I realized that my prejudice was wrong. She is even belongs to one of smartest students in my class. How shame I am?
            Another thing related to our assumption is called stereotype. In my understanding stereotype is overgeneralization. I also had an experience about it. When I was in senior high school I had a lazy friend. He was my classmate. He used to listen to our teacher’s explanation in front of class. He never took a note toward what my teacher have explained. He would borrow my notes if we were asked to collect our notebooks. His clothes also were not neat. At that time I assumed that he would find difficult to enter a university because of his laziness.  I thought so because usually it needs a big effort to enter a university. However, I was very surprise when he succeeded entering UGM (Universitas Gajah Mada) in Geophysics major.
            The last one which is related with assumption is discrimination. It is bad behavior that caused by prejudice or stereotype. I think it is the worst things among the others because it does not only work in our mind, but also it appears in our behavior.
            Overcoming these issues, I think we should apply a motto “Don’t stop here!” It means that we have to do some follow up steps when in our minds appear prejudice or stereotype. The important point here are do clarification, search more data and information and try to make a conclusion objectively. Wish we will not do those things again after we apply this motto.




Category: , 0 comments
Langganan: Postingan (Atom)