Confucius and Choice

Chapter two, discussing the Way, or Tao, states that Confucius does not see some sort of alternate path other than the Way of Li. According to what Fingarette states, Confucius didn't see choice as a factor of life; the idea that there is one path, and anything but that path is wrong, or at least a mistake from which we can learn. This seems all fine and dandy at first, what would be the best decision is simply the one that we should make, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Where this doesn't seem to make sense to me is in the case of a military coordinator. That is to say, if there is an individual, faced with no single good, just, or Jen decision but in which she or he must decide, what would be the Li thing to do? To simply say that which is the best out of the two would appeal to the western "psychological" aspect of choice; given this alternative or that alternative, what would be the best thing to do. This doesn't however, align with the Confucius ideology. If there are no good decisions, what is one to do? The Li method seems to fail in such situations.
Somewhat tangentially, it reminds me of Pascal's Wager; you are already part of the game, which do you choose-The existence of God? Or lack thereof? It's a little more loaded than this when one gets into it, but the idea is there. Again, this is a "choice," but it does seem to reflect the recognition of the Way, or non-Way of Confucianism. What do you guys think?

The Analects of Confucius

I found the opening two chapters of Confucius: the Secular as Sacred to be quite interesting. The first chapter, for example, emphasizes the interpretations of Confucius that suggest he subscribed to genuine supernatural powers and entities. After this, Fingarette systematically discusses and then discounts each of those propositions. I greatly admire this approach, and think that Fingarette does an exceptional job of it. Having said that, I found his summation of the arguments for Confucius being a believer of mythical entities rather disappointing. To borrow from Logic, I thought that Fingarette is guilty of the straw man fallacy. Not to a large degree by any means, but I think that he skims over some of those arguments in such a way that I didn't feel that Confucius could legitimately be interpreted as a sage purporting to understand supernatural laws of the universe. What do you guys think?

The "Gospel" of MLK

Let me preface this by stating that I will keep this posting brief. I thought that the exercise professor Silliman had us do, in creating a "gospel" about MLK was greatly enlightening. In theory, we discuss the inaccuracies of the gospels, and how they have impacted our views of Jesus. The fact that miraculous events became supernatural is greatly because of peoples' interpretation of what happened. Having to come up with our own "gospel," though, and comparing between us the stories we came up with, lends a great amount of credence to the argument that the Gospels, while likely rooted in truth, have strayed a good deal from it, and have thus been interpreted erroneously. What were your thoughts on it?

The Obliteration of an Individual

In chapter 6, and in the class discussion on Thursday, the act of crucifying an individual was one that was meant to obliterate everything about them, including their memory. I find it interesting that the Romans would go to such lengths to oppress a culture like that. If I'm not mistaken, a common practice at that point in time, at least for empirical powers, was to conquer an area or civilization, force subjectivity onto them, and then pretty much allow them to continue as they were but with a tributary fine. If this is the case, it seems to go against their own logic to so aggressively stamp out any type of organized gatherings by the Jews. To go to the lengths that they did to destroy everything a Jewish individual stood for, deconstruct their very existence, and then deny them even a burial is rather extreme, to say the least. What were the grounds for this treatment? Why this treatment was necessary is rather confounding to me. What do you guys think?