Supercalvinfragulistic

I don't know how or what to write for 4 more blogs (being behind is solely due to a stop-block I've reached in my research paper), but pulling notes from previous days, I hereby embark on this crusade to relinquish my lagging.

On the day of the Max Weber discussion,

I was kind of suprised how all of the sudden, we started off on jokingly trying to point one-another out as Calvinists. I'm still not clear on how broad the term goes, but from what we learned in class; albeit a form of Capitalism (and I suppose this is hinting at Capitalism is a bad thing), it seems to seek a more moral/human standing over the exploitations of 'Eastern' Capitalism. Based on the Calvinist beliefs, I can elaborate on my own personal experience:

1. "Idle hands are the devil's workshop."

This shouldn't be a foreign concept to most, unless of course you've been blessed (and cursed) enough to have a constantly and consistently busy life... *thinks of Amy*... but I know first-hand that, if given the opportunity for prolonged boredom/unapplication, bad stuff can start to roll through your mind. Give it just a niche more of your time, and you have bad action. Now, I understand this concept was based off of predestination; I'm not here to say the Calvinist beliefs were correct. But to attain productivity, both in our physical life and our spiritual life, one has to stay busy as much as feasible. I can say that going from a summer with no job, no school, no money to waste on 'fun', and nothing to accomplish at home; having heaps of cirriculum, a possible job on the horizon, and every-weekend 2hr. travels back to my home to work on more business, I'm doing better in most aspects of my life.


2. "Be the best you can be."

Meh. The 'Calling'. God's will. What is that, anyway? We don't really know. There's the universal "God's will", which incorporates everything from the 'beginning' to 'forever', and then there's the individual "God's will", which incorporates His plan for each of us in this life. Prayer is definitely needed for this one, and I keep that much up; but who is to say God's will is for us to be money-pinchers? Saving is certainly better than needlessly spending, but what practical applications can we make of our money outside of our own personal requirements, and where can we fit in spending on the 'material pleasures' of life? I believe that charity's are fine, but blindly dumping some pocket change (or even a million bucks if you happen to win the lottery) probably isn't going to go very far. Cancer treatment centers get donations out the whazoo, but I honestly feel it isn't helping to achieve new cures, or even to treat those without the financial ability. It's just a "feel good" action one can do. Perhaps the donations do help, but how about dumping some of that money toward sure-fire helpfulness, such as buying food for unperishable-goods centers, maybe picking someone off a cancer treatment list that has been posted as 'eligible' for receiving donation help and giving the money directly to them for paying the bills, and etc.? These things are possible (as personal experience goes), but it takes a bit more involvement than just throwing some numbers in the 'right' direction.


3. Material weath.

-- See above topic. I'm too lazy now. XD

Overall, I'm not educated enough on the Calvinist lifestyle, but aspects like these can be pulled from the core beliefs at least, and thusly, some productivity can be made of the Capitalist system.

(Someone is going to probably wonder how I went off on any of this, haha)