Brother's K!

As our professor aptly put, we need to be writing about the Brother's Karamozov. Specifically, we need to be writing about the motifs, themes, symbols and how the characters relate to us the reader and past characters in literature. I've decided to tackle one of the central themes of the book: faith vs. doubt. Sparknotes neatly summarizes the conflict that reappears throughout the novel:

Faith in the novel refers to the positive, assenting belief in God practiced by Zosima and Alyosha, which lends itself to an active love of mankind, kindness, forgiveness, and a devotion to goodness. Doubt refers to the kind of logical skepticism that Ivan Karamazov practices, which, in pursuing the truth through the logical examination of evidence, lends itself to the rejection of God, the rejection of conventional notions of morality, a coldness toward mankind, and a crippling inner despair. Dostoevsky does not present these positions neutrally. He actively takes the side of faith, and illustrates through innumerable examples how a life of faith is happier than a life of doubt. Doubt, as we see in Smerdyakov’s murder of Fyodor Pavlovich and in Ivan’s breakdown, leads only to chaos and unhappiness.

On a personal level I relate to Ivan's central rejection of God (at least in the Christian sense) and I also relate to Alyosha's love of mankind and forgiveness. It seems that Dostoevsky presents the the two sides as black & white and leaves the readers with this ultimatum: you're either a man of faith, or you're a man of doubt (or science). Why can't a person have traits from both sides? There are certainly people in the world that reject God and yet refrain from violent outbursts, but instead have a devotion of goodness. On the flip-side, as much as people of faith would like to think they are leading a life of tolerance and goodness, there are many who practice the opposite of what they preach. (At this point, I may be stepping on other people's toes, so please stop reading if you feel easily offended.) One of my major qualms with Christianity is the fact that the Ten Commandments seem to be the baseline of the whole religion and yet they are broken far too often. Here they are as a refresher:

ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
SIX: 'You shall not murder.'
SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'
NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'
TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

This post could go long, but I'll try to cover the glaring hypocrisies I see especially in American culture. Adultery is common theme in our society, so much to the point it's seemed to have become the norm. Stealing is another commandment broken mainly because it is a grey-area topic. What qualifies as stealing? Stealing a pen from a friend? Plagiarism? Downloading music illegally? You would think the latter was stealing since it is also recognized by law as stealing, but yet people commit variations of stealing while justifying it in the same breath. The final commandment that seems to be broken and accepted is the sixth: Thou shall not murder. Our society has simply created laws and reasoning around this commandment and have redefined the term "murder" into several sub-categories. A person is not "murdering" if they were acting in self-defense. A person is not "murdering" as long as it is for a just cause that the majority of society supports.

I realize no one's perfect and I, myself, have committed sins such as downloading music, lying, and especially placing other deities before God. However, if even the most holy and well-intentioned people cannot adhere to the simple commandments God has asked of them, than aren't we all living in a world of chaos and unhappiness? The only difference between the faithful and the doubters is that the Alyoshas of the world choose to ignore their sins, while the Ivans of the world accept theirs.