He would look at all the funny looking people in church and concentrate on them instead of what he was supposed to hear. Lewis writes, “Provided that any of those neighbors sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous”. I think that this book teaches how Satan can use things that were meant for good, like the church, to attack us spiritually. Prayer is another thing that Screwtape says is a means of attack. A person may perceive a certain image of what God is, like a trinket or something they have seen that reminds them of God.
Through reading ‘The Crucible’ and ‘Othello’ we can see how this is true, as it us both a greater understanding of the genre of drama and of tragedy, as well as the characters, values, and themes in both plays. Every play contains a crucial scene which decides the audience’s attitudes towards the characters and the values that the play promotes. In In The Crucible, this is the scene with Abigail Williams, when she is accused of consorting with the devil. “I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! ...I saw Sarah Good with the Devil!
Pray can I not, Though inclination be as sharp as will. My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,” (III.iii.36-40). Claudius opens his soliloquy in a way that almost makes the reader feel sorry for him. A confession of his own immoral behavior to God that stems from a deep conviction. This is proof that Claudius is in a battle within himself.
I have no tongue for it.” Proctor confesses to witchcraft yet refuses to incriminate others. Although the confession in the context of the play refers to witchcraft, it can be inferred that he is referring to his affair with Abigail; he is accepting his fault in the matter, and wishes not to point the finger at another. The theme of people can use the idea of virtue and piety to advance a selfish or malevolent agenda is carried out in this action. Abigail Williams quoted, “I want the light of God, and I want the sweet love of my Jesus. I danced for the devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss his hands.
In the beginning Poe uses “Prince Prospero” as an allusion to The Tempest and the Bible. According to Cheney Prince Prospero becomes an anti-hero, as an image of a man misusing his will as he attempts to shape reality; the “Red Death” becomes an anti-Christ,” and image of the cosmic force conspiring man’s failure. Charmingly Prince Prospero’s masquerade does not intimately unite earth to heaven, but intimately unites earth to “death” (Cheney). In the end the masquerade is not a new Eden, but a “valley of the shadow of death” (Cheney). Poe uses many things to describe symbolism in “The Masque of the Red Death”.
The Romans could not understand the communion or Eucharist and assumed there was cannibalism happening. This may have derived from Christian language concerning the Eucharist. There several other charges that were brought against Christians during this period. Any activity that the Christians participated in was perceived as a threat to the Roman government. Justin Martyr was one of the most important Apologists of the second century.
However, dilemmas in sexual ethics are not only approached through religion, for instance, in ancient Greece both Pythagoras and Stoics believed that the soul was imprisoned in the body and can only be released through the disregarding of the base pleasure, sex. According to the bible (such as the text of Leviticus 18:22) it is stated that homosexuality is wrong, and that one should ‘not lie with man as one lies with a woman’. The dilemma of homosexuality, however, is not the only problem faced within the teachings of the Catholic Church, first Corinthians 7:2 claims that ‘because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband’. It is clearly noticeable that marriage is a key theme within the bible and both same sex marriages and sex outside of marriage are taken very seriously. However, current times have changed dramatically and new methods around solving dilemmas have been approached, rendering the bible perhaps useless within society when sexual ethics are taken into account.
He believed that the Catholic church was corrupt for selling indulgences as penance for sins in that the sale was a way for the Church to exploit the unfortunate and poor (Reformation 5). The final push for the need to change was the English reformation. During King Henry VIII’s rule in the sixteenth century, the Church of England was formed. He established the church because the Pope of the Catholic Church would not grant him a divorce from his wife, Catherine of Aragon. The Anglican church had many similarities to the Catholic church: similar rituals and a bible titled the Book of Common Prayere (Reformation 9).
It is the appearance of their second prophesy "thane of Cawdor" which misleads him and blurs his vision. "this supernatural soliciting cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill, why hath it given me earnest of success commencing in a truth? I am thane of cawdor “ And it might be very true that it was the words of lady Macbeth, and her challenge of Macbeth's manhood that led him to commit the murder. "The values of christian humanity,acknowledge and understood by Macbeth are pitied against the more primitive code of the cavern."
Voltaire was a leader in the Enlightenment Era. He thought the established religion, Christianity, to be a total hypocrisy after witnessing the many wars and deaths in the name of religious tradition. A rational religion based on inate morality from the natural laws of God and reason was Voltaire's premise. Einstein furthered the cause from a reason to a science and presented facts and theories as his defense. This same reliance on the scientific community opened the door for the invention of the atomic bomb which led him to a higher moral dilemma.