Compare and Contrast Essay: The debate over God, religion, evolution and science is not only a modern day argument; the struggle for truth goes back far enough to even predate Charles Darwin. Whether it is someone trying to help you accept God into your life or someone spouting out conspiracy theories from the sidewalk, religion is everywhere and always seems to be in your face. Two pieces of literature that mock those who believe in any type of God fearing religion are American Fascists and The God Delusion. By what means do the authors of American Fascists and The God Delusion, Chris Hedges and Richard Dawkins use to disprove religion and what perception does this portray for scientist’s beliefs of creation and the scientific community as a whole? Although they have unlike methods, both Hedges and Dawkins aim to scoff at advocates of religion by focusing on what their beliefs entail and then attempt to discredit them with their own beliefs.
Source 1, would strongly support the statement, as it aggressively attacks the church and its actions. It describes how the church uses their influence over its devout followers, for its own gain. For example it describes its rigidness and strictness over its followers “poor wives must be accountable for every tenth egg or be taken as a heretic” and how it exploits and finances followers may have “What money they pull in by their fees, for wills and testaments pilgrimages and first masses!” This would imply that the church is indeed exploiting the faith of its followers to increase its own wealth, as it shows, especially in the second quote, how the church used its influence and power to persuade its followers to give money at every opportunity. We know that at the time, many followers of the church were uneducated, and unable to read or write, so often relied on the church for guidance, and could be easily pushed into doing something by a supposedly “more educated” and “morally superior” member of the clergy. This would contradict source 2, which gives a much rosier account of the church, its actions, and the clergy during the same period.
In Elementary Forms of Religious Life, he specifically defines “a religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden-beliefs and practices which united in one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them” (Durkheim, 47). As we have seen, Durkheim and Marx each had their own definitions of religion. However, we will learn that they both see an important role that religion plays in a society, as well as the ways in which society creates and shapes their religions. “Karl Marx is without a doubt the most influential political atheist of all time. Because Marx espoused atheism in his attempt to destroy capitalism, half the world today is officially committed to atheism as a political philosophy” (Koster, 161).
Nicholas Wilkening ENGL 374-A October 3, 2011 Frankenstein Critical Essay The 19th century was a time of enlightenment where science and discovery were at the forefront of man’s being. During this time of enlightenment and exploration however, the ideas of Christianity clashed with man’s newfound affinity for science. Men like Darwin began to question the long held beliefs of creationism, and there was a lot of backlash, especially from the Church. Many people still were in fear of these new discoveries, which questioned and threatened to completely disprove the long held beliefs. In Ray Hammond’s critical essay, he saw the novel as Mary Shelly’s “means of expressing her innermost fears about life and death in a tangible form (Hammond).” Both Shelly and her mother suffered “birthing horros which are echoed in Frankenstein (Hammond).” Shelly’s novel can be seen as a critique on amoral science, or science without forethought.
In L Ron Hubbard’s “Ability Magazine issue 5” he talks about the Government and according to him Governments are insane but Paul tells us in the book of Romans 13 vs 1 “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established.. Paul also tells us in Thessalonians that we need to be open minded, test everything and hold on to the good but the scientologists would like you to keep scientology working therefore giving it your all.. What is an acceptable truth? I believe this is giving the answer the other person would like to hear. The scientologists believe that handing truth is a touchy business so tell an acceptable truth but Jesus tells us as Christians that we should let our Yes be yes and our No is No: Mat 5 vs
“Will to Power” is a section that is parallel to “Thoughts on Life” because is discusses an individuals will to become powerful and make a personal stand for themselves. In “On Interpretation” he shares his view that there is no fact in the world because everything is an interpretation. As you can see all of these sections have a possible relation to Christianity and their set of beliefs. A particular problem I notice with Nietzsche’s aphorisms is that it creates an image for the reader to portray a Christian to be a weak mined helpless being. He basically degrades the entire Bible by saying that there is no fact in the world and everything is an interpretation.
The New England colonies, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were conceived and established as "holy experiments" by the puritans. This group of English Protestants, whose only wish was to "purify" the Church of England, began to receive savage punishment from England for their religious beliefs. In turn, driven by religion, thousands of the religious zealots immigrated to New England to worship God in the way that they saw fit. However, although the Puritans did leave England, running from there own religious persecution, once they had established themselves they self-righteously employed the
In Dan Brown’s novel, Inferno, the main character, Robert Langdon, learns how you shouldn’t believe everything that people tell you and that many people have more than one reason for doing something. Throughout the novel, Professor Langdon has to use his university-level symbology and art knowledge to try and decrypt Dante’s Inferno into a map to stop global bioterrorism. In the novel, the world meets the diabolical plans of a single biochemist to stop overpopulation. “The doors were never sealed, Brüder realised to his horror. Containment has failed.” This shows that the World Health Organization (WHO) knows that the biochemist, Dr Bertrand Zobrist, leader of the Transhumanist movement and ancient art enthusiast obsessed with Dante, had released some kind of virus to infect humanity.
Organized religion has idolized it’s founders (and sometimes it’s leaders) in way that makes them untouchable. We are repeatedly told of our imperfections, yet it’s done so often that we are pushed in a never ending cycle of “sinfulness”. In other words, trying to act like Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, MLK jr., or anyone else is sometimes viewed negatively in society. What people need to realize is that anyone can do good acts just like these founders and leaders WANTED us to do. So if you keep saying, “Oh i’m a sinner, I’m a sinner..
Tocqueville argues that the only thing which will keep Americans away from these dangers, which would undoubtedly lead to despotism is religion as source of moral education. He says that all decisions by man are a result of the values which man has received from god and without these values we would be left to a life full of disorder. Religion indirectly affects the state through mores which are described as “the whole moral and intellectual state of a people.”(287) These mores are what prevents democracies from being engulfed by the dangers which are products of tyranny and despotism. In a state without religion “each man gets into the way of having nothing but confused and changing notions about the matters of greatest importance to himself and his fellows”(444) and when combating materialism, the presence of religion “places the