• The Theory of Archetypes - Geza Roheim argues that the theory of archetypes is unnecessary. As humans share the same experiences, such as dependence on parents, it is not surprising that they construct similar myths. Also, some religious myths come from the experiences of a particular community and so it seems unlikely that they are born out of an idea which is present in all humans. Therefore, it is argued that Jung is not justified in stating that there is an ‘instinct for God’ just because people believe in God. Also, many people do not believe in God.
Dewey felt that only scientific method could reliably increase human good. With being said we can assume that Dewey did not believe in God or Jesus Christ. Because Dewey’s views are the way they are it would be easy to point out the differences in his Ideas and those of Jesus Christ. Dewey believed that schooling should be humanistic instead of Christian. Of the idea of God, Dewey said, "it denotes the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and actions.” Jesus Christ had a different belief when it came to the existence of God and the increase of “human good”.
Kant proclaims “the belief that we have cognition of something through experience which we in fact cannot accept as happening according to objective laws of experience (faith in miracles)”(p.185). He credits faith's mass appeal and staying power as the main reason for the growth of corrupted notions of miracles and saving grace. Kant was not a believer that accepting Jesus Christ as our savior would be all that is needed in Christian grace to free oneself from sin. Kant says “It is totally inconceivable, however, how a rational human being who knows himself to deserve punishment could seriously believe that he only has to believe the news of satisfaction having been rendered Page 1 for him, and accept it utiliter, in order to regard his guilt as done away with” (p. 123). These ideas of Kant seem to imply he is not a believer of Jesus or that miracles have never happened, the idea Kant is developing that miracles are not necessary for us to develop moral
They treated claims made about God as cognitive, meaning that the assertions made are meant to be taken as facts or universal truth claims rather than non-cognitive meaning on a personal level for believers. They believed that language was only meaningful if it was analytically or synthetically verified. Analytic statements are a priori (based on logic) and synthetic statements are a posteriori (based on empirical evidence). They created a test called verification principle to see if religious language was meaningful; Statements can only be meaningful if it can be demonstrated. One could argue that the logical positivists were unsuccessful in arguing that religious language is meaningless because the verification principle has many weaknesses.
He believed that life is meaningless and that we have no souls, so we should therefore grasp everything that the world has to offer whilst we can as there is no chance of an afterlife in his perspective. Neitzche also said that everyone should strive to seek pleasure and success wherever it could be found, he also thought religious beliefs to be false. But what did Neitzche mean by God is ‘dead’? He felt that religious outlook is no longer credible for the modern intellectual person. He meant that humans had advanced their understanding of the natural world enough to realize that the literal teachings of the religions that espoused God were not true.
Leibniz once said that ‘the Christian who already believes, Aquinas has proven that God exists’, I agree with this. However, for a person who doesn’t believe in ‘God’ Aquinas Cosmological argument is very hard to accept because, it doesn’t have very much evidence. It is based on assumptions. I then ask, what sort of argument is the Cosmological argument? I believe it to be a Posteriori argument.
Masserman at heart agrees with Freud’s argument that religion is an illusion humans hold onto, but he makes a key distinction in saying that this illusion is necessary for the well doing of human beings, “they are substitutive or compensatory beliefs, quite necessary to make human life at all livable” [Herberg 177]. Having set up Masserman’s ideas, Herberg is now able to explain with key distinction what the ideas of Masserman, which he calls the idea of ‘Natural Religion’, really are and why they are different then his ideas of true faith, of ‘Biblical Faith’. Herberg calls Masserman’s ideas one of ‘Natural Religion’. Herberg best explains this as “Sinful man…needs God and searches for him….but the God he finds is the God he constructs-if not with his hands than with his heart and mind- to suite his purposes” [Herberg 180,181]. Herberg
On one hand you have the philosophers who believe you can speak and write about God, because God is reality. On the other hand, are the Logical Positivists who claim that statements about God have no meaning because they don’t relate to anything that is real. There are a number of philosophers who claimed to have proven conclusively that religious language is meaningful, for example Aquinas’ theory of analogy. An analogy is an attempt to explain the meaning of something which is difficult to understand and forming relations through attributes or relations that are similar. Aquinas rejected univocal and equivocal language when talking about God.
Lewis himself claims that he never intended to write a Christian message for children to more coherently understand the Gospel; although, he admits that once Aslan emerged into Narnia, he not only ‘pulled’ the story together, but he also ‘pulled’ the other six stories together simultaneously. With the figure of Aslan, Lewis attempts to implicitly and explicitly explore Christian truths; but how successful was he in his attempt? This essay will address how the nature, works and qualities of Aslan relate to Christ and will evaluate the success of Lewis in his attempt. “Aslan a man?” declares Mr Beaver “Certainly not. I tell you he is the king of the wood and son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea.
This was the unconscious self, the part of the mind containing basic drives and repressed memories, it is a moral and has no concern about right and wring and is only concerned with itself. Freud argued that religion derives from the unconscious and that sexual impulses are closely related to religion. He argues that religion was an illusion and obsessional neurosis. Freud believed that science was based on an observation of the word and religion is not. Psychoanalysis is a science which can help to explain why religious beliefs are appealing.