In “Go tell it on the mountain” James Baldwin works with themes of hatred, separation, religion. He does this through John, Elizabeth and the church. The author is saying that John hated his father and Elizabeth was detached from her family in the end they both came to church to seek spiritual guidance. John disliked his father. He was upset about his father “John watched and listened, hating him.”(43) He was disgusted about Gabriel for his hypocrisy “No one, none of the saints….
In Chapter 6 Ruth beats up her son Billy for his inability to recite a passage in the Bible on Easter in front of the church. On the other hand, throughout the book Ruth mentions the sexual and physical abuse, her father applies to his children, abuses that come randomly. Yes, both Ruth and her father hit their kids, but the difference between the contacts is that Ruth hit because she expected more from her son, she wanted her son to be great, after all it is described that “his memory would serve him well enough to go to Yale
any Sunday and find many preachers screaming through the microphones. You may hear comments about the homosexuals burning in hell, they scream about unwed mothers going to hell, and the pattern continues. The rage is not limited to television if one travels to a city of predominantly Evangelicals one may encounter examples that may support the fear theory. There are preachers and followers that have been known to judge a new member, an unwed mother, and a member that strays away from the disciplined path of God. The point is not to accept these wrong doings as proper actions.
Every day we see the reaches of religion, whether it be the terrorist Muslim leaders in the middle east or closer to home with churches picketing funerals and pro-life activists showing grotesque pictures of fetuses on the side of the road when you are driving to work. Even looking back through history we see religious wars that condemned countless people to death. My argument is not from the point of view of an atheist but a baptized catholic that does not agree with the way the church still puts its sometimes dirty hands in all areas of life. The church as we know it is not good for religion or faith. A few of the bad sides of religion include the way that different religions get stereotyped into the most terrible side of extremists.
“There is either obedience or the church will burn like Hell is burning!” (pg 30) Parris tried to defend himself with such passionate and heartfelt comments but Proctor would have none of it. To him Parris was not in his society. Also, his relationship with Abigail Williams was a strained one, plagued with affair, scandal, and betrayal. He did love her, but soon after seeing what she truly was he resented his connection to her and, like what his old true nature told him, he confessed, causing a resent to appear within the town that never gave him his old trust
Historically, the topic of religion stirs emotion and partisanship. Geoffrey Chaucer and Jonathan Swift both satirize the institution of religion by attacking its clergymen and religious followers. Swift vilely attacks Catholics while Chaucer reveals flaws of all religious views. However, Swift and Chaucer both indicate the corruption and incorrectness of the Catholic religion believed during their various time periods. In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer illuminates the corruption and hypocrisy in Catholic clergymen through several of the religious pilgrims like the Friar, and the Summoner.
Proctor believed that God has left the church and Proctor shows his hate and distrust of Reverend Paris when he says, “I come five miles to hear him preach only hellfire and bloody damnation. Take it to heart Mr Parris. There are many others who stay away from church these days because you hardly ever mention God any more.” Proctor chooses not to belong to Salem because he “sinned” with Parris’s niece Abigail Williams, and this causes him to see himself as a hypocrite and not worthy to belong to the Salem community. Danforth’s behavior and attitudes in the court exclude Proctor from conforming to the court and led Proctor to tell the court that Abigail told him that the events in “the woods” were “sport” but court quickly turned on him and sees him as an enemy
Nevertheless, it would be erroneous to suggest that the ideas of Marx aren’t present in Blake’s literary work, as the anti- class ideas are highly prominent. Songs of experience shows how the human spirit withers after being suppressed and forced to conform to the rules and doctrines in society. Blake was an English dissenter and actively opposed to the doctrines of the Anglican church, which tells its members to suppress their feelings. Blake showed how he believed this was wrong through his songs in ‘the songs of experience’. Christian England approached the cruelness and injustice, which can be presented in the poems ‘London’, ‘The Chimney Sweep’ and ‘The Little Vagabond’.
Sydney Canaan Mrs. Beard AP English IV 25, January 2012 Religion vs. Humanism In Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Hardy places many questions of justice and religion in the reader's mind, and these inquiries challenge many of the conventional ideals found in Victorian England. While religion was a vital component in constructing the social laws of the time, it gradually became the social laws that were composing the religious regulations. In turn, many people of the lower-class were unable to find salvation in religion due to their rejection in society. Hardy confronts organized religion because of the lack of compassion toward less remarkable people and places humanism as a more pure notion to live by.
Owen also seeks to expose the betrayal of the authorities throughout poems such as ‘Disabled’ and ‘The parable of the old man and the young.’ He expresses how they acted with a disregard for the lives of their countries young men. Religion and its betrayal during the war is also emphasized by Wilfred Owen in ‘Anthem for doomed youth.’ He shows how the belief in religion did nothing to dampen the grim realities of war and he even begins to question his own beliefs. Another way Owen feels he has been betrayed is through the way society treated those soldiers who had suffered both mental and physical injuries. They were labelled as cowards and looked down upon. This is best shown in the poem ‘Disabled.’ Owen was ultimately driven by the betrayal of the authorities, religion and society and he used his horrifying experiences of the war to exemplify this betrayal.