“A Journey Through The Old Testament” SUMMARY: For many Christians the Old Testament is daunting and confusing. The books are long and speak about a culture dramatically different form our own. This wonderful book by Elmer L. Towns, “A Journey Through the Old Testament” does not substitute for reading the Old Testament, but Mr. Towns has provided a wonderful “journey” in understanding the people of the Old Testament and a view of the Coming Messiah. His works speak to the intellect as well as to the heart of how God prepared the world in His image – and His hope for mankind.
Faith in God is easily converted into superstition amongst the ignorance of the uneducated. Juxtaposed to this, Mompellion adhered to religious belief and had to research and inquired thoroughly yet he still found God a “poor listener” . In the novel there is an obvious ambivalence in his ability to encourage the people to have faith in their time of crises but then not be able to deal with his own hardship. It is seen that the educated and observant are the best equipped to emancipate themselves from the confines of the societal
Movies and TV shows have been portraying Christians as judgmental, mindless, know-it-alls for years. Cartoons like Family Guy, The Simpsons, and South Park, have depicted Christians as ignorant and condemning. Our culture recognizes wisdom and love as virtuous, but in view of the media’s portrayal of Christians, it is safe to assume that believers are not up to par on either of these things. Believers need to reexamine what it means to love God with all their mind and in doing so love others. Believers practicing loving God with all their mind would be a witness to this world and even a way of reaching out in compassion and gentleness we have left behind by burying our arguments in our Bibles and not engaging the questions raised by the lost.
English 2030 March 27, 2013 Reading Review Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” the grandmother equates that a man is a “good man” if his values are the same as her own. The barbeque owner Red Sammy is “good” because he trusts people blindly by letting them charge gas and is also nostalgic about more innocent times because both of are moral characteristics the grandmother can relate to. The Misfit is “good” because he won’t shoot a lady because that would be in line with her own moral code. Her notion proves to be false and the only thing “good” about the Misfit is his consistency in living out his moral code of “no pleasure but meanness.” The Grandmother is confident
Abraham's servant prayed that God would select the appropriate bride, and was done accordingly. The weakness in Abraham's leadership was he did not always seek God's counsel, or listened to wrong advice, rather than sole reliance on the provisions of God. An example of not seeking God's counsel happened twice when he lied that Sarah was his sister, first to the Egyptians, then to Abimelech. In both instances, Abraham feared for his life, yet he took matters into his own hands. Did Abraham lose sight of God's blessing and promise?
Puritan by nature, he followed a moral code of life well intertwined within the Ten Commandments. Though he was religious, proctor was not without his faults, one being his expressed distaste toward those who did not follow his own law, such as reverend Parris. His distrust and hate toward reverend parris stems from his own idea that such a man could simply not be a holy one. His mood toward Parris came from such actions like the preaching toward golden candles, and how Parris was a self absorbed minister, and the third minister in the town in 7 years. “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.
Dawkins and Aquinas: Theology Whether it’s argumentative or sentimental, an author always aims to get a significant truth across to the reader. In the novel “The God Delusion,” Richard Dawkins analyzes many theories that theologians have developed about the existence of God and essentially squanders them. Through his unique sense of humor and his idea of “logic”, he gives reasons of why the theories of Thomas Aquinas, and other theories as well, are not well developed and are incorrect. Although he does raise some interesting points in his arguments, he does not address enough issues to completely reject the theories of God’s existence. God has a very broad meaning and the meaning varies from person to person.
He also mentioned a list of metaphors such as “people do not have skeletons in their cupboards”. I found these observations particularly humorous because for the life of me I can’t remember when I was ever taught what metaphor are but I can somehow understand them. I found myself thinking that I look at metaphors in the same way as parables in a bible, they make complicated things make sense! In a way Christopher makes us question the need for such a thing when we can just be direct when the metaphor can be confusing if you don’t understand it. Knowing that humor was lost on him and metaphor seem unnecessary I was surprised that he was accepting of the concept of white lies.
A Good View The definition of a "good man" can be misunderstood and sometimes misapplied when being interpreted by the wrong person. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the grandmother seemingly applies the title of "good" to any man who shows even a small glimpse of morally acceptable character. This referring to how surprisingly quick she is to give that label to certain people such as Mr. Teagarden, Red Sammy, The Misfit, without even knowing the individuals that well. Her central role in the story is focused upon in several key moments, with her being heard applying the label of "good man" to certain characters. This misplaced trust of hers caused her to meet an unexpected and tragic end.
But it seems as though Russell feels he can rule that Christianity is not only one of its kind and that it is not true. We will see that his epistemological basics as well as his good credentials are narrow and we are doubtful of both his arrogant rationalism and his spiritual ability to defeat the Biblical and historical testimony to Jesus Christ. In addition, we will see that most of his believed logical refutations of arguments for God do not work (Britannica). Bertrand Russell thought that religious belief came from culture and fantasy. He thought that people believe in God because they have been taught as a baby to believe.