The outside world around him could have been deceiving by him still being a follower of God, and this somehow could make him seem vulnerable. This way it would be easier for the village to prey upon him. Also tying in with his vulnerability, the entire witch meeting could have been a trick to intentionally try to destroy his life, by which I am not certain why they would. Both viewpoints make the interpretation of the story very ambiguous. Although one is inclined to believe that his experience at the witch meeting was a dream because of literal evidence, the non-literal viewpoint does make one challenge the innocence and honesty of the village.
“All right then,” Huck decides in chapter 31, “I’ll go to hell,” (250). With this decision, he realizes that helping his friend is more important than a traditional rule of the church. Likewise, Huck also reforms and fine-tunes his original moral code throughout the story. Generally his code for lying from the beginning is that it’s wrong and that he shouldn’t do it. But, throughout his adventures, he realizes that sometimes it’s alright to do it and sometimes not.
3. What is that which Descartes cannot doubt in the end? Summarize his arguments why he is sure that? Descartes doubted the existence of god and also about his existence. He doubted god because in the 3rd meditation line 36-41 he talks about god could have given him a nature so he was easily deceived.
• 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.
Out of all the crazy people and “witches” in Salem, Massachusetts, there are few who are normal in their mind. Their thoughts and opinions are not easily swayed by the mass hysteria of the Salem witch trials. Of those few one stands tall. Reverend Hale is a believer, a believer of truth that is, and dismisses the children’s cries of Satan and witchery. He believes in John Procter, the voice of the “sane”.
The trouble with this he explains is that they want to be a light not in the Lord but in themselves, with their notion that the soul is by nature divine, still allows darkness to enter in because by their awful arrogance they have moved further away from you, the true light that enlighten everyone who comes into the world. For Augustine, he felt this was happening without his consent. What it had indicated was not the
However, he doesn’t make this deal in order to achieve a certain goal: he is not attempting to find love or riches; he is purely attempting to gain power for what appears to be power’s sake. This wanton lust for power is something a reader in Marlowe’s era would consider as evil, as he craves the ability to undermine God’s will. The liminality between human and ‘unhuman’ is something that underpins Gothic literature as a whole: it features in Frankenstein, Dracula, and arguably even Wuthering Heights. Marlowe uses this Gothic convention in Dr Faustus through his presentation of Faustus using the classic religious language of Latin in order to attain power in Act I Scene III. This immediately sets up a conflict between as Faustus desires to achieve power which hasn’t been given to him by God but through an ultimately religious form of attainment.
The development of Macbeth in Act 4 Scene 1 In this scene Macbeth has lost his doubt and fear, he is overly bold in his dealings with the witches, daring them and demanding of them. He gains enormous confidence from prophecies that he takes on the face; he believes that there is nothing deeper to what the witches say, and he is incensed when shown Banquo’s heirs (one of which is king James). In act 3, scene 5, Macbeth is suspicious and wary of Macduff, who did not attend the feast, upon debating the meaning of this he decides to meet with the witches for more information. In the following scenes (Act 4 Scene 1) he meets them in an isolated place determined to have his questions answered. Macbeth enters the scene and immediately demands that they (the witches) answer his questions (lines 49-60), he does not ask it of them, nor does he beg, nor is he humble; he is commanding, without fear and doubt.
In cases where people who seem to be intelligent and rational, and have no psychological disabilities, who have a religious experience it is hard to tell if they are really telling the truth. Some people insist that we must look at their motive for lying and if it will gain them anything. Swinburne, a defender of religious experience, had an interesting way of arguing for them. He believed that a religious experience should be counted as to what effect it had on a person’s life rather than focussing on whether it really happened or not. Swinburne uses the example of a man in gaol for murder, who has a religious experience and then devotes the rest of his life to caring for other people.
“Right and wrong cannot be defined in terms of God’s will” Examine and comment on this view. I agree with the statement that ‘right and wrong cannot be defined in terms of God’s will’ – it does not make sense to turn to God to find out what is right or wrong. The Divine Command Theory states that religion should be the basis of morality. However, I believe that religion does not necessarily lead people to be moral. Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma shows that the Divine Command Theory has several problems.