Life will get easier is what you keep telling yourself over and over as your sitting in your jail cell. You were so bold to wear a sweatshirt that stated, “I didn’t do it.” Your story is a story that I will never forget to this day because of the way it opened up my eyes to see the real system of our world. Sitting in class hearing a story about a man that I did not know existed, I was left with in awe of the idea that something like that happens. Because of your persistence and strength, your name and story will never be forgotten. Many people go through “dangerous journeys” like the character Christian did, and how he remained hopeful to God’s master plan. Along with Christian, a man who was in jail because of the unlawful government, Boethius, …show more content…
In this children’s book, the protagonist Christian who sets out on pilgrimage journey with a huge burden on his back in which he seeks for the Celestial city. Christian lives in the City of Destruction, where it “was doomed to be burned with fire from heaven, in which fearful overthrow…” (Bunyan, 8) Throughout this long journey, one instance that I would like to share with you is when Christian and Hopeful end up at Doubting Castle amongst where two giants live called Giant Despair, and his wife Diffidence. Christian takes a shortcut route thinking it will lead him to the same road, and ends up leading him to the giants castle. From not feeding them to beating them, Christian lost all confidence by the words “Perhaps the giant is right… Perhaps death would be better than the miserable life we lead.” (Bunyan, 93) Many times you have probably thought about giving up, or just lost all hope, but unfortunately no one was there for you to give you advice beside yourself. Fortunately, Christian had Hopeful along his journey in him reminding him “My brother, he said, Apollyon couldn’t crush you, nor the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And remember how you played the man in Vanity Fair. Don’t forget I’m in the dungeons with you, a far weaker man by nature than you are. This giant has wounded me as well as you, and cut off the bread and water from my mouth. And, like you, I’m deprived of light. So let …show more content…
In the novel Boethius, the consoloation of philosophy, Boethius receives answers from Lady Philosophy about life’s unanswerable questions. One question being “Does evil exist, and who controls it? Lady Philosophy tells Boethius “ … because good and evil are contraries, and if we establish that goodness is powerful, then it must follow that wickedness is weak.” (Boethius, 109) The act of evil is not real, because only the supreme good can exist; both cannot exist at the same time. The power that evil has over us is physically, not the soul. Since God is good, he has the ability to take control of our souls and bodies, where evil can only take control of the body, not the mind unless you allow it. Boethius compares evil people to animals representing their level of worth. Essentially, this lesson is to teach you that evil does not have control over you, and that everything is for the good of God. If you commit yourself you God, your soul and body will be His. Do not think that evil cannot still happen, it can. Matter of a fact, Boethius questions “God gives rewards to the just and punishments to the unjust, but he also seems to give delights to the wicked and harsh treatment to the good. Why should this be?” (Bunyan, 129) Lady Philosophy replies to him with the words of how us humans cannot understand the way things work in the world, only God does.
Throughout the world, most people believe in some type of god or gods, and the majority of them understand God as all-good, all-knowing (omniscient), and all-powerful (omnipotent). However, there is a major objection to the latter belief: the “problem of evil” (P.O.E.) argument. According to this theory, God’s existence is unlikely, if not illogical, because a good, omniscient, and omnipotent being would not allow unnecessary suffering, of which there are enormous amounts.
In a world of chaos, he who lives, lives by his own laws and values. Who is to say that the death of millions is any worse or better, for that matter, than injuring a cockroach. And in the case of an existing power in the form of God, who is presumed to be all which is good, presiding and ruling an organized universe, why then does evil exist? The prosaic response of “without evil, there is no good” no longer holds any validity in this argument as the admitted goal of good is to reach an existence without evil. So even if a God does exist, I think it is fair, at this point, to say that he is the embodiment of both good and evil. And if humoring those who would answer the previous question with the response that there can be no good without evil, then can we assume that evil is simply a subsection of a defined good? Or perhaps even a good thing? If it is essential, those who chose the side of evil are simply abiding by good values. In the case of a world ruled by Chaos, evil is a non-existent word or value, rather. The system upon which a person’s actions are judged also disappears leaving nothing but an instinct for natural survival as basic and primary as the life within the forests which we tear down to build our houses.
The Problem of Evil is the question that asks if God is perfectly benevolent, all-powerful, and all-knowing, then how can he allow evil to exist? Many philosophers have tried to answer this age-old question, often focusing on the intellect and the will. This essay will explore and compare the ways in which Descartes, Leibniz, and Berkeley each attempt to solve this dilemma.
Rather than spending time on trying to figure out why God allows evil to exist, the focus should be aimed at what is within our ability to control or to prevent the existence of evil and understand that without evil; good could not exist.
Choices in life can be as simple as deciding where to go out to eat or what to wear and as difficult as deciding which college to enroll in and who to marry. The most strenuous part is not knowing if you made the right decision because even the simplest choices can shape the future. There are no guarantees in life so every decision counts. Second guessing is as natural to humans as breathing, which makes the decision making process that much harder because it is more than just picking something and sticking with it, there is always the curiosity of what if? Even when faced with the most difficult decisions one must live with the choices they have made, which is very similar to what the speaker of “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is forced to deal with.
Have you ever pack to make a long trip to fight for the beliefs of your country? If you have not, the short story, The Things They Carried, will take you into an adventurous journey. Tim O’ Brien describes the story of a platoon led by Lieutenant Jimmy Cross. The items soldiers carried were described as tangible and intangible. There are physical and emotional loads in which every ounce is considered. They walked with the burden to stay alive. Having to stay in a deserted land and away from tranquility awakens their fear that will stay active for the reminding of their journey. Ultimately, the main objective of this text is to revive and embody the experiences encountered while fighting during the Vietnam War. Therefore, in the story, the author
The majority of people experience numerous events that change the course of their life. Saint Augustine, a prominent figure in the Catholic Church, experienced this event when he converted to Christianity. The process of converting, however, was a long, confusing process. A philosophical man, Augustine made sure to think hard about something before committing to it; as a result, he had a plethora of religious questions, with the majority revolving around God. Several of these questions pertain to evil and the role God has with it.
Moral evil was an issue that weighed heavily on the minds of the people of the Medieval period. Philosophers and poets alike attempted to address and understand the problem of moral evil, scrutinizing the roots of evil and the effects of evil on the body and, more importantly, on the soul. Of the philosophers that the period produced the views of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Boethius on the problem of evil are perhaps the most notable. From the literary side of the spectrum, the problem of evil is addressed heavily in Beowulf.
I have conflicting thought regarding Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road. My initial thoughts of the novel were that it was solely built on the complete devastation of two characters lives and the surrounding landscape and their constant search for survival. However after giving it further insight I discovered the underlying messages of the importance of good and bad people in my life, the beauty of the little things in life and constant greed showed by desperate individuals. I believe the novels successes comes from the messages of the significant value of human life and the importance of memories in our lives.
The lines that define good and evil are not written in black and white; these lines tend to blur allowing good and evil to intermingle with each another in a single human being.
...d appear to be unrestrained and unpunished because their wickedness and the lack of true happiness that is associated with it is their punishment (Consolation of Philosophy 94). To both Augustine and Boethius, God is completely good and sovereign. However, He allows men free will and the punishment or rewards that come with these free decisions.
John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress is an allegorical story about the Christian religion. It allegorizes the journey of a Christian into "the Celestial City, which represents heaven. Although Pilgrim's Progress may seem simple and straightforward, there are many deeper meanings throughout the whole story. Bunyan uses the names of his characters to signify whom the character represents in the story, for example, the character Hopeful represents hopefulness, Help represents people who are willing to help others in need of assistance, Faithful represents people who are faithful to whatever they are associated with, and the main character, Christian, represents all young Christians in the world. His journey to the Celestial City is a journey every Christian must face in their lifetime before allowed into heaven. Within his journey there are many obstacles such as temptations both tangible and intangible for instance, the merchandises sold at Vanity Fair and the shortcuts offered, illustrate temptations real Christians must face and overcome; finding an easy way into heaven, and being thrown off course by material things. The character Christian overcomes many obstacles before reaching his destination, the Celestial City. But during his journey he does not face all these obstacles alone. He meets a variety of people all through his journey to the Celestial City; some of these people mock his traveling to the Celestial City, some decide to follow him, and some help him along his way. Christian meets Faithful who decides to join him on his travels. Faithful is a character that faces many difficulties on his own journey to the Celestial City; his journey has many diff...
God is the source of evil. He created natural evil, and gave humans the ability to do moral evil by giving them a free will. However, had he not given people free will, then their actions would not be good or evil; nor could God reward or punish man for his actions since they had no choice in what to do. Therefore, by giving humans choice and free will, God allowed humanity to decide whether to reward themselves with temporary physical goods, and suffer in the long run from unhappiness, or forsake bodily pleasures for eternal happiness.
The poem entitled “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is perhaps one of the most well-known poems to date. Frost’s poem explores the different paths and choices individuals are presented with throughout their life, which can later influence their lives significantly more than originally anticipated. Specifically, Frost describes a fork in the road at which the narrator must choose between two very different paths with varying outcomes. “The Road Not Taken” emphasizes the importance of taking the less traveled road through Frost’s usage of a wide range of literary devices. “The Road Not Taken” suggests that individuals should fully experience the process of making a choice before reaching a decision as that one single choice may later have
Gulliver's Travels reflects characters to the reader in numerous inventively nauseating ways. Quick uses his imaginative revamping of every day life to make the meanest, most clever, dirtiest tirade of the whole eighteenth century. Throughout this novel, Swift utilizes amazing misrepresentation and parody to make a figurative association between the distinctive societies experienced on Lemuel Gulliver's excursions and about his own particular society, reprimanding his general public's traditions.