The Brothers Karamazov By Dostoyevsky

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1 In what sense does Alyosha Karamazov realize that he is free in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.

For what I could understand on my reading, Alyosha Karamazov lost his faith when Zosima (the father) died. Within that suffering he realized that he was free, free to believe or not believe, that the decision was entirely his. I think he lost his faith because he asked himself the same question I ask myself every time I see people suffering, how could God let this happen? Still no answer for that. He chose to be free, rather than accepting the rules. That he is not determined by his past, not is he bound to a single course of action to his situation. He decided to be free instead.

2 For existentialists from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, …show more content…

Of course, none of them have been able to prove it. St. Anselm attempts to produce a deductive proof for God’s existence. He argues that a perfect being necessary exists. His argument is deductive in nature. It is based upon the meaning of certain terms and does not rely upon empirical evidence. His argument is called the ontological argument, because it is based upon the nature of being, he said that if can imagine two objects, both identical, but one exists and the other does not, so the one that exist is more perfect. However, Gaunilo claims that if perfection entails existence, the by the same token, a perfect island must exist, because after all it is perfect. He does not doubt God existence, nor does he believe un the perfect island. His point us that, in his view, Anselm’s arguments do not work. More over, Anselm agrees that it is absurd to conclude that the perfect island exist just because you think on it. They both tried to prove God’s existence, but the case was left unresolved. 4 Explain and evaluate the views of Freud and Nietzsche, on the rationality of religious belief.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously said, “God is dead!” Although in truth he did nor believe God has died, but rather, he had never existed in the first place. According to him, God is a fable, a fairy tale used to control the weak. Moreover, Sigmund Freud had a similar take upon religious belief. According to Freud, most religious belief

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