In today’s society, there are two topics of conversation that most people shy away from discussing in order to avoid the endless debates and pointless agreements these topics can evoke with a mere mention of them; debates which educate no one on a different point of view but only cause people to fight with relentless passion to defend their own view. These two hot button topics are religion and politics. Even though the touchy nature of these topics is widely known, Thomas Mardik decided to disregard this notion and discuss his religious beliefs in the semi public manner by making them the topic of his “This I Believe” essay. The main belief he discussed was a basic one and is fairly common; millions of others all over the world hold this same belief to be true. This belief is the belief in God. The purpose of his paper was to inform his audience of his belief and to explain aspects of his belief, events that have strengthened his belief, and ways his belief is part of his life. Thomas’s essay is a semi success mostly due the ways he tries to appeal to his audience in the three different areas. These three areas of appeal are logos, ethos, and pathos. Today I will be analysis how Thomas used logos ethos and pathos in his essay.
Logos plays a relatively minute role in this paper due to logos being about rational or logical appeal and because this essay is about Thomas’s religious beliefs and the belief in God is not based rational or logical facts, it is based on faith and faith does not fall under logos. Also logos is hard to have in this case because everyone has different religious beliefs causing a religious statement to be true fact for some and ghastly lie to other. This makes religion views seen as that of opinion which ...
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...en cause some to not even read the essay at all.
I believe Thomas did a subpar job of executing logos, ethos, and pathos in his “This I Believe” essay. The essay had its strong moments especially in how easily the audience could relate to Thomas’s belief; even with this being so, the essay lacked depth in many areas which caused the essay to have a too simplistic and dull feel to it. This same belief Thomas holds and believes in so strongly has been the cause of great history changing wars and for millions of people to leave their homes and lives behind all for a single belief. Overall Thomas’s belief is incredibly rooted in to his very being causing the person he is today because of this I believe he will hold this belief for most if not all his life however the manner in which he wrote about his belief, unfortunately, was not as strong as the belief itself.
Religion has been a controversial topic among philosophers and in this paper I am focusing
...n the author diminishing the strong persuasiveness afforded by the logos and ethos in his argument because of his excess of pathos and tone, which is perceived as condescending.
Evans, C. Stephen. Critical Dialog in Philosophy of Religion. 1985. Downers Grove, IL. InterVarsity Press. Taken from Philosophy of Religion - Selected Readings, Fourth Edition. 2010. Oxford University Press, NY.
By appealing so much to pathos, his letter focuses more on emotionally convincing and persuading the reader to accept his claim, rather than providing facts and logic to his argument. His combined use of logos and ethos also adds an aspect of logic and reason to his argument, as well as further showing his credibility and connection to the subject as the author. His use of the three rhetorical devices helps to bolster and support his claim, while also personalizing and connecting with the
Ramage, John D., and John C. Bean. "Ethos, Pathos, and Logos." Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1998. Web. 29 Mar. 2014.
Throughout our course we have read and considered many ideas, however for the duration of this paper I will focus on two core ideas. These are the ideas that God is the first efficient cause and whether God is good. For the duration of this paper I will look at Aquinas’s five ways, Hume’s refutation of God being the efficient cause. Also Dostoevsky’s and Hume’s explanation that God is not good because of the abundance of pain. Throughout the class what I have come to learn and was most impacted by is that God is not what we prescribe him to be in our different religions. Also the arguments that always stood out for me were the arguments of Hume and his skepticism. It is my goal through this paper to explain that God is not the entity
Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007. Print.
Thomas Jefferson is the man that authored extraordinary words and it was his words that impacted a nation forever. Jefferson was an American founding father, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and he served as the third president of the United States. Thomas Jefferson is one of the most prominent figures in American History. No leader in the period of the American Enlightenment was as fluent, intelligent, or aware of the allegations and significance of a free society as Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was often under critical examination in regards to his personal religious beliefs. The most common questions asked in regards to those of Jefferson’s beliefs were if they were deist or Christian. Prior to beginning this essay, I thought
Paul Tillich. “What Faith Is”. The Human Experience: Who Am I?. 8th ed. Winthrop University: Rock Hill SC, 2012. 269-273. Print.
A Christian apologetic method is a verbal defense of the biblical worldview. A proof is giving a reason for why we believe. This paper will address the philosophical question of God’s existence from the moral argument. The presuppositional apologetic method of Reformed thinkers Cornelius Van Til and John Frame will be the framework. Topics covered here could undoubtedly be developed in more depth, but that would be getting ahead, here is the big picture.
Through out history there have been questions of where we come from and how we got here. It all comes down to the question of God’s existence. God’s existence has never been questioned during the times of when Christianity, Judaism and Islam were born. The question of God’s existence comes from our new way of thinking after these religions. Science has made us think of how things work in our world and brings Gods existence into question. There were no scientific studies done during the days of Jesus to prove that God exists, so where did the people in history get this idea of God from? Many philosophers have been questioning and giving their ideas of God and his existence. The ideas that we may have of God is usually connected with religion and our beliefs. One philosopher that touches on this topic is Descartes. Descartes gives his ideas on God’s existence and his out look on our selves compared to God. Most religions believe that there is a God and that he has created everything around us. Everyone has a different answer to this question that they think is the right one. Throughout this paper, I will be discussing God’s existence, while looking at Descartes ideas and through different perspectives of whether or not God exist as well.
Religion is an organized collection of beliefs and cultural systems that entail the worship of a supernatural and metaphysical being. “Religion just like other belief systems, when held onto so much, can stop one from making significant progress in life”. Together with religion come traditions that provide the people with ways to tackle life’s complexities. A subscription to the school of thought of great scholars
1) Oxford Readings in Philosophy. The Concept of God. New York: Oxford University press 1987
... an animal”; for us the animal we understood as the subject of man whereas man is understood as the essence that man can move from understanding the predication of self-quality. Self-evidence is considered both self-evident in itself and self-evident to all. The other question is if God’s existence and self- evidence comes into main play. To Thomas “God exists” is indisputably to self-evident in itself, however Thomas believes “exists” is the subject which “God” is a greater length and strength. The essence of God is the particular proposition is not self-evident to us, for we have no epistemic basis for understanding the subject in relation to the predicate. Thomas explains that because of the aforementioned reality, God’s existence must be demonstrated by things “that are known to us”, things that are the subject of empirical observation and rational deduction.
The rise of Christianity raised questions on how this new mode of thinking, based on faith, could fit and interact with a world that had not based its thinking on faith but instead on human reason. While some rejected that the new and old modes of thinking were compatible, others sought and found ways to reconcile both ways of exploring the world. The traditional philosophical method of starting with assumptions that cannot be proven but are assumed to be true and progressing to conclusions based on those assumptions was applied by both Aquinas and Descartes to address the mutual challenge posed by Christianity and philosophy.