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Recommended: Role of religion
Joshua Dorsett
Mr. Roemerman
Composition I
23 October 2015
Cultural Baggage “Death to God, all hail reason!”, cries out the secular world, fervent for nothing but themselves. The new age of skepticism has come, ushered in by God-hating men and dictators bound to satan; and its zealots follow in the footsteps of the rest of the world. They lay down cheerfully in valleys of dry bones and their banner stands, waving through air that is choked by the smoke that rises from their fathers burning in Hell, its motto, “Love and Tolerance.” Words bought by the blood of anyone who dissented. This is the fruit of the religion of Atheism. Barbara Ehrenreich, an Atheist and an activist, examines her ethnic roots, and ultimately slanders religion, specifically
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Even though Atheists pray that there is nothing after death, it will not provide an escape or any shelter from the coming wrath of The Holy God. Can man stand naked before the King of Kings, in the revealing light of all truth? Can he answer for every single one of his sins? When judgment comes, no man will ever be good enough. Therefore, Atheism is useless, in fact the only good thing Atheism displays is irony. It is ironic that the core philosophy of Atheism is “Think for yourself” (285) yet the majority of its followers, if not all, fail to do so completely; therefore Atheism is a fool’s religion with severe devotion to ignorance. It is ironic because it preaches tolerance yet is grossly intolerant of anyone who doesn’t accept the Atheist faith. Again, as Ehrenreich’s children revealed, “the world would be a better place” (285) without other religions. Lastly, it is ironic because Ehrenreich speaks of her family being “disillusioned with Christianity” (284) while she herself is enslaved to the deceitful illusion of Atheism. Atheists will find no hope in any other man’s help either, and the weight of their sins will drag them all helplessly into
Richmond, B.A. "Deism: It's History, Beliefs, & Practices." Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. 25 July 2000. http://www.religioustolerance.org/deism.htm.
The Canadian philosopher J.L. Schellenberg has recently put forward an argument for atheism based on the idea that God is supposed to be perfectly loving and so would not permit people to be deprived of awareness of his existence. If such a deity were to exist, then, he would do something to reveal his existence clearly to people, thereby causing them to become theists. Thus, the fact that there are so many non-theists in the world becomes good reason to deny the existence of God conceived of in the given way. I first raise objections to Schellenberg’s formulation of the argument and then suggest some improvements. My main improvement is to include among the divine attributes the property of strongly desiring humanity’s love. Since to love God requires at least believing that he exists, if God were to exist, he must want widespread theistic belief. The fact that so many people lack such belief becomes a good argument for atheism with respect to God conceived of in the given way. Some objections to this line of reasoning are considered, in particular the claim that God refrains from revealing himself to people in order to avoid interfering with their free will or to avoid eliciting inappropriate responses from them or some other (unknown) purpose. An attempt is made to refute each of these objections.
However, secular humanism removes the concept of absolute truth and replaces it with relativism. This has the potential to create classrooms and societies that are governed by those who have the most power and not by the truth of Scripture which seeks to protect the poor and the weak (Moreland, 2007). The only way that good will triumph over evil is if the truth of Christ’s death and resurrection is able to hold in check the sinful nature of mankind. A classroom that removes God from the picture is a classroom that will ultimately produce a society that ignores the needs of the weak and caters to the needs of the powerful. The Bible enables students to understand who they are, who God is and the realities of the world they live in (Graham, 2003). In contrast, secular humanism allows people to deceive themselves into thinking that they can overcome their sinful nature and create a perfect world apart from God (Moreland,
Slezak, P. "Gods of the State: Atheism, Enlightenment and Barbarity." Politics and Religion in the New Century: Philosophical Reflections (2009): 20. Web. 20 Oct. 2012.
Theology is an intentionally reflective endeavor. Every day we reflect upon the real, vital, and true experience of the benevolent God that exists. We as humans tend to be social beings, and being so we communicate our beliefs with one another in order to validate ourselves. Furthermore atheism has many forms, three of the most popular atheistic beliefs include: scientific atheism, humanistic atheism and the most popular one being protest atheism. Scientific atheism is the idea that science is the answer for everything and god is not existent. The humanistic approach states that society is self-sufficient; therefore God is not needed for survival. Therefore how could he exist? The position that I will argue in this paper is the pessimistic idea of protest atheism.
Anne Fadiman’s "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down" Critical Analysis: Understanding Religion and Cultural Conflicts and how it Impacts the Society
“As of 1994 there were an estimated 240 million atheists around the world comprising slightly more than 4 percent of the world’s population, including those who profess atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion”(Michael). Disbelief in God might be considered arrogant, but as you can see the group we refer to as atheists includes not only simple-minded imbeciles, but also the great American diplomat, Thomas Jefferson. “Atheists are frequently asked what atheism has to offer as opposed to religion. To answer this question, I need to assume that there are no gods or supernatural entities to reward us with a peaceful eternity if we follow some established morality. If the reason for this assumption is proven false, then the question is meaningless, as atheism ceases to exist”(Goluboff). A strong one-sided statement that gives little attention the fact that we presently...
Smith, Andrew. "Chapter Nine: Life After Death." 2014. A Secular View of God. 12 May 2014 .
...hal. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Called to Love: Christian Witness Can Be the Best Response to Atheist Polemics." America 198 (2008): 23. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 8 Dec. 2013.
Religion is the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods, a particular system of faith and worship or a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion (Oxford Dictionary, 2014). From religion, many new groups, communities and further derived religions have formed. Closely related to religion and with endless controversies surrounding it’s classification as a religion is the concept of Atheism- which is defined as the disbelief or rejection of a deity. Descending from this is a social and political movement in favour of secularism known as New Atheism. Understanding the historical content concerning the emergence of atheism, this essay will then address how various aspects within the field inclusive the goals, structures and approaches have emerged and developed over time in comparison to the original atheist ideals.
The problem of reconciling an omnipotent, perfectly just, perfectly benevolent god with a world full of evil and suffering has plagued believers since the beginning of religious thought. Atheists often site this paradox in order to demonstrate that such a god cannot exist and, therefore, that theism is an invalid position. Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that seeks to defend religion by reconciling the supposed existence of an omnipotent, perfectly just God with the presence of evil and suffering in the world. In fact, the word “theodicy” consists of the Greek words “theos,” or God, and “dike,” or justice (Knox 1981, 1). Thus, theodicy seeks to find a sense of divine justice in a world filled with suffering.
As Death of the old regime? points out, ‘Natural Religion, by contrast, is based exclusively on non-revelatory evidence’ (Barber, 2004, p.174). It is evident the priest uses both the cosmological and theological arguments during his debate with the dying man, whom he is trying to persuade to believe in the existence of God. In this text the priest tells the dying man he is an atheist who rejects ‘innumerable proofs which are daily given to us of the existence of the Creator’ (Anthology, 2003, Part 1, p.63).
In today’s modern western society, it has become increasingly popular to not identify with any religion, namely Christianity. The outlook that people have today on the existence of God and the role that He plays in our world has changed drastically since the Enlightenment Period. Many look solely to the concept of reason, or the phenomenon that allows human beings to use their senses to draw conclusions about the world around them, to try and understand the environment that they live in. However, there are some that look to faith, or the concept of believing in a higher power as the reason for our existence. Being that this is a fundamental issue for humanity, there have been many attempts to explain what role each concept plays. It is my belief that faith and reason are both needed to gain knowledge for three reasons: first, both concepts coexist with one another; second, each deals with separate realms of reality, and third, one without the other can lead to cases of extremism.
6. Bohdan R. Bociurkiw and John W. Strong, Religion and Atheism in the U.S.S.R. and
Ethnographic fieldwork helps to define and distinguish cultural anthropology in certain ways. The definition per ethnographic studies helps to distinguish cultural anthropology from other disciplines and helps to understand it and how it is carried out. Field work ethnography defines cultural anthropology as holism, cross culture comparison and observation by participation. Ethnographic fieldwork has a lot of advantages.