A common questioning of a higher power beyond the physical realm lingers in society: Who and what is God?. However, many of these theological questions cannot be answered until we, of course, die. Due to human’s innate curiosity to understand the forces beyond their own, especially in terms of religion, humans find their own reasons to believe in God in the process of discovery. Religion is a sense of belief and worship to praise a higher power (God), and it provides a guide for human beings to have the opportunity to come together and live as one image of God’s children. “Imagine There’s No Heaven” is an article in which Salman Rushdie, the author, presents an atheistic view where religion is pointless, and a higher being is non-existent.
Religion is an example of group-thinking, the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility finally it is a way of control via fear. As shown by Jackson in the lottery and expressed in the article “Imagine no heaven”, the following of many of these religions and tradition can cause more damage than good, voiced by Rushdie in pleasant manner as “human history is full of the public oppression wrought by the charioteers of the gods. In the opinion of religious people, however, the private comfort that religion brings more than compensates for the evil done in its name” (Rushdie). The idea of public oppression was displayed by both authors, especially Jackson by inputting the part of Tessie Hutchison where she asked for a redraw and all the town’s people shut her idea down. "I think we ought to start over,
Rushdie’s essay, “Reality TV: A Dearth of Talent and the Death of Mortality”, focuses on the negative effects of media on today’s society. He believes the use of reality television is skewing the minds of everyday Americans by the way “regular” people are portrayed on television. Many readers are persuaded to believe in Rushdie’s cause, not because he is right or his topic is relevant in today’s world, but because of the rhetorical devices he uses to direct his audience in a similar belief. The rhetorical devices Rushdie uses are mainly tone of voice, sarcasm, and irony. Rushdie uses tone of voice which he uses to set the pace for his readers.
Obviously, man has created God in his own image to produce organized religion for his own ends. That is why all organized religions by their very nature produce so many problems for mankind, they all basically demand faith in manmade artifacts and fairy tales which the followers of each religion believing they are right and the others doomed. That creates a fertile ground for
They may say that his accusations are harsh and that he is himself irrational in his beliefs. They may say that it is wrong to ignore ancient texts since they are the rational explanation behind their faith. However, once again Harris is not calling the people of faith necessarily the delusional ones, he is referring to the absence of rationality behind their beliefs. Also, Harris does not appear to be preaching his own spiritual beliefs in the first chapters of the book, his goal seem to be to open the eyes of his readers to what is not being said about religion. As to the reference of ancient texts, Harris is arguing that people choose to be blind to the flaws in these writings, some have not read them completely or blindly rely on the word of authority such as a priest.
Thomas Luckmann advocates that following the Protestant Reformation and industrial capitalism, personal reasoning has trumped religion in importance. Its presence communally has disappeared, and it has become a personal matter. The dialectic of religion has broken down owing to a lack of their ‘modernization’ quality. Rosalind Hackett, a theologian, in his article “Hackett on Revitalization” notes that a modern religion is one which is ‘reformative in nature and propagates the traditional
The Higher purpose will enable them to think that things that would normally be bound by logic can be broken and that the self, the despair that one feels for not being able to be one’s self or another a self. The wish that their life was somehow inherently different would be absolved by the faith that something beyond them has something for them. • A person cannot control the world. He is only can control how he feel and what he is thinking. he need to learn how to let things go that he has no control over.
Religion–it is something that has been in existence since the beginning of time. It brings meaning to life and death. It creates a sense of belonging in the world. On the other hand, religion, or lack thereof, has also been, in many instances, the cause of oppression, warfare, and even terrorism. Sometimes religion is used to the advantage of one’s self.
Forgiveness and Religion Religion is essentially an encounter between God and man. God is concerned with man; he turns to him; he reveals himself to him. This makes religion possible. And man turns to God; he answers him (Peschke, 2004). Oxford Dictionary defines Religion as “the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.
Stating the common idiom which says that “Knowledge is Power” usually the lust for knowledge in humans is what makes knowledge so valuable and important in our personal lives. Religion and its knowledge system is a key Area Of Knowledge that helps us in attaining this knowledge. Different religious systems have different outlooks and beliefs in terms of knowledge. There may also be those who also have no This therein leads to a conflict between the different notions of religious knowledge systems. From this we can deduce the knowledge issue: to what extent do religious knowledge systems add to one’s perception of the meaning and purpose of life.