Ralph Waldo Emerson, on July 15, 1838, delivered his acclaimed speech, “The Divinity School Address,” to the graduating class of Harvard Divinity School. Desiring to leave a lasting impact on the students’ beliefs on what religion truly was, Emerson cunningly utilized the opportunity that arose out of addressing an easily influenced graduating class. A fervent transcendentalist who believed in the innate goodness of people, Emerson attempted to convey, in this message, what he believed the essence of true religion was: a divine worship of one’s self, a belief that is in direct opposition with what Christianity encourages: a devoted worship of Christ and a reckoning of one’s carnal self. In “The Divinity School Address”, not only did Emerson
C.S. Lewis, a christian apologist writer wrote Mere Christianity in the nineteen-forties during world war two. Lewis wrote Mere Christianity in attempt to bring together a “common ground” of truths for the core of the Catholic Church’s beliefs. Mere Christianity shows readers logical ways of understanding the Catholic faith and he is presenting this central idea to help comprehend such ideas. The preface of Lewis’s Mere Christianity sets forth his ideas and arguments. Lewis is trying to convince readers his argument is credible and trustworthy, he is trying to get readers to understand his positioning and he is trying to give a sense of clarity. The preface shows Lewis’ goals when writing this argument; it shows how Lewis wanted so badly to express Christian unity no
Through the introduction, “Point of Departure,” the author opens up his telling with that there are many God-seekers in every land. Whether one faith carrys or the parts share in counterpoint, the God-seekers’ voices are being lifted to the God of all life. In this introduction, Huston Smith explains what this book is about. He says that this book is “not a textbook in the history of religions.” (Smith, p.2) In order to focus on the foundation of religions, locations and time of events are limited to the minimum. It “does not attept to give a rounded view of the religions considered.” (p.2) It tried to do reasonable justice to several perspectives instead of attempting to catalogue many types. When he decides which view to present, the guideline
This article, written by a highly-respected author, effectively discusses topics that I will be utilizing for the problem and solution sections of my final paper. For the solution section, Ehrenreich reports that “we should just stop the meanness, the relentless persecution of people who are already having a hard time.” In her article, Barbara Ehrenreich discusses the relevance of an argument she made a couple of years back in a book called Nickel and Dimed regarding the unfair conditions poor people often face. Essentially, an extreme number of Americans are paid less than what they can live on. Ehrenreich advocates for the creation of opportunities to allow poor people to get back on their feet and live a
Religion. It is a topic discussed throughout all of America as well as the rest of the world on a daily basis. There have been wars over it, political elections decided because of it, and millions of participants throughout the years. It is a part of several monumental pieces of history and carries on into the present day. Religion is what our nation is fundamentally built upon, all the way back to when the pilgrims came over on the Mayflower bringing their puritan based beliefs with them. What is interesting is that these beliefs from so long ago are still traced all throughout the everyday lives of Americans. It is asked, how is this possible, when the world is so different today than it was fifty or one hundred years ago? The answer is literature. Written works have made it
One of the numerous issues attached to suffering today includes immigration. However, God 's vision for immigration, similar to other topical concerns, wasn 't meant to distorted by the sense of intolerance and rigidness from both sides of the issue. Rather, this vision, also known as the Catholic Social Teaching, is based on the cornerstone of love, as God is the very definition of love. According to St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, love "bears all things...endures all things" (7). Keeping this in mind, the type of love that God calls us to recognize one thing: humanity is the very Image of God ("Genesis 1:26"). Therefore, it is crucial that we take the time to listen to all the sides of an issue; in the case of immigration, it means
There is a big argument among the world discussing the issue of evolution verses creation. The evolutionists believe that everything has evolved from similar ancestors, and over time they changed into the different species we have today. Creationists believe that everything that is on the earth was put here by a higher being that put all of the complexity and variation of the animals that are here today. I believe that everything that on the earth today was created by an intelligent being because evolution is just a theory, evolution is no longer happening, and it is unscientific based on the scientific method.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a novel that looks into the life of Changez, a young Pakistani man, that came to the United States to receive a college education from Princeton University. Changez later lives in New York City and has a very well paid job at a business evaluation firm. With the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Changez goes through many physical and emotional hardships before eventually returning to his home country. Throughout this novel, there was really one argument that continued to catch my attention: can you be two people at one time? During the novel, Changez argues his Pakistani side with his American side. He struggles to find his identity; therefore, bringing up the discussion
In the past few years, there has been much discussion on whether religious teaching should be part of the public school curriculum.
“Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice, it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.” ― G.K. Chesterton
Being moral in a growing and continually changing world is no easy task, especially when there is no specific rules or guidelines to follow. If one were to ask specifically what is morality, Appiah would say that living a moral life is living an “eudaimonia,”(Aristotle) or the idea of highest good, normally translated into “happiness,” or “flourishing” (402). Living a life to the highest good is a very vague answer, considering everyone’s definition of good is different, and everyone has a different view of happiness. These opinions are so diverse because morality is not just one idea, but a mix of ideas that make up each person’s moral values. In these difference in morals, there is bound for someone getting hurt in some way, either physically, emotionally, or even spiritually. Religion has major impact on the morality of everyone, even if that religious belief is no belief at all, that
In this essay, I will begin by defining the study of religion as discipline followed by discussing the many approaches used to study this subject. This will lead me to differentiate between the confessional and the non-confessional approaches to the academic study of religion. I will provide evidence from my readings to help define this discipline. Finally, throughout the essay, I will be using examples from my lectures to show the approaches I have been using to study religion. Firstly, what is the study of religion? The study of religion involves a variety of disciplines both confessional and academic. The academic or non-confessional
Science and religion has always been an argument for years. I think science and religion are both very important to the way of life and how we see the entire universe. But I believe religion is more believable than science. For science can be proven wrong at any given time and religion can never be stated untrue. Such as the story of creation, evolution, practices and beliefs can contradict these theories.
There is a belief among people that declares religion as the main cause of wars worldwide, and it has been the main cause of violence throughout the history of humanity. While we cannot deny that, some battles such as the crusades and the Lebanese civil war were based on religious faith, it is totally illogical to consider religion as the main cause of wars. Moreover, although there is also no disagreement that some extremist in Islam were behind 9/11, it is considered a misjudgment to say that all individuals in this religion convey the concept of violence and cruelty. The fact is non-religious incentives take the responsibility for almost all of humans’ wars. Lives lost during religious wars are nothing compared to those lost during non-religious wars.so why people believe that religion is the cause of wars, why they are wrong and do the extremist represent religions?
The human views on ethics are greatly influenced by certain beliefs, such as religion or philosophical ideas. Philosophy and religion are similar in this sense; they both are morally influential. However, if a person did not have such views, he/she is still capable of having good morals. Though religion is very impacting in many people’s ethical standings, and a majority of human morality is derived from some belief in religion or supported by philosophical reasoning, it is not the only way a person can be moral. Good morality is achievable without an outside influence, and religion may, in fact, take away from human morality by influencing a person into doing what is considered to be right as a way of earning a reward in the afterlife rather than just doing what is right for the sake of doing what is good in the world.