Nowhere in The Natural History of Religion does Hume’s explicitly speak in favor of atheism (perhaps due to the fear of persecution at the time), and yet, I would categorize this work as atheist. Hume strategically places monotheism or “theism” in contention with polytheism, leading the reader to assume that one would eventually prevail, but instead, he picks apart at both until readers are left questioning their own faith and wondering what a more rational alternative might be. In sections 1-5, Hume discusses polytheism and its origin. In sections 6-8, Hume discusses how we transition from polytheism to monotheism, and finally, in sections 9-15, he compares and contrasts the two, pointing out weaknesses and flaws in both. Throughout the book,
Martin Luther lists the Ten Commandments, top among them the commandment against idolatry. Idolatry, according to the book, means having a wrong and false trust which translates to not serving the right God. I find Luther’s interpretation of idolatry insightful, particularly his analysis of the first commandment as demanding sole trust in God without ever seeking any other god. Luther further adds that idolatry goes beyond erecting and worshiping images to trusting, seeking, and pursuance of help and consolation from sources other than God. This interpretation widens the scope of idolatry beyond the common perspective of the practice, an interpretation I find enlightening and which introduces a new dimension to the understanding of the practice of idolatry.
The author used various devices to convey his view that Jesus had to be misunderstood for him to fulfill God’s plan. For starters, Mark’s use of apocalyptic devices was used in the beginning and ending of his Gospel. Other than condemning the Temple’s sacrificial system and the priest who controlled it, Mark had used other devices to indicate Jesus ministry is fundamentally an adverse judgement on the
Religiously polarizing is the act of finding the disagreements in religious beliefs and on that basis separate ourselves from those of differing beliefs. It is the idea of moving to opposite ends of a spectrum. People are religiously polarizing especially between secularism and individual spirituality. For example Religious humanists claim to be associated with an Ethical Culture Society, a Society for Humanistic Judaism or a Unitarian Universalist Church. They are note "nones".
This shows that just as I mentioned, Mark’s purpose was to prove and show facts of how Jesus was the Messiah. As mentioned in the course manual, if Mark’s gospel ended on the crucifixion, then the gospel would be missing facts, which could be essential of the belief of the reader and not to mention that it would be ending on quite a tragic ending that shows more injustice . It means that in order for Mark to capture more than just the injustice committed against Jesus, he had to differ him from all the other famous executions such as Socrates’s or Joan of Arc and let’s not forget to mention that it was vital to the Christianity faith for the reader to understand what exactly differentiated Jesus Christ from all those other
In a literature review by Burris and Rempel (2012) they suggested that evil in religions all around the world is surrounded by selfishness, the destruction of well being and impersonality. The researchers in the literature review suggested that in the perspective of Christianity, the concept of evil is seen as an act done to cause an inappropriate suffering. Researchers found that a great example of evil in Christianity is the crucifixion of Jesus was an act to end the well-being of Jesus. Judaism’s has the perspective that there is a dark side to everyone that is similar to the idea of Jung’s shadow, in which there is a part in all humans that is attracted to evil, the yetzer ra. In Islam the nature of evil can be understood within the relationship between adl (having done something in a traditional way) and zulm (having done something in an unorthodox way).
Alternatively, Shelley could simply be reproving Victor’s behaviour in his obvious attempts at playing ‘God’, and making that more damning by contrasting Adam with the Monster. As Chris Baldick has remarked, to early readers of Frankenstein it appeared that Shelley was ‘calling into question the most sacred of stories, equating the Supreme Being with a blundering chemistry student.’ In his analysis, Baldick contends that Paradise Lost lays itself open to this kind of impious treatment by Shelley, because ‘by submitting God’s providence to rational debate’ Milton had ‘inadvertently exposed the foundations of his religion to
Again, God does not answer these cries, but because of the hierarchical implications that were set up earlier the reader recognizes a greater significance to the scene and thus Adam and Eve effectively rise in spiritual status. Ultimately John Milton’s Paradise Lost, created the first movements of individual thought and ideas. Milton took a major risk for criticism to write such controversial perspectives. The exposing of hierarchy allows one to understand a culture. The exposing of a religion’s hierarchy allows one to understand the
From a theological point of view the holocaust raises the question of the nature of evil and the existence of God. This era has become the central barrier to the contemporary Jewish belief. Many have raised issues whether the all powerful and good God was unable to prevent the execution of innocent children, men and women of Jewish origin from 1933 to 1945 on n account that they were born to a Jewish parent. This dilemma of evil has led to the following proposals of various ways to try and solve the problem of
Overview From Biblical times to present day ISIS, religious prejudice has remained a global issue. The most infamous of these perceptions is the policy of antisemitism. Anti semitism,"the specific hatred of Jews", not only revolves around lack of Jewish tolerance, but also around trends associated with them ("Antisemitism"). Christians were very antisemitic because contrary to Christian beliefs, Jews did not believe in Jesus. As political power eventually trumped the power of the church, the Jews glorified beliefs such as civil rights, free trade, and democracy ("Antisemitism").