Voltaire On Religion
Religion and its Fallibility under the Scrupulous Light of Rational Inquiry: the Satirical Critiques of Voltaire and George Bernard Shaw For those perplexed by the overabundance of evil in the world, religion has always provided an avenue for hope, and people throughout history have sought God for understanding, and reconciliation. If God, by definition, is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient, how do we account for the immense suffering, evil, and injustice that exists in the world? Moreover, a world with an astronomical amount of pain and unnecessary suffering? Could such evil exist and the existence of the aforementioned God still be plausible? To address the problem of evil, philosophers and theologians have put forth theodicies, …show more content…
I will now proceed to examine how George Bernard Shaw’s the Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God (1932) critiques rational inquisition into matters of religious faith. In hindsight, the sense of “cultural and racial superiority that...accompanied European colonization” was evident in the work of Christian missionaries in Africa. Rudyard Kipling, believed it was “the White Man’s Burden,” to move Africans from their backwardness, and towards civilization, through the spreading of Christianity. In Shaw’s the Adventures of the Black Girl...the white missionary responsible for converting, and as Kipling suggests, reversing the backwardness of the central character, the Black Girl, is annoyed by her constant inquiry pertaining to the ways of God, and consequently leaves her with an empty palate of unanswered questions. It is in this very first scene where Shaw is highlighting how religion, moreover Christianity, looks fallible under scrupulous light, and rational inquisition. It is such rational inquisition that leads the Black Girl and philosophers to question the nature of religion, faith, and their foundation in reason. With her questions unanswered by the white missionary, the Black Girl sets off into the forest in search of
Sacrifice In The Poisonwood Bible
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Compare And Contrast Essay On Young Goodman Brown
872 Words | 4 PagesYou take Yong Goodman Brown, a man living in an area and time where it is deeply rooted in their Christian beliefs. Then you have Phillis Wheatley who is an African slave who is writing to privileged white men in Cambridge. Both are planted firmly in their Christian faith and the difference is one of them is a slave, and the other one is a free man with a wife and family. Yet, after reading Young Goodman Brown, it seems that only one of them
Our Nig Analysis
962 Words | 4 PagesFrado tastes the freedom that accompanies citizenship when she realizes that she, like all other people, has the chance to enter Heaven. Despite Frado’s moment of freedom and equality with Christianity, Mrs. Bellmont attempts to take away her right to worship and, therefore, her ability to become an equal in the eyes of God: “her mistress had told her it would ‘do no good to attempt prayer; prayer was for whites, not for blacks’” (Wilson 94). Frado’s freeing position as a subject of God is contrasted with Mrs.
Compare And Contrast Douglass And Mary Rowlandsson
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Voltaire's Candide: Commentary On The French Enlightenment
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Summary Of Peter Berger's The Sacred Canopy
717 Words | 3 PagesThe use of God as a shield works on believers, but not on nonbelievers. The question “why bad things happening to good people” still cannot be answered for the nonbelievers, a common critique of religion itself. Regardless of the problem of theodicy, however, religion has worked really well to create and maintain the reality. Berger explains that it is because religion legitimates effectively. “Religion has been the historically most widespread and effective instrumentality of legitimation….
Frederick Douglass Corruption
1171 Words | 5 PagesDouglass questions the existence of any God because of religious slaveholders, beginning to have a lack of a belief in God due to the slavery system as a whole, as many other slaves had too. This subtle break in of humanism due to slavery properly illustrates just how beliefs start to fall apart, and focus more on attaining freedom before heavenly affinity. This theme of humanism continues into their childhood, whereas Douglass is taught by white boys how to read. This shows the original intent of children, “The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers.
Argumentative Essay: The Problem Of Evil
877 Words | 4 PagesOn the other hand, theists like Swinburne, believe that evil is necessary for important reasons such as that it helps us grow and improve. In this paper I will argue that the theist is right, because the good of the evil in this specific case on problems beyond one’s control, outweighs the bad that comes from it. I will begin by stating the objection the anti-theodicist gives for why it is wrong that there is a problem of evil. (<--fix) Regarding passive evil not caused by human action, the anti-theodicist claims that there is an issue with a creator, God, allowing a world to exist where evil things happen, which are not caused by human beings (180-181).
Religion In The 17th Century Essay
556 Words | 3 PagesReligion is a cultural universal that affects society in so many different ways. The various teachings can give explanations of things seemingly unexplainable, it can act as a way of social control, but either way religion is an integral part of American society now and it was maybe even more so in early America. In early 17th century, the Puritans came to America in a great migration to escape religious persecution and in the hopes of creating “a city upon a hill.” They established their society in New England and Puritanism dominated the area. In Puritan colonies, there was very little distinction between law and religious decrees, and this is just one of the examples of how Puritanism was the foundation of New England culture.
Summary Of James Cone's A Black Theology Of Liberation
1204 Words | 5 PagesCone’s theological project was similar to the work of liberation theologians in Latin America as they all viewed the Gospels through the lens of the crucified Christ and the bruised, battered, and crushed people that the Messiah identified with. Black theology contends that it is only by taking on the perspective of the black church – and the marginalized in general – that Christians can gain a proper understanding of the character and purposes of God and the work of Jesus Christ. Plantinga notes that Cone wanted “to stress the connection between black oppression and Christian faith in an unmistakable way,” which led Cone to make the provocative “claim that ‘God is black,’” and not literally black in terms of skin color or ethnicity but black in the sense of standing in solidarity with the oppressed. The unpleasant truth is that many of the white standard bearers for the Christian faith have been sending the message, either implicitly or explicitly, that God is white, I mean just look at stained glass windows in cathedrals or religious artwork of the past 500 years that has reinforced God’s unbearable whiteness of being. Cone forcefully argues that this idolatrous image of God needed to be broken to pieces in a similar manner to the iconoclasts who smashed to bits what they deemed to be idolatrous depictions of God in the Middle Ages
The Role Of Christianity In The Fire Next Time By James Baldwin
970 Words | 4 PagesFor centuries, Christianity has been used by white supremacists as a tool of oppression against people of color. More recently, Christianity has been used to justify the subjugation of black people through their enslavement and later segregation. Despite this, the black community has often been attracted to Christianity, “the religion of their oppressors,” for numerous reasons, including the hope for liberation (Brown Douglas xii). Black people raised in the Christian tradition have also rejected the religion in recognition of its unjust qualities. The challenge facing black Christians and those who deny white supremacy is whether to have faith in the liberating and positive aspects of Christianity, or to doubt the religious institution in light of its history of oppression.
Summary Of Changing Of The God By Frank Manuel
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