All Religions Are One And There Is No Natural Religion

William Wilberforce was born August 24, 1759, in England, Kingston upon Hull to a wealthy family. In his early life he was taken to live with his nonconformist relatives in

William Blake was a poet and artist who was born in London, England in 1757. He lived 69 years, and although his work went largely unnoticed during his lifetime, he is now considered a prominent English Romantic poet. Blake’s religious views, and his philosophy that “man is god”, ran against the religious thoughts at the time, and some might equate Blake’s views to those of the hippie movement of the 20th century.

“The Tyger,” however, is part of the “Songs of Experience” collection, which revolves more around a “ruthless, ferocious” (Northrop 380) “world of experience” that an “adult” would live in (Northrop 380). Whereas the “Songs of Innocence” are “relatively light and optimistic poems” (Milton), the “Songs of Experience” are much darker in tone and exposing the world as seen in the “Songs of Innocence.” Postulated to be unique in the fact that these two collections were the most intricate of all of his works, Blake's “artistic vision” is clearly shown in “The Songs of Innocence and of Experience” (Curran 256). Being from this volume of Blake's most complex works, “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” are commonly thought of as companion poems because of the similarity and opposition found in the two. Each of these poems, read in light of each other, seem to revolve around the topic of religion, as many others found in this particular novel do. Leading to one of the central themes of the piece, it could be considered that Blake's overlaying message in the pieces were about religion. However, despite him being a Christian, albeit “unconventional” in his practice (Evans), the overlaying theme of most, if not all poems in the volume revolve around some aspect of humanity's spectrum. Thus, despite the use of theological logic in part of each poem, the idea of religion is explored with a more rationalistic

William Wilberforce was born on 24th August 1759, Kingston upon Hull, where he attended grammar school. Shortly after enjoying his life of owning an astounding, and benevolent friends and teachers, the bereavement of William's father had struck the family with grief in 1768, which enforced William to travel to London, and live with both, his uncle and aunt. Even though William was in immense grief, for his father's loss, young William seemed to proceed on with his life.

William Blake not only wrote poems but he made illuminated works of his poems as well. In the case of “All Religions are One”, the illuminated work is the poem. He painted the poems. He began with 2 pictures one of what appears to be a man, with the words below him, “The Voice of one crying in the Wilderness.” The man is just simply sitting and pointing to his left. His second illumined work for “All Religions are One”, there is a man holding a book sitting beside stone that seems to appear to be the shape of the Ten Commandments. There is an angle standing over his shoulder. The angle has a face of not peace but of sternness. The third illuminated work is the Argument. The Argument states, “As the true method of knowledge is

     William James was born on January 11, 1842 in New York City. His father, Henry James Sr. was a Swednborgian theologian, and one of his brothers was the great novelist Henry James. Throughout his youth, William attended private schools in the United States and Europe. He later attended the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard University and then Harvard Medical School,

William Blake’s poetry is considered through the Romantics era and they access through the sublime. The Romantics poetry through the sublime is beyond comprehension and spiritual fullness. A major common theme is a nature (agnostic religion). In William Blake’s poem “The Tyger” he describes the tiger as a creature that was created by a higher power some time before. In Blake’s poem he questions, “What immortal hand or eye/ Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” (Blake 22-23). He describes the tiger as a form of symmetry that can be seen as evil, yet have intriguing features such as those that make the tiger a beautiful creation. Blake also questions if that the higher being who created the tiger also created all else around the world such as a human being. Blake shifts his first stanzas from the tiger to the creator. Not only is he questioning who created the tiger, but he is also describing the beauty and evil of the world. The beauty that the Romantics believe in is nature and one evil seen through the world is materialism that distract humans from the beauty of nature 's gifts. He believes that people lose touch with spirituality when haven’t given to nature. Blake also illustrated his own works through

The Romantic Period centered on creative imagination, nature, mythology, symbolism, feelings and intuition, freedom from laws, impulsiveness, simplistic language, personal experiences, democracy, and liberty, significant in various art forms including poetry. The development of the self and self-awareness became a major theme as the Romantic Period was seen as an unpredictable release of artistic energy, new found confidence, and creative power found in the writings of the Romantic poets Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley, who made a substantial impact on the world of poetry. Two of the Romantic poets, William Blake, and Percy Bysshe Shelley rebelled against convention and authority in search of personal, political and artistic freedom. Blake and Shelley attempted to liberate the subjugated people through the contrary state of human existence prevalent throughout their writings, including Blake’s “The Chimney Sweepers,” from “Songs of Innocence”, “London,” from “Songs of Experience” and Shelley’s A Song: “Men of England.”

William Wordsworth was born on the 7th of April in 1770 Cockermouth England. William was the second of five children his parents their parents were John and Ann words worth. is closest of the siblings was Dorothy mainly because they were back together which marks the beginning of a lifelong friendship. William was usually very intense. William had a very unfortunate bumpy childhood. His mother died when he was 8 while his father worked as a lawyer for the Earl of a loser he was known for being the poorest Lee crust made who has the nickname of wicked Jimmy. Then his dad died in 1783 when William 13 that left him and his four siblings orphans. They discover that the Earl of their father a large sum of money, unfortunately, they were deeply in debt. They sued you are unable to claim any money

On September 17, 1883 in Rutherford, New Jersey, United States of America, the American poet by the name of William Carlos Williams was born. Born and raised in Rutherford, New Jersey he was a child of two middle class parents. While his parents showed love for literature and visual arts William Carlos Williams himself never showed much

“From the very beginning, scholars and critics with an interest in William Blake have sought to uncover the nature and source of his religious influences. However, earlier efforts to locate a singular ‘key’ determining his thought at every juncture have now been largely abandoned. Instead we are left with a picture of a thinker who has patched together a number of different traditions and discourses” (Rix, 1). In the book, William Blake and the Cultures of Radical Christianity Rix attempts to uncover how William Blake used his work as a platform for religion and politics. He also studies Blake’s reception of Swedenbogianism. Emanuel Swedenborg was a man who Blake took interest in, his work was a platform for radical and revolutionary politics.

The first stanza begins with questions and the second answers these questions. Mr. Blake uses the simplest of lines and the innocents of a child’s heart to communicate the theme of God’s sovereignty and His intelligent design. His intent is to display the positive attributes of the Christian faith, and to communicate this truth to many. My takeaway from this poem is that God, in His sovereign will, and infinite wisdom, chooses to use His creation in magnificent ways, in order to reveal His true nature to believers.

Nature was a theme factoring in many of his works and Blake associates nature with different elements in these poems and we find that nature is seen in communion with God in the introductory poem and throughout these poems Blake points out the relationship and harmony between Man and Nature, children and Nature and he also talks about sex in Nature in `The Blossom'.

Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, and raised around the mountains

For me it would be easy to create an angry indictment of organized religion. Evidence of religious strife and abuse exist in almost every society throughout history. Modern examples include the pedophile priest scandal, the endless line of Islamists ready to blow themselves up in the market place, the machete wielding Nigerian who hacks up his neighbors, the junta beating monks in Myanmar, the countries which have or want nuclear weapons and are ready to use them against religions enemies. The list goes on and on. However, the point of this discussion is to get you to think about the nature of religion and our willingness to accept it as a major influence in our lives.