Comparing The Song 'Imagine And Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion

One burning and enduring problem in philosophy to which we have given considerable examination is the question of the existence of God--the superlative being that philosophers have defined and dealt with for centuries. After reading the classic arguments of St. Anselm and St. Thomas Aquinas, the contentious assertions of Ernest Nagel, and the compelling eyewitness accounts of Julian of Norwich, I have been introduced to some of the most revered and referenced arguments for and against God's existence that have been put into text. All of them are well-thought and well-articulated arguments, but they have their holes. The question of God's true existence, therefore, is still not definitively answered and put to rest; the intensity of this

The two boys leave the town to join the Samanas, a group of people who believe that spiritual enlightenment comes with the rejection of body and all other needs. The boys quickly realize that their ideas of the group are very different, Govinda loves the way that improvements that he has gained spiritually and morally. While Siddhartha has yet to reach the spiritual enlightenment that he wishes to achieve. “Siddhartha learned a great deal from the Samanas; he learned many ways of losing the Self. He traveled along the path of self-denial through pain, through voluntary suffering and conquering of pain, through hunger, thirst and fatigue. He traveled the way of self-denial through meditation, through the emptying of the mind through all images. Along these and other paths did he learn to travel. He lost his Self a thousand

It was not flesh and bone, it was not thought or consciousness. That was what the wise men taught. Where then was it?"(6). He is thinking of taking another path to the self because he believes that he learned as much as he can from the Brahmins. With the Samanas his lifestyle changes dramatically and " [he] had one single goal-to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow- to let the Self die"(14). As a Samana, he wanted to let the Self die in order to reach the secret of pure being. The Samanas believed they could lose the Self through meditation, fasting, and holding of breath. In a relatively short time with the Samanas he is already on the path to becoming a great Samana. When he went through a village he his view of things was that " everything lied, stank of lies; they were all illusions of sense, happiness and beauty"(14). He called the people "child people" because their whole life was materialistic and they were always concerned with trivial matters. Govinda could see that Siddhartha would become an important Samana but Siddhartha became skeptical about this way of life. Siddhartha tells Govinda, " What I have learned so far from the Samanas, I could have learned more quickly and easily in every inn in a prostitute's quarter, amongst the carriers and dice players"(16). Govinda was appalled but Siddhartha explained that he said this because he believes that meditation, fasting and holding of

Alvin Plantinga is a Reformed Epistemologist. He does not necessarily agree with the solidity and rational behind Classic Foundationalism, which states that all nonbasic belief’s are ultimately justified by basic beliefs and all basic beliefs must be incorrigible and infallible. Plantinga argues, though, that people have basic beliefs that are not infallible all the time. These beliefs are axiomatic to our belief system but they are not immune to doubt. For example, we believe there is a physical, mindless world that exists outside the self. We also believe there are other human minds all around us. People believe these things even though we don’t have arguments for them being true. Nonetheless, Plantinga thinks these beliefs as perfectly rational, while a classical foundationalist would have to disagree. It is true, then, according to Plantinga, that we can be fully justified in holding a basic belief even if its validity is vulnerable to new, contradicting,

The traditional God in the Judeo-Christian tradition is known to be as an “Omni-God” possessing particular divine attributes such as omniscient, which means he knows everything he is also omnipotent, or all powerful. God has also been said to be also he is omnipresence which means he exists in all places and present everywhere, however there are many philosophical arguments on whether if any of that is actually true or if there is a God at all. This paper argues that it is not possible to know whether the traditional God exists or not. While there have been philosophers such as Aquinas, Anselm, Paley and Kierkegaard who are for god and present strong argument, likewise philosopher like Nietzsche and arguments like the problem of evil both make valid point on why God isn’t real.

God is “something than which no greater being can be thought”. 2. “Something than which no greater being can be thought” is able to exist in understanding and thought. 3. It is greater to exist in reality than to simply exist in thought.

To begin, much of Siddhartha’s young adult life was spent with the Shramanas in the forest that would teach him their way of life in order to be enlightened. It was Siddhartha’s goal to be completely pure in the mind and essentially become one with the universe. “Siddhartha had a single goal before him… to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of desire, empty of dreams, empty of joy and pain.” (Pg. 13). The

In the departure phase of his journey, Siddhartha completely shuns both internal and external desires and lives a more than humble life. During Siddhartha’s conversation with his father about leaving home, Siddhartha’s father, “returned again after an hour and again after two hours, looked through the window and saw Siddhartha standing there in the moonlight, in the starlight, in the dark” (11). Hermann Hesse’s use of dark and light imagery, emphasizes Siddhartha’s stubbornness for his desire to go with the Samanas, whose religious ideals are severe self discipline and restraint of all indulgence; he is adamant about leaving home, as his father checked on him countlessly and Siddhartha stood there unwavering despite the many hours and change of daylight so he could earn his father’s blessing to live the lifestyle of an ascetic. Furthermore, Siddhartha travels to the Samanas with Govinda to destroy Self and the multitudinous amount of desire by quelling each desire and all together Self even though he knows it is a difficult goal to achieve, “Although Siddhartha fled from Self a thousand times, dwelt in nothing, dwelt in animal and stone, the return was inevitable” (16). The effect of Siddhartha’s multiple attempted destructions of Self as a consequence of living as a Samana are failure in his attempt to discover Nirvana. Moreover, Siddhartha travels with Govinda to the Buddha after leaving the

Stephen Law conducted a thought experiment with a purpose of establishing the existence of an evil God, whereby he challenged those who believed in the presence of a kind and good God, doing nothing evil, and argued that the existent God is wicked indeed. The hypothesis developed into the challenge based on the argument that, if an omnibenevolent God is said to exist, yet there is so much evil in the world, then there is as well a possibility that an evil God exists, yet there is so much good. Law aimed to doubt not the fact of the existence of God, but the generally accepted assumption that the existing God is benevolent. Another researcher, Rowe, refutes this approach, arguing that the existence of a Supreme Being, who created people and hence cares for them, cannot be associated with evil. In fact, the presence of evil is a clear sign of the absence of a God. This paper seeks to take a position opposing to Law’s theory and prove that, despite the presence of evil, an omnibenevolent God still exists.

Humanity has existed on Earth for thousands of years and along every step in humanity’s growth, a divine figure/God has heavily affected human behavior in history. Whether or not if one believes God to exist or not, his presence and influence through the actions of people are undeniable. John Murray in his novel The Problem of God, poises the question on whether if the presence of God has been detrimental to human society and if freeing one from faith in God will allow humanity to grow and flourish or whither and decay? (Murray 120-212) God influences us in three major aspects, soteriology (who obtains salvation), theodicy (divine justice) and eschatology (the study of the end). God and religion has brought about

Most major arguments of God are rooted in the existence, or lack thereof. However there has been a continuous debate regarding the specific characteristics of God. In this debate, Charles Hartshorne, Alfred North Whitehead, and other the processed theologians oppose Anselm, Augustine, and other classic theologians. Although there are many points of disagreement, there are some characteristics for which both sides can agree upon. I will show one strong point of agreement and one strong point of opposition, and allow you the opportunity to decide for yourself how different, or similar, these two camps are.

In Siddhartha 's first phase, Siddhartha, a wealthy Brahmin found that even though “everyone loved” him, he could not “bring himself joy” and “please himself” (Hesse). This discontent was spurred by the fact that “the wise Brahmins had shared the majority and the best of their wisdom with him;” yet, he was not satisfied nor did this quench his thirst for knowledge but only fueled it (Hesse). Questions arose, about sacrifices, happiness and Atman, “did he who possessed so much wisdom live a blessed life” (Hesse)? At this moment in Siddhartha’s life, he was without peace and he wanted to find answers to these many questions. Focused and hellbent on the journey to enlightenment, Siddhartha made an audacious decision to “go to the Samanas [and] become a Samana” (Hesse). Through hours of an impasse between Siddharth and his father, his father finally agreed to let Siddhartha continue his life journey that began with becoming a Samana. Through this phase, Siddhartha learned he was unsatisfied with practices such as sacrificing, and that he had already achieved the wisdom obtainable from

While I agree with Anselm’s position regarding the validity of a supreme being as God; however, I can’t stop pondering that maybe our expectation in understanding the existence of God is probably something far from our ability to understand. Is it just possible that God is something some has the ability to feel his presence but not necessarily can be

In the bible, it says that “Fools say in their hearts, "There is no God” (Psalms 14:1). Anselm's reflection to this has become known as the Ontological Argument. Anselm defines God by saying God is that “which nothing greater can be conceived.” One way to interpret this phrase is to define “God” as maximal perfection, i.e. the greatest possible being. Anselm justifies his argument by using the idea of a painter. When a painter first knows of what it is he or she wants to accomplish, they have it in their understanding but does not yet understand it to exist. They don’t understand it to exist because they have yet to construct their painting. He is trying to say that there is a difference between saying that something actually exists in my mind and saying that I believe that something actually exists. when you hear the word square, you picture a square, or when you hear the word circle, you picture a circle. Anselm argued when humans hear the word God, they think Supreme Being. When I hear the word “God,” I recognize a God that I know from my personal experiences, but I also know that this God of mine is also working through the lives of everyone, not just mine. He has an intimate oneness with all of us, even if we don’t recognize or know it. I don’t think the God I know of is worried about whether people are religious or not. I think this God is interested in exploring experience, through us.

The existence of God has been in question for as long as mankind has existed and thought logically. Many questions have plagued the human mind in regards to God, and there have been many arguments drawn with the hopes of proving the existence of a supreme being whom we know as God. The “God” question has been presented to every individual at some point in their lives. It is a topic that will bring forth never-ending questions and an equal amount of attempted answers. Many philosophers have formulated different rationales when examining the topic of God, some of which include how the word itself should be defined, what his role is in human existence, whether or not he loves us, and ultimately, if he even exists at all. Mankind cannot