The best way to understand why atheism is so important to me is to start with a little background. I grew up and still live in Texas, the region other Texans regularly refer to as the religious part of Texas. So my experience has also been shaped by my environment. I don't want to focus too much on emphasizing how religious the culture is, but I do want to give an indication. For example, few people I know accept the theory of evolution or the Big Bang; non-creationist scientific theories are largely perceived as bullshit with the infamous “just a theory” argument. Perhaps an anecdote can help illuminate further:
I volunteer at a small place that helps low-income people without prescription insurance obtain medicine. I have no idea
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it's just a phase; he's mad at God; it's in his nature to question everything), and I'm sure I've met people who delight in the thought of their preferred deity torturing my soul after I die.
Living where I do provides some advantages, however. It has forced me to confront Christian beliefs head on. I was inculcated to believe as a child, my beliefs were reinforced by Christian apologetics as I matured, and they were further enforced by the fact that they were accepted by everyone around me as true. My journey away from Christianity was rather difficult, there was always an inner voice refusing to let me be content even when I wanted to embrace the familiar.
The relentless urge to see the world as it truly is was always in me, but religion is a particularly effective antidote. It's especially effective on the young and the uneducated. Hence, during my journey to becoming less young and less uneducated I was forced by my inner urge for truth to spend many sleepless nights pondering Christianity, and I was forced by society to spend many hours listening to the same poorly thought out arguments for god/religion/Christianity. The only conclusion I could ultimately reach is that they're all untrue or non-existent. I can't be intellectually honest unless I declare that god doesn't exist. Unlike apatheists, that conclusion significantly shapes who I am.
That belief is so important to me
The religion my group is covering is Christianity. Christianity is one of the biggest and widest spread religions in the world. It was founded by Jesus Christ and his 12 Apostles. Jesus taught his Apostles the word of God and spread the belief that he was the messiah by performing miracles such as healing the sick, feeding thousands with only enough food for one person, and expelling demons from the souls of people he encountered. After Jesus had many followers, people started to worry about the change in the community and the Romans didn’t want to think about what might happen if people started changing their ways so they sentenced Jesus to death. Jesus told his Apostles that he would come back after his death and
In the article “ On Being an Atheist,” H.J. McCloskey attempts to inform his readers that the belief in atheism is a “much more comfortable belief” by effectively using a disdainful rhetoric towards theists and their faith. McCloskey delves into both the Cosmological and Teleological arguments, which within he criticizes the arguments and to further his argument against theism, he also presents the Problem of Evil and why evil cannot possibly exist with a perfect God being the creator of universe. What will be displayed in this essay are the counter-arguments to McCloskey’s criticisms and the attempt to discredit his claims that regard the “comfortable” position that lies within atheism and its arguments.
Faith and reason can be viewed as opposites. Faith is an element of belief, something an individual does not necessarily require a reason for accepting without reason. For example, an individual’s reason for believing in God may not seem too rational when they are trying to explain them. They may not even stand up to criticism. On the other hand, reason is constructed as a formula. Faith is basically something we believe in, like something we learn in church. Reason is something we learn in school, such as a math formula.
1. McCloskey refers to the arguments as “proofs” and often implies that they can’t definitively establish the case for God, so therefore they should be abandoned. What would you say about this in light of my comments on the approaches to the arguments in the PointeCast presentation (Lesson 18)?
One argues that today we have a crisis of belief, not a crisis of faith. To explain this crisis, I will briefly examine the relationship between faith and belief, explain why cultural shift is important to note when trying to understand religious issues, go into detail on the three hallmarks of each of the two cultures by showing how they compare to each other, show how Tillich’s notion of correlation deals with this idea of culture and a crisis of belief, and explain how Marsh’s notion of a “theology of negotiation” (33) fits with Lonergan’s definition and allows him to argue that film can help us raise theological questions.
Christianity is one of the major religions of mankind. It has been the dominant religion in Europe and America, Christianity has also spread throughout the world and has a greater number of adherents then any other religion.
I have a cold and he’s injured, so we are sitting on the wall in the room.
The belief in Gods has always existed throughout human’s recored history. Whether it be the Greek Gods: Apollo, and Zeus, or the Judeo-Christian God, believed by Christians in modern day society. The belief of God has always existed among humans, however, assuming God does not exist, what explains the cultural evolution of such a false belief, namely religion? I shall argue that the reason this false belief is successful is because it manipulates human nature better than any other belief by these three points: an avoidance of death (the soul), a sense of worth (knowledge), and a sense, or need of belief (faith).
My faith journey, began when I was born I was basically born and raised to be a Christian going to church every Sunday. To praying every night, to accepting the body a blood a Jesus, to understanding that all the holidays weren’t just for the gifts but it was meant for my savor Jesus Christ.
In the article, “On Being an Atheist”, H.J. McCloskey discusses the reasons of why he believes being an atheist is a more acceptable than Christianity. McCloskey believes that atheism is a more rational belief versus having a God who allows people to suffer so he can have the glory. He believes to live in this world, you must be comfortable. The introduction of his article, he implements an overview of arguments given by the theist, which he introduces as proofs. He claims that the proofs do not create a rationalization to believe that God exists. He provides 3 theist proofs, which are Cosmological argument, teleological argument, and the argument of design. He also mentions the presence of evil in the world. He focuses on the existence
Christianity is the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Most followers of Christianity, called Christians, are members of one of three major groups--Roman Catholic, Protestant, or Eastern Orthodox. These groups have different beliefs about Jesus and His teachings. But all consider Jesus central to their religion. Most Christians believe God sent Jesus into the world as the Savior. Christianity teaches that humanity can achieve salvation through Jesus.
Within my growth as a Christian, I have usually surrounded myself with others who possess the religious beliefs that I hold. As a result of my
To experience a new religion is to open one's mind to an entirely new world. For my World Religions course, I was asked to visit a place of worship for a religion other than what I was most used to. Upon considering being raised as a Pentacostal Christian, the first idea that came to me after hearing this was for Billy and I to go with our friend Arjun's family to a Hindu temple—since Arjun had moved away recently to go to college however, he was unable to attend.
I am a Christian and I believe in the Holy trinity: God, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
People in our society today who have the atheist point of view on religion, which is the belief that there is no god, are going against the so-called norms of society, and therefor are seen as deviant. Deviance is just an idea. Society determines what is deviant by the ideas they hold of what should be the norm. Atheism is seen as a negative deviance, or below the norm. They have a status that is placed on them in society. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they believe in evil, although that is how it is sometimes viewed from people in society who have a specific religion or faith. Atheism, which is not a new idea, has been evolving in our society, and is the reason for problems leading to debate and court cases, and for