Of Belief In William Clifford'sCharacter And Opinion In The United States?

Given that our will plays a role in determining our belief, James argues if we should embrace this as a fact of psychological life, or struggle against it.

In The Sacred Quest, University of Notre Dame professor Lawrence Cunningham attempts the search for a coherent definition of religion. While he doesn’t strive for a one-sentence interpretation of what indicates a real, organized religion, he arrives on several elements and functions to give meaning to his definition. To Cunningham, there are five elements that make up a religion: belief, feeling, action, individual and community aspects, and values. Cunningham argues that these five elements exists in order to explain what could not otherwise be explained, enable people to sustain hope in the face of difficult experiences, and provide ways of thinking that provide goals and respond to “great problems” in life (158). All of these aspects work

“Faith, Truth, and Tolerance in America,” is a speech by Edward M. Kennedy established through literary devices. As he spoke to the college through this dialog there was historical, political and social views but also historical political views and points in which the speech had progressed by expressing views of religion being an aspect in how the government were to rule. Though there is multiple literary devices that are used to create ethical, emotional, and logical appeal, although the majority is ethical, he brings historical factors of political views of past politicians of whether or not it should be an aspect or an influence in government, most of which were presidents at one time or another. Thus informing the audience of the support

In Chapter 2, “Religion Matters”, Prothero briefly discusses how religion has impacted America even if it seems subsided, and why we tend to neglect it. When it comes to some of the major events of American history, Prothero argues that “none of the classic events in American history…can be understood without some knowledge of the religious motivations” of its major players. (Prothero) Perhaps part of the reason we generally ignore this statement is because of confusion and controversies it presents in government rulings and school teachings.

At the beginning of the semester, I wrote: “Religion is the institutional manifestation of feeling and believing in something beyond yourself” (Kelley 2016). Twelve weeks later, I consider this definition incomplete and problematic; nevertheless, it reveals how religious thinkers such as James Frazer, Emile Durkheim, William James, Mircea Eliade, Jeffrey Kripal, and Bruce Lincoln infiltrate our quotidian definitions of religion. In this paper, I hope to develop a new conception of religion, recognizing the impact of such historical thinkers on personal conclusions. In other words, I hope to show that we are

Faith, defined as a strong belief in something which cannot be proven, has been argued over countless generations. Still, even without proof, individuals worldwide hold true to their faith each day. After studying faith and religion in texts written by scholars with varying backgrounds, it is easy to see faith is something which is widely disputed. Comparison of Sigmund Freud’s The Future of an Illusion and Paul Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith, fully displays the discrepancies in points of view on the function of faith, as well as the necessity of faith, in society; while the comparison of Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning and Karl Marx’s “on the Future of Religion,” demonstrate both similarities and differences

Belief and our actions define who we are and how we behave towards ourselves and those around us. Peoples beliefs have been questioned throughout history and will always be questioned. In “Young Goodman Brown”, author Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrates how a man questions his faith and belief, leading to him to go out and to meet with the Devil himself. In turn the man, Goodman Brown, doesn’t believe in anyone in his town again. Shirley Jackson the author of “The Lottery” illustrates actions such as sacrificing others is defining the people of the town almost primitive which leads to those who are going to be sacrificed to question

William James (1897), on the other hand, attempts to define the permissible cases in which it is intellectually respectable to believe without sufficient evidence. James (1897) begins by providing three criterion for judging beliefs: either beliefs are 1) living or dead; 2) forced or avoidable; or 3) momentous or trivial.

In his lecture, “The Will to Believe,” William James addresses how one adopts a belief. There is a hypothesis and an option, where you choose between two live hypotheses. An option has the characteristics to be live or dead, forced or avoidable, and momentous or trivial. In his thesis, James argues how “our passional nature” must make our decisions about our beliefs when they cannot be certainly determined on “intellectual grounds,” however, this is not the case, we can always make the decision based on intellectual grounds. One can use Bayesian probability to gain some grasp of the situation and eventually to make a decision.

James taught at several universities including both Brown and Yale where he often had arguments and lengthy discussions with his students about religion. In his introductory comments, he clearly states that a lot of his freethinking students did not believe one should believe in religion if it cannot be rationally proven. This was contradictory to his thoughts and consequently wrote the paper in order to try sway his students view.

William James was an American psychiatrist and philosopher, born in 1842 and touted as the leader of the philosophical movement of Pragmatism and of the psychological movement of functionalism (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014). James’ rebuttal to the Clifford’s Ethics of Believe, was the famed Will to Believe.

In this essay I will argue what is Cleanthes’ strongest and most convincing argument in favour of Natural Religion. I will critically analyse each section of the argument and the responses made by Philo. I will also be evaluating the successfulness of both characters’ arguments and responses in order to arrive at a definitive conclusion on what is Cleanthes’ most convincing argument and whether or not I am in favour for it after considering Philo’s objections.

William James’ responds to Clifford in his essay title, “The Will to Believe.” (Burger, 2008) As we learned, Clifford argues it is wrong to believe anything without sufficient evidence; whereas, James’ argument is in some cases, despite insufficient evidence, it is still justified to believe. James discusses hypothesis in his argument. Said hypothesis can either be alive or dead. Additionally, there are decisive options for the hypotheses. These options include living or dead, forced or avoidable, and momentous or trivial. An option that is living, forced, and momentous, is a genuine option. Essentially, live or dead hypotheses are separated by how it interests the person. In other words, the emotional reaction or connection to the

Imagine a circle, and within this circle is our society, our religious beliefs, our political idealizations, and our culture. In his essay, “The Ethics of Belief”, W.K. Clifford wrote, “It’s always wrong, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence” (1879, pg. 190). Specifically, W.K, Clifford was contemptuously referring to our habit of clinging to our personal biases when there was no evidence to substantiate those beliefs, and/or despite evidence that directly contradicted those beliefs. W.K. Clifford advocated that we should utilize rational thought in order to uncover the truth, and cautioned against taking any actions prior to examining all the facts. Otherwise, W.K. Clifford warned we as a society would “…sink back into savagery” (190). At that point, W.K. Clifford touches upon the concept of what lurks outside our circle of society and culture: our primitive nature.

Finally, we can see how William James takes an objective point of view from a few quotes in his book “The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy”. One of these quotes was, “ That is why I call pessimism an essentially religious disease.”Now although this may seem to go against his view of allowing people to believe their own thoughts, it is actually the contrary. This is because pessimism is essentially the belief of seeing things negatively or viewing things in a negative light. But, I thin this leads to the point in which William James says that religion is personal. Along with this, he stated, “Be not afraid of life. Believe