Summary Of ' The God Delusion ' Essay

Stephen Prothero’s “God Is Not One” is a survey of world religions, comprising vital information on a vast array of different sets of belief. As someone who has never studied religion before, nor belongs to a particular faith, the variability within these religions is staggering. One might be satisfied to define religion as “how a person goes about believing in God,” but soon finds that even that definition has its holes. Thankfully, “God Is Not One” does an amazing job of cluing its reader into the nuances that are sometimes forgotten about the religions it approaches.

While reading “Is God an Accident?” by Paul bloom there were many things that I agreed with. At first glance, I found it interesting how Bloom decided to break the essay into sections instead of writing a long essay. I felt that this made it easier to think about each topic individually in order to get a better understanding of his ideas. The first idea that Bloom introduces is that God is supposed to be believed in. He argues that the idea of an afterlife is true and that almost all people have a good understanding of this. He justifies his believe by providing evidence. A study done to children showed that us humans are able to distinguish the difference between the physical world and the spiritual world The study showed

Malala Yousafzai, 18 year old Nobel Prize winner and women’s rights activist, once exclaimed: “I raise up my voice- not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard...we cannot succeed when half of us are held back”. The idea of speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves is extremely important when it comes to striving for change, so being able to express the needs of marginalized people is a great and awesome power. Yousafzai’s quote specifically connects to women’s rights, therefore it can be used to support the feminist movement seeing as she is advocating for the equality, in treatment and opportunity, of men and women. Feminist beliefs do not only apply to society, but to theology as well, seeing as the teachings of the bible are extremely influential in the day to day lives and values of religious people. The text that I chose to highlight this idea comes from Elizabeth A. Johnson’s book Quest for the Living God, chapter 5 ‘God Acting Womanish’ because it directly connects spirituality and feminism.

Caribbean Indian slaves, Tituba and John Indian. The Parris family also had two other children

     Throughout these chapters we see many portrayals of God’s character: The destroyer, the ever-judging, a God with expectations, a God that grieves, feels pain, repents, a God that demands justice; a self-evaluating, ruling and omnipotent God whom also passes on saving grace to the deserving.

God is depicted in the Old Testament with a very bad reputation. David Lamb is an old testament professor and he addresses some of the reasons for this bad reputation. In Lamb’s book, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist? In his book, there are seven specific citations addressed that provide proof and evidence for those who would believe “God behaves badly.” The examples that Professor Lamb chose are: angry or loving, sexist or affirming, racist or hospitable, violent or peaceful, legalistic or gracious, rigid or flexible, and distant or near. With each chapter that Lamb writes, it provides multiple biblical narrative accounts and establishes a basis for the particular argument aimed against God.

The novel A Delusion of Satan written by Frances Hill describes the history of the Salem Witch Trials (“Salem”) in 1692, the causes and effects of the witch hysteria, and the biographies of major characters associated with the trials. In the novel, Hill started out explaining the Puritans’ beliefs and customs, the gender roles of men and women in Salem and why women were easily accused of being witches and practicing witchcraft in the 17th century. During that time, women were easily accused of practicing witchcraft because they were viewed as physically, politically and spiritually weaker than men. Men were perceived as the power, status, and worthy in the society, and they dominated women’s behavior and social status. In the 17th century, “Hegemonic Masculinity” was the criterion, and women were seen as “physically weaker” and inferior compared to men in the society, which made them easily become the targets of witch hunt (Mammone). Women were politically weaker than men because all of the high positions in the society and the Puritan Church were held by men, such as the position of judge, prosecutor and minister. As the Puritan believed in the biblical story of Adam and Eve, women were viewed as spiritually weaker than men. The souls of women were perceived as vulnerable to the devil’s traps, while the souls of men were less susceptible to the devil’s temptations (“The Salem Hysteria”). Therefore, the gender roles of men and women in the 17th century Salem society showed

God can be a very controversial subject depending on who you are talking to in this day and time; some people believe, some believe in other Gods and then there are other groups who do not believe in anything beyond this life. God has always had to deal with those who do not believe. God has been persecuted since the beginning of time and has proven over and over that is very much who he says he is. This paper will give you a better understanding of who God is, how humanity is affected by their beliefs, who Jesus is and how he is the way to the heavenly father and creator as well as how restoration will impact our lives as well as the beliefs I hold in God and how everything he created relies on the next in some way to survive.

In the study of Christian theology, scripture plays an essential role in the revelation of the Doctrine of God. Scriptures are “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) words, written by the Holy Spirit through divine inspiration of prophets. They are necessary for the proper understanding of the doctrine of God, the self-revelation of God, the proof of God’s existence, and for the discernment of false doctrines.

In his book God Behaving Badly David Lamb examines difficult texts in the Old Testament and tries to answer the hard questions that arise from those readings. In my own examination of Lamb’s God Behaving Badly I will look at a few of the- questions and difficult texts that I found most interesting. Specifically, I will examine Lamb’s response to God 's anger, apparent lack of concern for race and genocide, and violence in the Old Testament, and I will offer my own response.

For my book review I chose The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. I have read this book before, but I wanted to go through again, summarize and analyze it. The purpose of this paper will be to summarize The Reason for God and analyze it’s writing style and arguments. The Reason for God defends knowledge of God and is naturally an apologetic work. Interestingly enough though, it reads more like a pastoral than it does an apologetic work.

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).

a) Christians believe many different things about God’s nature; due to the huge spectrum of Christians that there are. However, as a general rule they perceive God as being one of the following four things:

that if one asserts something then one must deny something. He then goes on by

The philosophical arguments presented in this document are not of religious text, nor scientific observation or established fact. Rather the premise of this God proof is bring together and share the various theories on which other God proofs have established foundations. I have heard it quoted that “Philosophy goes where hard science can 't, or won 't. Philosophers have a license to.” Therefore, with this in mind, I attest that it is more than problematic to construct an argument authenticating the unequivocal proof of the existence God. If nothing else this may be food for thought.