William James 's Will For Believe

The argument presented by William James in “The Will to Believe” covers theistic beliefs and also includes various philosophical issues as well as matters of practical life. James's primary concern is to argue that Clifford's Rule is irrational. According to Clifford's Rule, one should avoid error at all costs and ultimately risk the loss of certain truths. James claims that Clifford's Rule is just one intellectual strategy and then makes an argument to seek truth by any means available, even at the risk of error or being completely false. James is not arguing against conforming one's belief to the evidence. Nor is he arguing against the importance of evidence. His argument is against withholding beliefs whenever there is little evidence,

Hinduism is faced with a revolving wheel of life, death and rebirth called Samsara better known as reincarnation. They believe this life cycle is a direct relation to a person’s karma of deeds done. Karma “determines the kind of body, whether human, animal, or insect, into which he or she will be reincarnated in the next

Reincarnation also known as samsara, Is a major tenet of Hinduism. Reincarnation or samsara, Is the process in which one soul returns to Earth in a new body to learn and experience new things while working through your karma, this process repeats itself until your soul is pure and you can finally join the most high.

Our circumstances do not determine our lives. Instead, our lives are determined by our choices. That is not to say that our lives are not impacted by the country in which we were born, the family which we were born to, or the tragedies which touched our lives. We are given a choice of how we respond to those things, and the power of choice means that the lessons and value of our lives is not determined by outside influences, but instead it is determined by our reaction to those influences.

This quote confirms to the readers that the reasons why choosing the beneficial choices are vital. Whether you make a choice to a difficult path or a tranquil path in a life, the desired choice is the finest thing you need in life. The choice can be justifying foolish beliefs, making bad decisions, or performing hurtful acts, but we will all learn from our mistakes and prevent them from happening again in the future. As this quote is very short, it allows the reader to take this vital lesson and apply it into our lives.

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.

William James explains his position on religious belief by relating his idea to that of Pascal’s. He does think that is reasonable to believe in God without evidence, but not based on Pascal’s wager which is to base your belief on cost-benefit analysis; James thinks this is wrong because it is not live. James does think it is permissible to believe without evidence when we have a genuine option that cannot by its nature be decided on intellectual grounds. That is when our passional nature takes over and decides the matter. James states how when he is explaining passional nature he means “all factors of belief as ear and hope, prejudice and passion, imitation and partisanship, the circumpressure of our caste and set,” and then says that when we find ourselves believing we don’t know how or why. James begins his paper by explaining is stance on belief by writing that anything that may be proposed to our belief is a hypothesis. He goes on to explain that the decision of two hypotheses is an option. There are several options: living if both possibilities appeal as real possibilities for the agent, forced if it is unavoidable, and momentous if it is not trivial. He states that religion is a momentous option, and that “we are supposed to gain, even now, by our belief, and to lose by our non-belief, a certain vital good.” He then goes on to say that religion is also a forced option; we cannot remain skeptical and wait for a greater evidence to believe. However, he does say that

Akasha is associated with a sort of raw and primal energy that extends into everything, but has no form or substance itself. It is sometimes described using imagery of a void or black hole that contains energy but has none itself. The image of Spirit may be highly personal, and while meditating on it, it is best to not use external stimuli as it may influence the deeply personal and unique understanding each individual has.

During the time James was writing his paper, another professor, William Kingdom Clifford was backing the opposite. He believed that belief without evidence is immoral. He wrote an essay called the ‘The Ethics of Belief’; he wrote ‘It’s wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence’. He first used this statement to explain all aspects of life but he later applied it specifically to religious belief. The will to believe was written after the ethics of belief and was written to combat the arguments and plays off all the failures in

Reincarnation is a common belief in the eastern part of the world, with Buddhism as well as Hinduism, supporting the idea of rebirth. In Hinduism each person has an essential self which is called the Atman, and is

The most interesting part of this week’s reading is The Four Noble Truths. In Buddha’s first sermon he discussed these truths to his disciples. The Four Noble Truths are: Life is suffering, suffering is caused by craving, suffering can have an end, and there is a path which leads to the end of suffering. Life is suffering is the realization that the world is in fact suffering. Suffering and pain are referred to as “Duhka”, there are three types of Duhka’s. “Duhka Duhka” is suffering due to biological causes which can refer to physical illness or broken bones. The second is “Viparinama Duhka” which refers to suffering due to change or impermanence, which is pain due to the fact that nothing lasts forever i.e. a person’s life. The final is “Samskara

Atman and Brahman is not a matter of whom, but a matter of what. The idea is Atman and Brahman are all interrelated and could not exist without each other. However, Atman is described as the central idea in all the Upanishads scriptures and is the everlasting spiritual core in all living creatures. Atman is also seen as the deepest level of one’s existence. According to the textbook “The Upanishads explores the relationship between the individual self (Atman) and this underlying one-this comic self, Brahman” (309) which further explains how Atman and Brahman are intertwined. Brahman is the basis of existence and is uncreated and infinite. The text describes Brahman as “five immense beings – earth, wind, space, the waters, and the lights; it

As many people are taught to have a positive outlook, it might not be until one practices meditative rituals that one realizes that there are aspects of life where possible pleasure is absent. It is also important to recognize that suffering is an unavoidable result of changes in life. Anything that brings joy must end at some time and that ending will inevitably bring pain. Suffering can be sorted into three categories: Duhkha-duhkha, vipariṇāma-duḥkha, and saṃskāraduḥkha. Duhkha-duhkha is about physical suffering such as sickness, injury, death, etc. These are the pains that Buddha first saw when he left his palace, before seeking enlightenment. Vipariṇāma-duḥkha refers to the suffering that results in change. Since the world is constantly changing, one can never be certain as to their happiness for the next day, and the day after that. This uncertainty of happiness is an absence of pleasure in and of itself. Saṃskāraduḥkha, in common terms, can be summed up as “all good things come to an end”. Everything that is or has been has an end. Everything must return to the various states it was before it was formed. For example, no matter what sort of life a human being experienced, in the end all humans face death and the bodies disassemble into the various components it is made of. The body decays and breaks down into the materials that form it such as carbon, minerals, and vitamins.

The Upanishads, the final Vedic scripture, changed that to reflect the search of atman to be reunited with the universal soul through enlightenment. [ 3 ]

Through many religious teachings you will hear that reincarnation is a vicious endless cycle of