The religious believer Essay Example for Free

The religious believer Essay Explain the difficulties which the problem of evil poses for the religious believer. [35] Evil is a multifaceted term that can refer to moral evil (acts committed by human beings such as murder or rape) or natural evil (naturally occurring events such as famines, diseases and earthquakes). Both forms cause unimaginable human suffering. John Hick described evil as â€Å"physical pain, mental suffering and moral wickedness. † It is not surprising, then, that the existence of evil can be a stumbling block for religious believers. Evil and suffering poses an obvious problem for the believer who trusts in a loving and powerful God. As Epicurus surmised in his inconsistent triad, if God is willing but unable to prevent evil he must not be omnipotent. Or, he could be able to prevent it and doesn’t. This means he is not omnibenevolent, and is not worthy of worship. The existence of evil calls into question the traditional theistic attributes of God. Hume had very similar ideas to Epicurus, he wrote, â€Å"Epicuruss old questions are still unanswered. † The ironical Hume suggests that the god who designed the universe must have been a failure at the job and should have tried his hand at something else. The creator of our universe, says Hume, might have been a god in his dotage. Or perhaps he was `an infant deity still practising his craft. The suffering of children is a particular stumbling block for believers. It is understandable why sinful adults should suffer, but unless one holds to the doctrine of total depravity children are innocent. The Brothers Karamazov by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky explores this theme. It tells the story of brothers Ivan and Alyosha Alyosha is a holy young monk, whilst Ivan is a worldly-wise young man returning home from the big city. Ivan tells Alyosha he cannot accept the suffering of children, using the horrific practices of the Turks shooting babies when they invaded Russia as an example. Although a work of fiction, this tale mirrors the experiences and doubts of many believers. Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously announced the death of God, is another philosopher who tried to use the existence of evil and suffering to disprove God. A vehement critic of Christian morality, he thought that the concepts of good and evil were invented in the course of an elaborate power-game, as a way for weaker people to undermine the natural drives of their more powerful oppressors. However, suffering remained for Nietzsche one of the central problems of philosophy. Under the influence of his fellow German Arthur Schopenhauer – a notorious pessimist who wrote that the longer you live, the more clearly you will feel that, on the whole, life is a disappointment, nay, a cheat – Nietzsche saw suffering and tragedy as intrinsic to life and impossible to reconcile with the idea of a loving God. Furthermore, John Mackie argues that God could have created any possible world. The steps in his argument are as follows: God could have created any possible world, it is logically possible in one of the possible worlds that free human beings always acted rightly, therefore there is no logical contradiction in saying that in another of the possible worlds God could have created, ALL human beings always acted rightly. Gods failure to actualise this world means that he is not wholly good. This could pose a challenge to the faith of religious believers. If God is timeless, then perhaps [and this is debatable] God could not deliberate between alternatives he chooses the perfect universe that His perfect nature leads Him to create and the idea of His choosing between alternatives is not viable. If God is in time, He had to take a risk when creating the Universe and may not have known what human beings would do with their freedom. For instance in Genesis, Ch. 6 says that God regrets having made men and if this is taken literally it can imply that he was taken by surprise at what human beings had done. In order to combat this, several theologians have put forward theodicies to explain the existence of evil. The Irenaean theodicy is ‘soul-making. ’ Humans are in an immature moral state, though we have the potential for moral perfection. God brings in suffering for the benefit of humanity and from it we learn positive values. Contrastingly, Augustine put forward a ‘soul-deciding’ theodicy. He accepts God is perfect. The world he created reflects that perfection, but humans were created with free will. Sin and death entered the world through Adam and Eve and their disobedience. Natural evil is consequence of this disharmony of nature brought about by the fall. God is justified in not intervening because the suffering is a consequence of human action. The theodicy that is perhaps the least accepted among theists is the process theodicy. Process theology argues that the reality of God is not fixed and that God himself is still developing. God cannot force anything to happen, but rather only influence the exercise of this universal free will by offering possibilities. The possibility of evil has always existed. Ultimately, the question surrounding the origin of evil and suffering will never truly be solved with our fallible human understanding. Suffering needs to be understood in the overall context of God’s omniscient plan. Finite beings cannot understand. Suffering could be a punishment, or a tool to bring us closer to God. To quote Joseph Conrad, The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. †

Advertisement Comparison Essay -- essays research papers

Advertising is the chief profitable industry in the United States today. Billboards, signs, magazines, newspapers, radios, televisions, and computers are just some of the places where advertisements are found. At the heart of any one company’s advertising campaign is the consumer. The consumer has complete control of their own money and can choose to buy any product or service they desire. Advertising does not control the consumers on what they buy. It only informs them on what they can buy. This is known as consumer sovereignty. It is the responsibility of the company to develop an advertising campaign that generates a demand for their product or service. A company usually promotes a product or service by means of appealing to a particular group in society. For example, an advertisement’s target audience could be men between the ages of 25 and 40 or children between the ages of 5 and 10. There are basic needs that all of us, as humans, share and the advertisement agen cies incorporate them into their ads. The most dominant needs include sex, affiliation, nurture, guidance, aggression, achievement, dominance, prominence, and attention. An advertisement can appeal to one or more of these needs through the use of colors, words, expressions, and statures illustrated in the ad. A comparison of two advertisements for the same product, but different brand names, will allow one to better understand how a company uses different human needs to sell their product. Two coffee ads, one for Cafà © Vienna and one for Millstone, will be compared to determine the dominant strategy that each uses to create a desire to buy. The ad for Cafà © Vienna coffee uses the need for guidance to appeal to middle age coffee drinkers. In contrast, the need for achievement is what attracts middle age coffee drinkers to Millstone brand coffee.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The colors observed in the coffee ads are supportive of the individual needs they appeal to. The Cafà © Vienna ad has a color fade effect to it. It starts with dark black and deep orange and fades to a light yellow almost white in the center. This supports the need for guidance because the use of color gives the person reading it a sense that they are being lead towards the light at the end of a tunnel. On the other hand, the bright reds, blues, whites, and yellows found in the Millstone ad support the need for achievement. The... ...nd coffees. Although these ads were for the same product, the companies involved used very different strategies to lure consumers to their product. The Cafà © Vienna advertisement appealed to our need for guidance, while the Millstone ad appealed to our need for achievement. Each advertisement appealed to a human need through the use of colors, words, expressions, and illustrations. All advertisements are planned out and target a specific group in society. The target audience for the coffee ads were middle age men or women who drink coffee. Advertisements effect every person everywhere and reflect the attitude of our society. That is why we must understand the concepts behind advertising. No one can predict what new forms advertising may take in the future. But the rapidly increasing cost of acquiring new customers makes one thing certain. Advertisers will seek to hold onto current customers by forming closer relationships with them and by tailoring products, services, and adver tising messages to meet their individual needs. So while advertising will continue to encourage people to consume, it will also help provide them with products and services more likely to satisfy their needs.

The Electronic Cigarette

Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, have become increasingly popular in recent years. Regular cigarette smoking has been on the decline due to many factors including price, health risks, and the fact that most public places no longer allow indoor smoking; making it an inconvenience to step outside and light one up. The convenience, affordability, and health benefits are just a number of reasons the electronic cigarette is rising in popularity. A comparison between e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes show a number of similarities and differences. E-cigarettes offer the same amount of nicotine regular cigarettes do, thus satisfying a smokers nicotine craving that is attributed with cigarette smoking. E-cigarettes just about look, feel, and weigh about as much as a real cigarette, so puffing on one won't feel foreign to the seasoned smoker. Smoking regularly can get pretty expensive and buying the e-cigarette start up kit can be just as expensive too. As a smoker myself, I have noticed a number of differences between cigarettes and e-cigarettes. The taste of a regular cigarette to me is much more satisfying than that of an e-cigarette. E-cigarettes lack the authentic tobacco taste that cigarettes have and this leads to a less pleasing smoking experience. Cigarette smoke is full of harmful toxins, whereas e-cigarettes have about 1,000 times less toxins and there is no smoke, only water vapor. This leads to why most people who aren't ready to fully quit smoking, to start smoking e-cigarettes. Cigarette smoking is also very expensive, whereas e-cigarettes require quite a heavy initial investment at first, around $100 for the start up kit, they pay for themselves in the long run and end up saving you money over time.

Negative Attributes of Old Society Essay - 1841 Words

Negative Attributes of Old Societies Starting out, you have to compare the negatives of the Polis from Medea to the negatives of the â€Å"romanitas† from Ovid. There were many negatives that we saw and read about in the book of Medea. The main negative was the state power. Of the state power there was the Bureaucrats, Politicians and the Lawyers. These three groups of people had the entire control over what would happen in their society. Even though Medea was a very loyal woman to her husband Jason, she resented the state power and in turn Jason gave her up. Jason was very loyal to the state power of the elites. Both of them were very loyal, but loyal for two different causes. Here is a quote from Jason explaining why he came to†¦show more content†¦I have no strength to drive these enemies from the house: you must come quickly, to your harbour and refuge! You’ve a son, and I pray he’ll be one who, in his tender years, will be educated in his fa ther’s arts†¦(goes on to say)...You’ll find that I, in truth, a girl when you went away, though you soon return, have become an aged woman† (I: Penelope to Ulysses). The last line is the most important with her saying that she wishes he hadn’t sailed away on a voyage to Troy from Ithica. It is similar to Medea in the way that she has a longing for her husband to come back. But at the same time it is different because Ulysses loves Penelope very much, although Jason does not love Medea anymore. There are the same basic negatives in each story because in Ithica the state power was also supreme. Although it was later on in time, the times that Chaucer was living in were still similar to the structure of society from Athens to Rome. The civilitas during his time basically meant that most things revolved around the upper class as well as religion. An interesting quote from the introduction of Chaucer that we read states, â€Å"The upper class or nobility, represented cheifly by the Knight and his Squire, was in Chaucer’s time steeped in a culture of chivalry and courtliness† (Introduction of Chaucer reading). In his time th ere were many fights between the social classes of people. The three classes were the clergy, the nobility, and theShow MoreRelatedThe Concept Of Quality Of Life1442 Words   |  6 PagesModel Case A model is â€Å"a real life example of the use of the concept that includes all the critical attributes of the concept† (Walker Avant, 2011 p.163). The model case for the purposes of this paper is for the concept of quality of life. Sean is a 49 year old, widowed father of two adult daughters, whom he clearly loves and through objective data is supported by family, friends and church family. 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