Religion affects every aspect of human life, including a person’s identity, the way they think and feel, and the culture around them. Although religion is a topic that is very important to many people, it is not often discussed. This lack of openness and discussion leads to people being very emotional about religiously-charged issues. Despite these controversies, Christianity is the one way for people to work through deep theological issues such as life and death, as well as helping one to focus…
Durkheim states that religion can be define through supernatural and its divine deity. Supernatural, when broken down, means everything that is nature, not made by man, is above us. What Durkheim’s implying is that nature has a soul that includes God within them. It’s possible because nature has a system that is followed by a mechanical law and is governed by itself. God and spirits are above this system is the religious idea. This view has people act a certain way towards things when they see…
Having considered how Sumerians in Mesopotamia and ancient Egyptians related themselves to their gods, it is also reasonable to look at how rulers fit into each society. Both Sumerian and Egyptian rulers were believed to be divine, however, in Mesopotamian society kings were regarded as spokespersons of the gods, as exemplified in a petition to a king where a citizen stated, “You in your judgment, you are the son of Anu; your commands, like the word of a god, cannot be reversed…” (Duiker and…
Gods at War, by Kyle Idleman. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013. 239 pages. Reviewed by Josiah R. Boyle This book was chosen for review because my Biblical worldview teacher Mr. Brackney assigned it to my class to read this book and to write a critical book review on it. Kyle Idleman is the teaching pastor of Southeast Christian Church and has written various other books. The thesis of this book is that the first of the Ten Commandments which is Thou shalt have no other gods before me is the most…
Carson McCullers’s novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter can be read as a religious allegory that validates why people depend on religion and religious figures through the symbolism of John Singer as a religious figure. This struggle is portrayed with the interaction between Singer, whom is romanticized in a religious way, and other characters such as Dr. Copeland and Mick Kelly. As a man who opposes religion and his family’s religious beliefs, Dr. Copeland seeks comfort and consoling nearly…
The Making of the World, good and bad were embodied by the deities of Tawiskarong and Tijuskeha. It was the moment where Tijuskeha, while in the womb, was compliant with natural birth that it shows how obedience was shown as good in contrast to Tawiskarong, who had disagreed with natural birth and killed his mother…
On their journey to find death, the three brothers come across an infinitely old man. They ask him for directions to death, and he tells them of a tree where he had last come into contact with death. After the brother’s part ways with him, he is never mentioned again in this tale or in any of the others told throughout the overall text. The presence of old men in literature are often portrayed as wise, god-like, or as a magician who is very wise. However, the man that Chaucer writes about…
different time periods, use different names for divine creators and have different animals to tell the story. However, the similarities between the two stories’ creation method, setting and portrayal of protagonists, show the reoccurring themes in native stories about the importance of nature and the blending of worlds with the divine and reality. To begin with, the two creations stories show patterns in how the earth was created. Although the creator in “Turtle Island” is a more human-like…
As a hospital chaplain, I occasionally led the weekly group meetings about spirituality on the Psych Unit. One week, a resident named Dee joined us. Dee shared that she did not believe there could possibly be a God because if God was real, then she would never have felt as lonely as she did at the deepest point in her depression. While in that room, surrounded by people like Dee who chose to share their faith journey and support one another, I bore witness to God’s presence in Dee’s life.…
control. If divine intervention is based on the Bible, then human related divine intervention is impossible. “God created humans in his image. Unlike animals, which act mainly on instinct, we resemble our Creator in our capacity to display such qualities as love and justice. And like our Creator, we have free will” (Genesis 1:26). Since humans control themselves, then the divine can not influence humans to save another human. This fact about non-human related divine intervention opens up the…