Argumentative Essay: Is Religion Worth Arguing About?

Religion and death are inseparable; religion is a guiding line from life to death and past it. There is evidence all over Mexico, which shows the first rituals to celebrate and honor the dead. Humanity is shaped deeply by religion and religion is shaped by society. Religion is used to construct and understand the world, including death. The preservation of the dead since ancient times shows the importance which was placed on the body and the need for the body to be intact when moving to the next realm.

In “Reasonable Religious Disagreements,” Feldman discusses the role of intolerance and relativism in argumentation in regards to how epistemic peers who have a share of the same evidence reasonably maintain their own belief, all the while, maintaining that the other party of the disagreement is reasonable in their belief as well. This essay will concentrate on the benefits of Feldman’s observation and the benefits of critical thinking in argumentation as well as elaborate on the main reason as to why people so desperately agree to disagree in relation to media coverage.

Though his writings have enjoyed public acclaim, Dawkins fails as an effective critic of Christianity for three basic reasons. First, the Christian faith he criticizes is a poorly drawn caricature of the real thing. Second, his critical arguments consistently fail to pass the rigor of logical analysis. Third, Dawkins refuses to take counter argument seriously, dismissing critics without responding to criticism that even his supporters recognize as legitimate. These qualities disqualify Dr. Dawkins as a serious opponent of Christianity.

Throughout the course of history there have been numerous conversations and debates addressing religion, myth, and one’s ability to reason with both of them. The notion of one’s ability to reason with religion and myth has left openings in the conversations of moderations and the various interpretations within the two mediums. Many theorists have been a part of this conversation. Among these theorists are Sam Harris, Rudolf Bultman and Karen Armstrong. Initially when one first enters these conversations about religion and reason many resort to arranging these theorists in a way that would depict that they have conflicting views. An example of this method would be Benedict Farrell in his Call for papers version one. Farrell throughout his paper

Skeptics and believers alike encounter a variety of questions about Christianity. Whether those questions are the person’s own or are asked of them by someone else, the exploration of how to answer questions about faith, the Bible, and a Christian worldview is often a defining factor in what an individual believes. Timothy Keller’s book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism attempts to answer these questions thoroughly and completely in order to convince the skeptic and affirm the believer.

Morality and ethics have always been a large source of debate and contention between different factions of various interests, beliefs, and ideals due to its centrality and foundational role in society and civilization and incredible importance to everyday life and decision making. In many of these disputes religious belief, or a lack thereof, serves as an important driving force behind one or both sides of the argument. In the modern world, one of the bigger instances of this can be seen in the many debates between Atheistic and religious individuals about the implications of religious belief on morality. One of the most famous Atheists, Christopher Hitchens, asserts that religion is not only unnecessary for morality, but actually impedes

The main controversy around Destiny Church is to do with money. While there are many cultish traits linked to Destiny, the church is renowned for its tithe, and Brian Tamaki’s lavish lifestyle. Both of these relating to the traits six and seventeen: “Is exploitative of others by asking for their money or that of relatives putting others at financial risk” and “Has insisted in always having the best of anything (house, car, jewellery, clothes) even when others are relegated to lesser facilities, amenities, or clothing”. Destiny Church expects a tithe of 10% from its members. A tithe originates from a long time ago, when a nation was divided into twelve tribes.

America’s right to religious freedom is under threat, and has been for a long time. It was written down in congressional records that the founders declared, “We don’t want what we had in Great Britain: we don’t want one denomination running the nation. We do want God’s principles, but we don’t want one denomination running the nation”. There has been a struggle for all of recorded history on one particular question, what is the correct association between church and state?

In the year 1654 at age 31, Blaise Pascal, the renowned mathematician physicist had religious experience that caused him to reorient his life towards writing a defense for the Christian faith. One of his most famous works was on the subject is “The Wager”, which argues, through cost-benefit Analysis, that individuals should take steps to believe in God. This entire argument hinges on the premise that epistemic reasoning is incapable of proving, with any real certainty, the existence of God; therefore, individuals must base their decision to believe, or not believe, on prudential reasoning. Beginning at the end of the twentieth century and continuing to the present day, scientist and

During our class discussion, we talked about one of the readings that were assigned that week. The reading was Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine by Galileo. We were split into groups of three and we had to discuss part of the reading that we thought was interesting. Our group decided to pick the second paragraph, because it shows how if one is close minded and stuck in their beliefs, it would be very difficult to convince them of anything other than what their beliefs already are, even if there is concrete evidence to say otherwise. We believe that this is a great paragraph at explaining that there are different types of people in the world consisting of science, religion, or both, that will either accept an idea or would not consider

Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss are portrayed as crusaders of science, fighting any type of religion that stands in their way in the movie "The Unbelievers." By promoting a scientific worldview, they believe they are promoting the one thing that makes us inherently human– curiosity. They believe that "there's no one whose views aren't subject to question", saying that religion is no exception to this idea of challenging beliefs. Dawkins and Krauss also emphasized that people should be able to discuss religion, looking at it much more critically than allowed in the past. I think that these ideas of questioning and curiously examining religion are two things we did throughout our class, whether it was discussing our thoughts in class, comparing different interpretations of biblical text, or reading articles that showed more alternative views to the typical Christian fable.

Religion in Schools has proven to be a very controversial matter as of lately. Even though teaching about religion is allowed in public schools, there are still many questions that are being asked in order to provide a basis of what is appropriate for school, and what is inappropriate. The first amendment to the United States Constitution says that 'congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof' which implies that you have the choice of exercising your own religion, no matter what it may be. However, this poses an interesting argument within the public schools of America because we have such a diverse population with

Driving with my friend to the movies one evening last winter we discovered a group of people bundled up and picketing by The Safari movie theatre in Moorhead.Ý My friend and I didn’t know what movie we wanted to watch, but these protesters made up our mind.Ý We decided to see the movie “Dogma” because that was the very movie these outraged people were boycotting.Ý Sometimes people carry their religion to the point where it has an adverse effect on people.Ý This was the case that evening.

In this essay we will discuss the importance of religion in society. We will attempt to explain why societies have religions and what functions their belief system has for them. We will also ask if these functions are now out-dated and if religions have any meaningful function in today's world or are they just stained glass windows into a bygone era? 'Religion' can be defined by two main groupings. 'The inclusive definition' covers all topics and subjects of a persons life including, not only, their belief in a deity but also their belief and belongingness to music, sport and any other interests the person may hold. 'The exclusive definition' refers to just their belief system regarding a 'supra-human' (Browne 2005, p. 311). It is mainly

Religion is constructed on faith and belief of an individual even though it is the individual choice to follow it or not. It has stirred a lot of debates for years; those who are trying to prove that God exists throughout history and follow to modern day. While, those who are atheist are trying to prove their point of God does not exist. There are still more and more theories and debate over the subject of religious view. It is a matter of theism versus atheism; new and old philosophers have joined the debate and all with different sides to another philosopher’s theory or view on the matter. In this paper, I will attempt to illustrate the reasons given by Louis Pojman of why religion is good or bad, as well as evaluating Bertrand Russell argument about religion. This can define the meaning of life and the creation of life as we know it. It can change views or switch sides for there is always another explanation to exactly what religion is all about and having a superior ruler that created all.