Belief Is To Know When You Know God Essay

For William James, his perspective on religious experience was skeptical. He divided religion between institutional religion and personal religion. For institutional religion he made reference to the religious group or organization that plays a critical part in the culture of a society. Personal religion he defined as when an individual has a mystical experience which can occur regardless of the culture. James was more focused on the personal religious experience, “the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in

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.

Since the 19th century, William Clifford and William James have been the foremost religious theorist and have attempted to answer significant creation and theological mysteries. However, Clifford and James have varying views on the belief debate, each formulating a rational argument of what the basis for belief should be. Clifford’s, Ethics of Belief and James’ The Will to Believe outline their respective arguments which are vastly similar and but have marked differences. Both articles will be examined for these similarities and difference and stated within this paper.

This section provides us with two selections from the essays of William K. Clifford (1845-1879) and William James (1842-1910). Clifford's essay, The Ethics of Belief, is based on the concept of evidentialism. This concept 'holds that we should not accept any statement as true unless we have good evidence to support its truth'; (Voices of Wisdom, 346). James wrote his essay, The Will to Believe, as a response to Clifford's essay where he endorsed a philosophy called pragmatism.

Finally, we can see how William James takes an objective point of view from a few quotes in his book “The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy”. One of these quotes was, “ That is why I call pessimism an essentially religious disease.”Now although this may seem to go against his view of allowing people to believe their own thoughts, it is actually the contrary. This is because pessimism is essentially the belief of seeing things negatively or viewing things in a negative light. But, I thin this leads to the point in which William James says that religion is personal. Along with this, he stated, “Be not afraid of life. Believe

Faith in Christ has given me a unique life filled with optimism and purpose. From a young age, I have been raised in a home where I was taught about the love of Christ. Not only at home did I learn about Christ, but at school and at church. Thus, my life has been filled with experiences that have amplified my faith. For example, when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, I found that my relationship with Christ grew. Through all of the difficult circumstances that I have faced, faith in Christ has given me the encouragement that I need to persevere through any situation. Additionally, faith has influenced my decision making, which is why I strive to make all my decisions and live my life according to faith-based principles. This means

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:

Before I begin to discuss the replies Sartre provides for each objection raised, it is important to establish what Sartre believes existentialism to be. That is, it is important to understand exactly what Sartre is defending. Sartre begins his definition by defining the two groups of existentialists: Christian existentialists and atheistic existentialists. Sartre aligns himself with the atheistic existentialists for the remainder of the essay. What the existentialist philosophers have in common, and where Sartre begins his definition, is the idea that existence precedes essence. The reader is provided the example of a paper cutter.

Chapter 2 discusses faith as visualization of, and belief in attainment of desire. It goes on to discuss faith as another word for "Absolute Confidence." When a person has faith in his beliefs then one can say that half of the battle to acquire success is won. Therefore, when faith is combined with the vibration of thought then the subconscious mind picks up the vibration, translates it into spiritual equivalent, and transmits it to infinite intelligence. Knowing how to develop faith is a method by which it does not already exist is very difficult to describe. Faith is a state of mind, which may be developed at, will after the thirteen principles, which can be mastered in this book.

Sartre’s atheist existentialism presented in his lecture mainly states that there is no human nature in which man can place his trust; therefore, man is free to choose and is the definer of himself through his own choices and actions. Sartre begins by listing some prevalent oppositions against existentialism. For example, the Communists blame it for inducing “quietism and despair,” because the idea that there is no code of ethics to tell man what he ought to do and become generates fear that might discourage people from committing themselves to action. Christians reproach existentialism for

in this world, and they are effects derived from a cause. The effects in turn

The topic of knowledge and belief has been a subject of investigation and a primary field in philosophical research for centuries. Whether it was Aristotle or Descartes, multiple ideas on knowledge and belief arise, such as the epistemological theories of foundationalism or coherentism, which provide philosophical explanations to this debate. For the sake of this essay, and in my own opinion, knowledge should be distinguished from belief. Everyone is subject to different types of beliefs based on upbringing, however knowledge of basic items is universal, therefore it immediately becomes apparent that there is a clear distinction between the two concepts.

The word of belief is someone’s feeling that something is surely true and right in his or her point of view; in other words, it means “conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence” (Merriam-Webster). Also, the word of agreement defines as “an act of agreeing,” or it is a situation when people have the same opinion (Merriam-Webster). These two words are a two-edged sword that means they basically have both advantages and disadvantages in themselves. They bring about an integration of people by which leading to a new society if people have the same beliefs and agreements. On the other hand, belief and agreement deeply contribute to a huge, difficult, and complicated arguing issue when two groups of people disagree with each other. One of the significant issues that have been disputed and argued since in the past is an abortion. A lot of people are deep in thoughts and pose a question about this problem that a woman should whether have a right to choose the abortion or not. And this question certainly indicates some different results in three groups. The first group of people mainly has a few percents of entire American populations who agrees that women have their own rights to choose abortion in the case of some dangerous risks, such as getting raped and being unhealthy. In addition, the second group of people is Pro-Life who insistently tries to abolish and to prevent any act of

I am a Christian and I believe in the Holy trinity: God, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

The issue stated in the text is that everybody has a worldview but most people don’t pay attention to their own worldview and instead believe in other people's presupposition in the world. A person's worldview is based on the assumptions they make in the world and how you perceive it. But if your worldview is based on other people's assumptions and you believe that their assumption is correct then your view of the world would change based on what the others say. Because a person's belief in what others assume their worldview becomes more of a faith view. The example about believing in the presupposition of a religion without questioning them whether it's true or not is one way your worldview becomes a faith view because instead of questioning