Theism vs Antheism

Do you believe in God? God is a being that no one has ever been able to prove exists. When someone chooses to believe in God; that decision is based solely on their faith. It is a decision that someone decides in their heart, which is often based on experiences in their life; whether they are simply personal experiences or religious ones. It is not a secret to anyone that God has never been be seen, heard, nor touched by any living human according to history and the present day. Though, the bible gives the personal testimonies of many righteous men of God’s goodness and existence, how can one prove that to be true? According to Nils Ch. Raught (2007) â€Å"If [an] argument from religious experiences is to be successful, we must focus our attention on those religious experiences that closely resemble ordinary perceptual experiences† (p. 180). So, I will give you my personal account of God’s goodness in my life and why I personally believe Theism makes a stronger case than Atheism. In January of 2005, my wife and I decided it was time to have another baby. Right after our decision, we found out that my wife was pregnant right away! We were so happy to be adding another addition to our family; our eldest daughter was already five at the time and we didn’t want to have our children too far apart. We were incredibly excited and made our announcement that Valentine’s day to all of our friends and family. Everything was going great until my wife went to one of a doctor appointment for her first trimester pre-natal serum screening tests. Basically, this testing will determine if the fetus has any chromosome problems that include Down syndrome. This test is optional, even though my wife was never told that during her visit. The visit went fine and the nurse told her that she would be contacted if the tests came back abnormal. Well, three days later my wife had a message on her phone from the nurse saying she needed to call about her blood results. My wife was a mess. She cried and said she knew something was wrong. After talking to the nurse my wife’s fears were confirmed; the blood results had come back abnormal. This was an eye opening experience for my wife and I. We decided that if we were going to have a Down syndrome child that we wanted to prepare ahead of time, since we knew that they have special health care needs. We scheduled an Amniocentesis and had to wait two weeks to get that test done. They were the two longest weeks of our life. My wife was a nervous wreck and I was too. During this time, we spent a lot of time praying and just trusting that no matter what the outcome was; this is what was meant for our family. Not being mad at God was hard; even though I had never felt as close to him before in my life! Finally, the day came for the test and again we had to wait three days for the results. On the third day, we found out our baby was perfectly healthy and that we were having another little girl. Even though, in our situation, God blessed us; I know he let us go through this situation so we could grow closer to him. I could feel his presence in my life during that trying time. Not only did my wife give birth to a beautiful baby girl, she also had our daughter on her Mother’s birthday. This is very significant because her mother tragically died in a car accident in November, of 2003. My wife went into labor naturally and had our daughter on my mother-in-laws birthday! We truly felt like God was blessing us! We felt as though for trusting in God and being patient he was rewarding us. In conclusion, one must ask themselves; do I have a purpose in my life? Am I looking at the big picture here? After my body physically dies someday, is that it? Personally, I think not. When one adopts the Atheist point of view, that choice accepts there is ultimately no superior being and no life after physical death. According to Nils Ch. Rauhut (2007) â€Å"[If] we conclude that God does not exist, we are faced with a different situation. While we are then free to dismiss most religious activities as nonsense, we consequently have to accept the idea that we are finite beings who live in a universe without ultimate meaning or purpose† (p. 173). I cannot accept that humans exist to live without any ultimate meaning or purpose; especially when we live on a planet that is so complex and beautiful. Can any scientist tell us how the Universe came into existence? Or, how old it is? There are creatures on Earth that are still being discovered today! Perhaps, one could look at the beauty in a sunrise or sunset. Perhaps, one could believe in God when they watch their new born babies eye lashes grow over the course of a week after they’re born; it is truly amazing! God created all things with such imagination and carefulness-each living thing is amazingly unique and has a purpose on this Earth no matter how big or small that purpose may be. In my opinion, Atheism is a belief that doesn’t leave much to look forward to. Though, it may be hard to explain God’s existence because he cannot be physically seen or heard, it shouldn’t be so hard to believe that the human race was created for purpose; one that exceeds this life on Earth.

Deadly Beauty Essay

Descriptions of beauty are thrown at us everyday in various and opposing views. While many people stay with the belief that beauty is internal, society’s view of beauty is propelled at us from every angle. Just turn on the television, open a magazine, or surf the web and you will find yourself bombarded by the idea that being sexy and being beautiful are synonyms. Critics argue that this view of beauty is causing our women and even some men to alter their bodies in damaging ways. While I agree that the way today’s society views is damaging and unrealistic, but I also do not believe this is a new occurrence. Throughout history various societies have caused their subjects to do damaging and dangerous things all for the sake of what they called beauty. Beauty has become superficial and a term that is dangerous and used as a weapon to control the mindsets of others. The word beauty is described in the dictionary as â€Å"the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit.† (Merriam-Webster 2012). So why throughout history has the human race associated beauty with physical appearance? The ancient Mayans went to vast lengths to change their physical appearances. Mayan mothers flattened their children’s heads with boards and hung objects in front of their newborn’s eyes to make the baby’s eyes crossed (Frater 2009) Both of these things were highly desirable forms of Mayan beauty but caused serious physical damage to the body. Corsets in the Victorian era were used to mold a women’s body into the curvaceous form they desired. The sacrifice they paid for this look were broken ribs, fainting spells, and in extreme cases, kidney problems from having a corset to tight. Today across the world people still become ensnared in the trap of so cietal beauty. The Padang women in Burma stretch their necks with long brass coils to attain the long necks that their culture desires (Tao, 2012). The spirals are started when a girl is around five or six and by the time they are adults they have around twenty brass rings that adorn their neck. The brass rings cause their collarbone to cave down and crush the vertebrae in their spines and their collarbones but the women refuse to take off the rings because it is what their culture views as beautiful. In American society numerous women and even men go under the knife to achieve the look they want through plastic surgery. For a substantial fee, one can change the shape of their nose, increase or decrease breast size, reshape a jawline, or even remove fat from unwanted areas. Less dramatic alterations are made on a daily bases through applying makeup, waxing away unwanted hair, and straightening or curling hair. It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to live up to the beauty standards of society. Although I know that all the pictures of beautiful women the media throws at me are highly photo-shopped, it still hasn’t prevented me from trying to achieve the perfect body and stunning looks that I gaze upon. In ninth grade I became anorexic. As a slightly over weight kid I became self-conscious about how skinny all the â€Å"beautiful† girls were. Even though I witnessed the ones who had zero personality and others who were downright evil, I felt that personality was worthless because being beautiful was what really mattered. I read countless articles on how to lose weight and how many calories each item of food contained. The more weight I would lose, the more compliments I would get on how beautiful I had become. Fortunately I was able to get help before it caused too much damage in my life. It still has repercussions on my life though, even now I find myself thinking a bout how I could get my body to look like those that are featured in the magazines and television. Instead of starving myself I have taken to makeup to contour my average face to look more alluring. I don’t necessarily enjoy putting on makeup. It causes me to question if I’m actually beautiful or if I’m just putting on a mask trying to fit in to the masquerade. This doesn’t stop me from applying it to my face in an almost every morning ritual. The false hope that I’ll live up to those photo shopped beauties keeps me adding new products to my collection. I want to be that Cover girl I see on the commercials. If I put on my L’Oreal Paris mascara, maybe more people will notice my eyes and appreciate them. I forget to practice what I preach and forget that my beauty is found within my personality and how I treat others. Instead I let myself worth be defined on how my physical features compare to models I see. There will never be unified description of beauty and the opposing arguments will bicker between each other until the world ends. Media will be blamed for the destructiveness of beauty through their highly edited photos and almost anorexic models. We as people must not forget that it is not just the media to blame for the way beauty is morphed but also ourselves. We have a choice if we are going to follow blindly along or challenge our societies descriptions on beauty. Past societies had to have had brief thoughts about the pain they were putting their bodies through, but still chose to accept it instead of challenging the view. We allow our cultures to use beauty as a weapon against us if we keep following blindly after descriptions our society throws at us we will never be able to find the true beauty that lays just beneath the surface of our skin. Works Cited Merriam-Webster. (2012) Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beauty?show=0&t=1354774384 J Frater. (2009, September 09). 10 facts about the Mayans. Retrieved from http://listverse.com/top-10-fascinating-facts-about-the-mayans/ Marky, C.N., & Markey, P.M. (2012). Emerging Adults’ responses to a media presentation of idealized female beauty: An examination of cosmetic surgery in reality television. Psychology Of Popular Media Culture,. 209-219 doi:10.1037/a0027869 Tao, Huai Sua. (2012, May 22). Long Neck Villages. Retrieved from http://www.ascensionatsea.net/Thailand/Thai_longnecks.htm