The Meaning Of Religion Essay, Research Paper

Part 1

In Sigmund Freud s book, Civilization and Its Discontentments, his account of society s drive towards force and decease helps mean the importance of the book s rubric. Freud believes that people have a deep desire for force and decease and that society uses any chance to fulfill those desires. Those desires, since they are non ever fulfilled, are what keep civilisation from being content.

Freud points to the history of human life and sees a immense sum of force and devastation. He believes the ground that society puts so many limitations on gender is that it is seeking to take sexual energy and change over it to a more general love for worlds, which can so assist antagonize our destructive thrusts and therefore do us more content. But he thinks that these attempts to antagonize our violent inclinations have had really small success.

Freud further explains his concluding about civilisation and its discontents by stating that it is our battle for life over decease that keeps society traveling. He writes, and now, I think, the significance of the development of civilisation is no longer befog to us. It must show the battle between Eros and Death, between the inherent aptitudes of life and the inherent aptitudes of devastation, as it works itself out in the human species. This battle is what all life basically consists of, and the development of civilisation may hence be merely described as the battle for life of the human species. What this means is that civilisation will ever be contending between life and decease. Freud hence suggests that since civilisation will ne’er win the battle of Eros, people will ever be discontent.

In decision, Freud s book explains his ideas on how civilisation will ne’er make an absolute felicity because of its battle against its ain crude nature. The battle that Freud describes is round: civilisation wants to be moral, so they fight against their inherent aptitudes of force and devastation, but in order to contend against these desires, one must utilize the same desires. Sing that it doesn t make sense for civilisation to battle force and devastation with force and devastation, Freud has good ground to believe that civilisation will ne’er be successful, or better yet, civilisation will ever be discontent.

Part 2

When seeking to decode what is world and what is non, one must turn to Rene Descartes doctrine for accounts. Rene Descartes one time stated, & # 8220 ; I am, [ therefore ] I exist. & # 8221 ; This statement holds the lone truth found for

certain in life and because of that, all other self-proclaimed truths are debatable. This is because believing about our ideas is an automatic proof of these ideas. However, this is due to the fact that it is easier for us to believe ourselves, even if we don t make any logical sense to anyone else. This would intend that our being is a truth, and may be the lone truth, doing all other truths to be false.

Descartes believes that it is from our experiences that we hold beliefs that we find to be our personal truths, but they may non be truths at all. From our experiences, we have learned to understand life with ground and logic ; we have established our thought of world ; and we believe that true perceptual experiences are what we sense and see. But it is our sense of ground and logic, our thought of world, and our perceptual experiences, that may be incorrect. They are our personal beliefs, but they may non stand true to anyone else. This makes it really debatable to hold a idea of world because it shows that our world is merely true to the individual that thinks it. Besides the established truth that we exist, there are no other truths that are certain because any subjective truth may be easy refuted.

Another ground that believing about world may be debatable is because every individual possesses his or her ain truth that may be beliing to another individual s belief. A truth, or one that is true for all, can non by achieved because of the changeless gesture of fortunes of who said it, to whom, when, where, why, and how it was said. What one individual may believe a Canis familiaris is a adult male s best friend, another may believe that a Canis familiaris is a adult male s worse enemy. Our perceptual experience of what is true depends on our ain experiences, and how something becomes true for us. All perceptual experience, besides the perceptual experience of being, is unsure of being true for all persons. Every idea, besides the thought that we think, has the possibility that it may be proven incorrect. The thoughts and objects that we encounter are determined true by personal rating in the relationships of those thoughts and objects in connexion with our being. The relationship of the thoughts and objects in connexion with another individual s life may be different to my ain beliefs, but this lone makes them untrue to me and non to the other individual.

& # 8220 ; I am, [ therefore ] I exist, & # 8221 ; Descartes said, may be the lone statement with any cogency of our certainty. We can non prove the cogency of our world, ground, logic, and perceptual experience in relation to all persons, but we can prove the cogency of our being by believing, hence, being.

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