1. Introduction: I will be teaching this lesson to a group of second graders at my church. Are classroom is on the upstairs level and, I will also be utilizing the outside area that is directly behind of my church. There are about thirty second graders in my classroom. So, it is a ...

One might begin by defining religion as a system of beliefs based on human beings' effort to elucidate the universe and natural phenomena, frequently linking one or more divine beings or other mystical forces and also entailing or binding devotees to pursue set religious commitments. Neverthel...

The Mesopotamian myth of "Atrahasis" tells of the creation of humans as slaves to their gods. "Atrahasis" also tells of the destruction of all people by a deluge, save one man and his family, who were saved by divine intervention on the part of the god Enki. At the myth's ...

"These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created" (Genesis 2:4) . This is the last line of the first creation story. Genesis then goes into another creation story, completely different from the first. The second story deals with a whole new set of questio...

Dualism is defined as the state of being composed of two parts. It often refers to the idea that man has two natures: physical (body) and spiritual (soul). Dualism considers the physical to be evil and only the spirit or soul to be good. We will take a look at how different passages from the Bi...

As William Blake wittily comments, "those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained," The Marriage of Heaven and Hell sneers at restrictions and advocates appeasing sensuous desires that are condemned by orthodox Christian belief. Blake masterfully makes a...

Young Goodman Brown In Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the tale of a man and his discovery of evil. Hawthorne's primary concern is with evil and how it affects young Goodman Brown. Through the use of tone and setting, Hawthorne portrays the nature of evil and the psycho...

"Do you know what I think is psycho, Rock? It's decent men, with loving families, they go home everyday after work and they turn on the news and you know what they see? They see rapists, and murderers, and child molesters, and they're all getting out of prison. Mafioso's getting ...

The book of Genesis in the Hebraic Bible begins the creation story of the world, rather than specifically of the nation of Israel or the Israeli people. Unlike the Exodus narrative, which often takes up the bulk of Biblical and historical scriptural criticism of the Hebraic Bible, the fi...

The Question of Faith in the Odyssey and the Book of Job From a very young age we are thought about faith, which is the belief and trust in loyalty of a god. No matter what the religion there is always a god that followers are told to believe in, and in doing so he or she would be helped in his o...

Human Suffering in Ancient Civilizations Suffering is a facet of life that all cultures must learn to deal with. Whether it is religion or mythology, humans must find a way to explain suffering and more importantly, death. Death is the single most unifying aspect of all cultures – after...

How did life on earth begin? Was it simply a matter of chance or does order predispose an intelligent planner? Is man a mechanism of a higher order? What explanation does scientific information support? Attempts to answer these and other related questions have proposed many theories and beliefs....