Personal Ataraxia Argument Essay

What is my purpose? Since I’ve known how to talk, read, and write I’ve longed to know what the purpose is in my existence. I guess you can say, I’m looking for freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety. In other words, I am searching for what will help me achieve Ataraxia. This concept has been derived from the Greek philosophers. However, my personal Ataraxia has longed for the answer to God’s existence. The philosophies I will entail within my research paper are; The Pragmatic Theory, Skepticism, existence precedes essence, and the problem with God’s existence. The Pragmatic Theory is conceived by Williams James and to summarize; “A” is true if and only statement “A” is true works. “A” must correspond with our beliefs and correspond

This idea allows me to justify my belief in God’s existence based on logic and knowledge I’ve gained from my experiences. I render it implausible to say “Essence precedes existence”; you are who you are before you were born. Free-will hurts this argument and leaves you only with the option, “Existence precedes essence”. On the contrary, Robert Blatchford a believer in hard determinism, which more so argues for “essence precedes existence” says that environment and heredity causes us to make decisions. I agree that our environment persuades our choices, logic and knowledge we gain. Yet, environment doesn’t determine who we are. For example, a young man growing up in an Atheist community has friends that are all atheist. The young man might be influenced to become an atheist because everyone in the environment is an atheist. However, the man sees a bible in the community library. He has a choice to follow the norm in the environment and be an atheist. On the other hand he has the choice to believe there is a God. Either way he is making a choice, which has been impacted by the atheist in the environment. This topic brings me to the problem with God’s

Mackie, “In its simplest form the problem is this: God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists”. God is omnipotent, meaning the ability to do anything or unlimited powers. God is wholly good, meaning God is entirely good. Lastly, there is evil. In order for God to exist one of the three must be kicked out. There is evil in the world, as we look at society we can see the corruption, murders and etc. Therefore we must get rid of the idea God is omnipotent or that God is entirely good. The relationship between good and evil is as light is to dark. When light comes into contact with darkness it destroys the dark leaving just light. If God is omnipotent he would have destroyed all the evil in the world. Unless God has a limit on his power or he’s not wholly good. However, there is an adequate solution that allows for all three statements to work together. Free will is the power of acting without restraint. Since God is omnipotent he has a choice to use his divine power to force us into doing whatever he deems fit. Yet, God allows us to make choices, even when those choices are evil. God must hold the importance of free will more important than any evil capable of. This reasoning allows me to come closer to achieving