Theodore Roosevelt once said “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” Everyone will struggle at some point in their life and how they handle these struggles can either bring a positive or negative outcome. Peter Elbow’s essay “The Doubting Game and the Believing Game-An Analysis of the Intellectual Enterprise” describes the believing and doubting game and the effects they can have on a person. I have personally struggled academically in Advanced Placement physics. By choosing the believing game,I was able to overcome this struggle and was given a deeper understanding on how to deal with future issues. In order to examine how the believing game can bring a positive outcome compared to the doubting game, Elbow’s essay needs to be examined. My personal experience will be shared, and I will discuss why believing had a positive impact and left me with a deeper understanding. Throughout Elbow’s essay, the reader is given the definition and rules for each of the two games, being believing and doubting. In this essay, Elbow leans towards the believing game and tries to persuade the reader to leave the doubting game behind. Elbow states rules for each game that are used to form a plausible conclusion. The …show more content…
The believing game helped me understand how life works and not become so stressed if something does not go my way. Not all teachers will teach to my specific learning style. Believing that I can do well in a class and learn from any teacher helped me not only deal with high school, but will also help me throughout college and life. The believing game does not just pertain to academic struggles, but also any obstacle one may face throughout life. I learned that changing my perspective allows me to see that sometimes things are my fault and it is myself that needs to change, not other
By using helplessness in the story, Richard Connell creates suspenseful situations. At the beginning of the story, Rainsford falls off the yacht and is left in the ocean. Nobody hears his cries for help, as they are “pinched off short as the bloodwarm waters of the Caribbean sea closed over his head”(15). While reading this, the reader feels the hopeless situation as they watch Rainsford struggle. The desperation is doubtless; the readers are hoping the yacht will notice he is gone and will come after him, but knowing that it probably will not.
Does everyone in the world have a purpose to do something in life or a specific reason they were born at a certain place in the world? In the scientific fictional book, The Maze Runner, written by James Dashner shows the protagonist Thomas in a place he has never been to with many other kids that are trying to survive and all of the kids trying to find their purpose and the reason they were sent to this new world. This novel is about a big group of kids that were sent to a mysterious new place and the kids must survive under many difficult situations like robotic monsters and they are being watched by an organization that wants to see their survival skills. The conflict of The Maze Runner lets us readers understand this novel's theme. A very
Now, maybe it is my prejudiced viewpoint, however, Brooks portrays that total faith is possibly dangerous and we are positioned to see the journey of Mompellion’s faith and how it develops into a negative outcome. Brooks recognises it is important to have faith, however she suggest that the world should look at other solutions during times of
The power of belief shapes events into hardline certainties and creates situations where opinions will define the term success. In John Patrick Shanley’s story Doubt: A Parable, Sister Aloysius forms doubts about Father Flynn’s actions and diligently tries to expose Father Flynn based off of negligible evidence. A Catholic school in the Bronx is stuck at the crossroads as a rigid disciplinarian nun and the liberal parish priest share different views pertaining not only to their religion. The principal, Sister Aloysius, accuses Father Flynn of having inappropriate relations with the school’s first black student. She goes on a personal crusade to expunge Father Flynn from St. Nicholas without a fragment of validation expect her moral certitude.
With the understanding of confidence and trust, we can now understand Gustafson’s use of the word faith. It is now clear to us to “live by faith” in a community we must be able to live by faith with other individuals and groups within our community. “Each person lives in the confidence that other persons and social institutions are reliable, trustworthy, and
In order to understand their fear, people must face it. The central theme of the book is deciding what to do with one’s fear and “transforming fear into faith” (Nichols, 2010, p. 2). It calls the reader to understand that “the emotion of fear itself is not the problem. It is what [one does] with it” (Nichols, 2010, p. 13).
The author’s use of gullibility develops a larger point to his audience about the nature of society
In Lara Buchak’s essay, Can It Be Rational to Have Faith? , she asserts that everyday faith statements and religious faith statements share the same attributes. She later states that in order to truly have faith, a person ceases to search for more evidence for their claim, and that having faith can be rational. Although she makes compelling arguments in favor of faith in God, this essay is more hearsay and assumption than actual fact. In this paper, you will see that looking for further evidence would constitute not having faith, but that having faith, at least in the religious sense, is irrational.
Manipulation is often what one resorts to when it is difficult to understand the actions and reasoning of others. This is clearly evident in the short story “Thus I Refute Beelzy” by John Collier. The short story portrays a father named, Big Simon or Mr Carter, trying to manipulate his son, Small Simon, into believing that Mr. Beelzy is not real. In the short story, John Collier, emphasizes on the difficulty of understanding Big Simon through Small Simon when Big Simon asks of the difference between a pretend and a real thing. Small Simon is having a difficult time in understanding his father that Mr Beelzy is not real thus creating a bad relationship with each other as they cannot understand each other.
By placing the two cherished books into his personal briefcase, Henry Drummond exhibits the importance of both books’ existence. One must be able to question their environment to reach true conclusions for themselves, “The man who has everything figured out is probably a fool… it takes a very smart fella to say “I don’t know the answer”(1 2 414-417). Laying side by side the literature symbolizes the necessity of the contradicting volumes; because the subjects persist debatability and can equally support the argument and remain
Reasonable doubt proves that critical thinking is important when someone’s life is in someone else’s hands. “Twelve Angry Men” by Reginald Rose, is a play about twelve jury members who must deliberate and decide the fate of a man who is accused of murdering his father. These twelve men must unanimously agree on whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty without reasonable doubt. Just like the jurors, the readers of this play have not witnessed the crime that took place before the trial started. Everyone, but the writer, is in the dark about who committed the crime.
William K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief” is an essay about justification and how we are morally required to prove our beliefs. Clifford’s theory throughout the essay was “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” Clifford thinks that it is a moral obligation for you to confirm each of your beliefs with sufficient proof, no matter how questionable or insignificant the beliefs may be. I believe he thinks this because beliefs have serious effects and consequences on others.
Ender is an eleven/twelve year old boy, who has been trained since birth to be a weapon. He is the main protagonist in the short story “Ender’s Game”, although could he really be a murderer? When Ender was in his last “game” he destroyed an alien planet, killing an entire species. Ender never expected that the simulation, was real. Graff, Anderson, and Maezr all knew that it was real from the start.
Faith is believing there is light when all one can see is darkness. Throughout Hamlet, Shakespeare uses belief as a guiding force for his characters. They are defined by their faith, or lack thereof, and their beliefs lead many of their actions. In this time period, so many people had horrible lives, faith in an afterlife was the only hope in which to keep living. The concept of an afterlife based on how one behaved in life is a defining characteristic of many religions, and Shakespeare uses this belief as the ultimate decision-maker in many character’s actions.
The Imitation Game The Imitation Game is a historical drama based on the life of Alan Turing. Turing was a legendary cryptanalyst, mathematician, computer scientist, logician, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. The film, begins in 1939, when British intelligence recruits the Cambridge mathematician alumnus to help a team of specialists crack Nazi communication codes, including the Enigma. At the time, the Enigma was thought to be unbreakable.