Guidelines for Final, Individual Essay for CL/PHL/RST 350

Essay length:   3000-3500 words
Due:                Final Exam time - Thursday, December 9, 12:45 PM
Format:           Typed, double-spaced, standard referencing/footnoting, bibliography of all books, periodical, web sites, etc. used
 
Topics/            Each person is to select a topic that she or he really wants to research, reflect and write about, one that is
  Purpose:       valuable for you and that you will be enthusiastic to explore. The essay is to be an argument, not only a
                       summary or report, meaning that the essay is to have a purpose and is to give support and reasons for what
                       is being proposed and what conclusions are expressed.

                       Below is a long list of possible topics from which you may select your topic, but you may write on a topic
                       not on the list as long as you have the approval of one of the God-squad to do so.

            1.   Islamic God c/c with Christian God
            2.   Rational arguments for theism (analysis and evaluation)
            3.         "            "          "  atheism     "        "          "
            4.   Contemporary Physics (relativity, quantum & chaos theories) and God
            5.   Create a fictional debate: theist v. atheist
            6.   God and Innocent Suffering
            7.   Evolution and God
            8.   Anthropic Principle (in its various forms)
            9.   Holocaust and God
           10.  God in Western Art
           11.  God of Process Thought
           12.  Problem of the "Sacred" today
           13.  God and Social Theories
           14.  God in Modern Fiction or Drama, or in a specific novelist or playwright
           15.  Intellectual aspects of religious belief
           16.  God in religious fundamentalism today
           17.  God in science fiction
           18.  Ideas of God in American public life
           19.  Technology and God
           20.  Neo-Paganism and God
           21.  Christological debates of the 2nd - 5th centuries
           22.  The Puritan God
           23.  The psychology of ideas of God
           24. T he myth of God
           25.  Postmodernism and God
           26.  Kierkegaard's concept of God
           27.  Religious existentialists and God in 20th century
           28.  God and religious pluralism/interreligious dialogue
           29.  Emmanuel Levinas—God and Philosophy
           30.  Paul Ricoeur’s “Religion, Atheism, Faith” and other writings
           31.  Aristotle’s “God” in Metaphysics, Bk 12
           32.  Contemporary philosophers/philosophy and God (Plantinga, Swinburne, Alston, Pojman, etc.)
           33.  New Age thought and God
           34.  Academia and God

Why not make this essay the best one you have ever written. The best of the best essays are eligible for electronic
publication in the spring semester issue of Lotus, the journal of the department of religious studies at Marshall. Thank you.
  CL/PHL/RST 350 Syllabus   |   CL/PHL/RST 350 Schedule