Religion is a very vital and meaningful thing in most people’s lives. Each person believes in a type of religion to guide their lives or doesn’t believe in it at all. This is an important ethical issue to Americans and world citizens that involves questions of duty, consequences, and moral reconstruction and was highly recognized by many famous philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, John Dewey, Karl Marx, and Augustine.

Dewey begins by claiming that doubt or insecurity creates the quest for certainty. Before there was modern science, religion had an answer to all questions about the world and any doubt was resolved by religious explanations. "Unity of thought and practice extended down to every detail of the management of life; effectiveness of its operation did not depend upon thought. It was guaranteed by the most powerful and reliable of all social institutions."(Pg. 291) This “powerful authority” was religion and it was very useful in sustaining a stable social system in times when security was hard to come by. Religion’s function was to provide certainty, but the development of science began eating away at away this single reality. Dewey defined religion as the higher realm

Augustine had his own concepts of religion and had far different views on what he considered good and evil. He blamed the sack of Rome on the beliefs on the Roman people. His whole dissertation in twenty-two books in The City of God speaks of the religion and his views on what he interprets from God. The "City of God" consists of those who will enjoy eternal happiness with God in heaven, the "City of Man" of those who will not. The city of God is not identical with the Church, since not all members of the Church will be saved. Book I is a list and an explanation on why Rome fell to the Goths: how the belief in many gods, blame of the Christians for the sack of Rome, and honorable suicide are some of the many reasons he attributes the fall of the Rome on the early Romans. Augustine stated that the Romans indifference towards other religions, namely the sacredness of temples, was another reason that the Roman Empire failed; Roman soldiers would attack religious temples with people inside them, not caring whether it was regarded as a safe-house or not. Even the barbarian army that sacked the city he attributed to Christianity, saying that even though they held no Christian beliefs, Christ led them. “This is to be attributed to the name of Christ and the influence of Christianity. Anyone who fails to see this is blind; anyone who sees it and fails to give praise for it is thankless; anyone who tries to stop another from giving praise is a madman.” He pressed his position so hard that it’s almost an order, not a belief. But many of Augustine’s positions went against the teachings of Jesus; Augustine rejected pacifism, which to some seemed to be implied by Jesus words about not resisting evil and turning the other cheek.

I think that all people need religion in their lives. There are many reasons approving of this statement: the value of religion gives people a moral code to live by, a higher strength to guide them when overwhelmed, it gives them hope, and puts order and control in their societies. Religion seems to explain what might have been misunderstood and puts it into terms that ones culture could accept and make sense of. Religion also played a big part in colonizing the New World. Many schools conserved religious heritage because it preserved their goal to encourage each student to develop a life-long joy of learning and to sharpen his or her intellectual curiosity. I think religion also tells people how to obtain honor and integrity, but first of all, why we should do so. It is our faith that also gives us the moral imperative to exercise justice in our society. For many Christians, religion is necessitated by the mission to foster and support sound Christian values and ethics in the whole community. Any religious tradition demands loving a community. One of society’s pressing needs is the honest pursuit of truth with mutual love and respect across racial, religious, and socio-economic lines. It is Christian’s biblical heritage, affirmin

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