Overview
The first part is a comparison and analysis of at least three stories about God. This part should be between 1200 and 1500 words. You should start this part with a brief introduction that identifies your main ideas and findings and provides any necessary background or context on stories about God. You should then compare and analyze different examples of stories about God using body paragraphs. Each body paragraph should begin with a specific topic sentence. Topic sentences should specify the main idea of the paragraph and not simply announce the topic you are writing about. Here are some possible topics of comparison for your paragraphs: According to these stories, what is God? What does God do? What are God’s most important features? Does God have a physical body like humans do? In general, how similar or different is God compared to humans? How does God feel about humans? How would you describe God’s relationship with humans? What specific areas of human life is God involved in? What happens when God interacts with humans? Which humans does God interact with? Are there special places or locations in these stories where God interacts with humans? How do humans know about God? Why do humans believe in God? How does belief in God influence human behavior? What is the difference between stories with one God and stories with many gods? Why do all of these stories tend to involve conflict, punishment, and disobedience? Don’t try to answer all of these questions in your assignment. This part of your assignment should closely analyze quotes from the stories you are writing about; analyze at least one quote in each body paragraph (quotes are not included in the word count). This part of your essay does not need a separate concluding paragraph. The second part of this assignment is a conclusion and reflection where you draw broader conclusions about the genre of stories about God. This part should be between 400 and 500 words. You don’t need to write a new introduction for this part. Here are some possible questions to consider: Based on what you wrote in the first part of your assignment, why do you think stories about God exist? Why are stories about God important? What do stories about God tell us about ourselves and the world? What questions are stories about God trying to answer? What are the most important similarities and differences between stories about God from different traditions? Do any stories about God stand out to you as particularly unusual or unique within the genre? Are stories about God more literal or more symbolic? Who is the intended audience for stories about God? According to Sigmund Freud, believing in God is nothing more than an illusion based on infantile wishes for a protective, all-seeing father figure: “the religious man’s picture of the creation of the universe is the same as his picture of his own creation.” What does Freud mean? Do you think this is an accurate statement about God and religion, based on the stories you analyzed in the first part of your assignment? You can also use this part to reflect on what was surprising or difficult about completing this assignment, what you learned from it, and discuss any remaining questions you have about stories about God. You can also analyze quotes from the stories in this part of the assignment, but this is not necessary. Your assignment needs at least three stories about God. You can either write about two required texts and one additional text, or one required text and two additional texts. Required text: ?Genesis 1: Creation ?Genesis 2-3: Adam, Eve, the Garden of Eden ?Genesis 4: Cain and Abel ?Genesis 6-9: Noah and the Flood ?Genesis 11: 1-9: Tower of Babel ?Genesis 12, 15, 17: Abraham ?Genesis 18-19: Sodom and Gomorrah ?Genesis 22: Abraham and Isaac Additional texts: ?Any tablet from The Epic of Gilgamesh ?Any book from The Odyssey ?Antigone ?The Apology ?Any other story about God or the gods you are familiar with