Laws of Nature Term Paper

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One of these areas is religion, as Hobbes argues that religion must be something over which those who are operating society must have control in order to keep the people moving in the direction which society has determined is correct.

That, however, is difficult to enforce, since people are often not willing to change what they truly believe just because they may have been told that they should.

They may pretend to believe a certain way in order to get the societal protections that come along with that belief, but that does not change their true nature, and the natural law by which they are operating on a very base level. It is, in some ways, akin to committing a crime in that they know there would be societal consequences but they believe so strongly about something that they are not willing to change for society. Instead of changing, and instead of being honest, they hide what they truly believe and function under the guise of a belief that meshes with society.

That can serve them well from a societal protection standpoint, but does nothing for their true nature and opinion. If they are found out, it can also be a difficult time for them in that they may find themselves as outcasts and the protection they expected and enjoyed may be taken from them. Losing that protection is significant, because they may feel as though they are back to a state of natural law but that they also must conform to human law, which can be difficult to handle properly.


Hobbes also saw an issue with human law in what he believed to be serious misinterpretations of scripture.

He was concerned that a number of writings that were biblical in nature were being misunderstood because they were not being taught in the spirit with which they were intended. If that were the case, there would be what Hobbes termed "darkness" in the sense that he was referring to ignorance.

When people struggle with ignorance and human laws do not help them overcome that, it only perpetuates the cycle, which is them passed along to the next generation. In order to break that cycle, humans have to understand what points they are misinterpreting. Another of his concerns was that the church was the major beneficiary of the misunderstandings that were seen so frequently, and that the people were being kept in the darkness because of it.

In natural law, humans would believe what they felt was right, not what they were told to believe by others. Any laws of a sovereign creator would be evident in nature and chosen by each human individually, as a personal issue. This would be far different from the doctrines and teachings of the church, and seen as much more true and eternal......

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