This is a sample essay on Maimonides:
Maimonides attitude towards the ancient philosophers and the philosophy of the ancient world was that these people like Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and were wrong about a lot of things. Maimonides was a Jewish philosopher.
Maimonides didn’t like the Islamic religion. He believed that it was better to kill yourself then convert to Islam.
Maimonides had no religious tolerance. I believe he did not Muslim people because they forced his family to move around much until they decided to live in Cairo, Egypt. He did not want to even comprehend the thought that Judism was not the answer to the questions of religion. Maimonides wrote the book the Guide to The Perplexed and in this book he tried to interweave both Jewish law and Greek philosophy.
Maimonides believed that these ancient philosophers seemed to be missing key points in all thier arguments. This in turn gave Maimonides a chance to exercise and explain his point of view and why he is correct over their views. Maimonides states that all philosophers seem to believe that it is impossible for god to produce something from nothing. This means that it is impossible to create something with nothing present to relatively form it into, everything has to come from something including the universe. Many philosophers seem to believe the universe has a beginning and an end, with this train of thought it is intriguing to believe this because if the universe has a beginning and an end, a genesis and destruction then God must have a beginning also, he cannot be an infinite being then. The followers of this school of thought are Platonic because this thought is also inscribed in Plato’s Timeus and Aristitle’s Physics. Maimonides proves this wrong because he insists that the world must of been created from absolutely nothing, the heavens were also created from absolutely nothing because how else could genesis take place with god involved? Because of this thought it is assumed that by other philosophers god did not act alone in creating the world. These other philosophers seem to accept the principle that god must coexist with another substance to create the world and he could not if done it alone in his divine totality.
Another objectionable belief of our ancient philosophers, specifically Aristotle, is that real objects cannot be made out of non-real objects. Everything has to have a beginning and an end. Moses Maimodes understands Aristotle’s position on the universe when insisting that everything in the universe has never been different and has never changed, and the heavens are indestructible. Aristotle is convinced that God’s divine will of things cannot be changed at all, however Moses seems to agree with him on the most part, but the only thing not destructible is god, everything else must have a beginning and an end in a certain time period. Everything has a genesis and development. Followers of Moses Maimonides believe that everything in the universe has a direct certain order to it.
Aristotle seems to leave out in his arguments over genesis that being are brought into this world in one shape or form and then develop into another shape or form. For instance how can a baby survive with out eating, but eventually it develops what it needs to develop to be able to stand alone and live alone with its own regards. He followers of Moses are convinced that everything created by god must eventually become back to god, that is when there existence becomes none.
Al-Razi seems to be a philosopher who Maimonides has great difficulty in also accepting. This is because of Razi’s stance on evil. He believes that there is more evil in the world then good. He believes the existence of man is punishment within itself. He sees evil on a one on one basis and cannot see the whole of the world in which god has created. In the whole essence of the world evil seems to be a very small fracture of gods great kindness. Maimonides also goes on to call this man ignorant for these thoughts. Maimonides breaks down the small percentages of evil in the world as compared to good. He states that the only evils in the world are that ma n has to be subjected to destruction for starters. Man will eventually die in the physical and that is torment with in itself because everyday we wake up could ultimately be out last, but if it is gods divine will then there is nothing we can do against it. The second evil in the world according to Maimonides is man against man This is in the sense of wars and people using their strength to over power and force another man to do not what his own will tells him but that of an oppressor. The third type of evil in the world is what man brings unto himself in his lifetime. If man were to only keep it simple with food, clothes, and shelter then all the other evils of the world would not be great because man has greed, he has a deep want for things he cannot get and within that greed lies all the errors of the world because of what man must do to peruse these things.