Theism or Atheism? When humans consider the existence of God, they tend to look outward for evidence and inward for understanding. Humans must process both types of information through a filter that is based on an unwarranted confidence in human rea Continue Reading...
Introduction The moral argument consists of four components—moral facts, moral knowledge, moral transformation and moral rationality. As Baggett and Walls point out, the most pertinent moral facts are concerned with moral duties and values, par Continue Reading...
Cottingham and Adams on Faith as a Virtue Faith as a Virtue There is presently much controversy regarding the difference between theists and atheists, as the masses have a limited understanding of each of these groups. Naturalists are particularly Continue Reading...
Freud makes it clear in one of his letters that he is atheist, though he denies attacking Christianity directly, but as a default to attacking Judaism, which was his faith of birth. It can be called an attack on religion only in so far as any scien Continue Reading...
Responding to McCloskey McCloskey conflates argument with proof because theists take the argument as proof—i.e., as something that cannot be refuted. For McCloskey just because they cannot be refuted does not mean that one has to accept that a Continue Reading...
Existence of God The philosophical questions I will try to answer and why they are of particular interest to me. Opinions that ordinary people tend to have on the issue The great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam profoundly Continue Reading...
Otherwise, one field risks becoming subordinate to the other; although it's likely that Coyne's theology is extraordinarily sophisticated, the brief excerpt of it that Bill Maher uses leads the viewer to suspect that if these precepts are followed t Continue Reading...
' Religion is belief in the existence of a supreme being while science is a study to explain the how. The main conflict of these two disciplines begins with the concept of life. Religion explains that God is the creator and giver of life, whereas sc Continue Reading...
" (16) In other words, since God is not completely benevolent, one must protest against God for allowing that which is not just or that which is evil to exist. In an illustration of this strategy, Roth refers to the work of Elie Wiesel, who "shows t Continue Reading...
Pascal's Gamble The human condition is one of suffering and redemption. One who does not suffer is not human. Death and the withering away of youth and vitality explicitly demonstrates the entropic nature of existence. This situation is problematic Continue Reading...
God vs Evil Forces There is a major problem in the question of the existence of God as well as the presence of the evil forces. If God is almighty, loving and omnipresent how could there be suffering and evil forces in this world? With all the pow Continue Reading...
This contradicts the reason provided by McCloskey theism that only makes the life of man more difficult. If not for God, as Craig states, there will be no man and, therefore, there could be no argument that man will help each other in providing solu Continue Reading...
6 Is there any comfort in these? None. There is no comfort in believing that one's existence -- joys and sufferings included -- is meaningless. If it were so, then there's no point in doing good rather than evil. If there is no immortality with God, Continue Reading...
atheist. Objections and counter-arguments: McCloskey's "On Being an Atheist" In his essay "On Being an Atheist," the author H.J. McCloskey offers a multi-layered criticism of the belief in God and specifically Christian beliefs regarding God. McC Continue Reading...
An Ontological Argument for the Existence of God 1. Introduction As the epigraph makes clear, one of the irrefutable facts about the history of humankind has been the existence of various types of religions since time immemorial. Indeed, ancient peop Continue Reading...
Atheist- Review IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF Article Critique "On Being an Atheist" by H.McCloskey Belief in the spiritual or supernatural is almost always expressed by the individual within such a religious belief system. And there are huge nu Continue Reading...
Atheist An Analysis of Secular Humanism and Christianity Critical Analysis: Secular humanists would answer the question of the origin of man by referring to the scientific field of biology, which is centered on the ideas put forth by Charles Darw Continue Reading...
McCloskey's refutation of the arguments of existence of God and illustration of how God (and metaphysics) can be perceived in different ways and that this precludes us from making any final judgments regarding His existence and manner of rulership. Continue Reading...
Philosophy professor Alvin Plantinga explains that the argument -- "If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-good, He would have created the best of all possible worlds" -- is not satisfactory at all. "How, indeed, could one argue, from the existe Continue Reading...
How is it possible, then, that we can come to know anything? Methodological doubt is best represented in the first of the Meditations, "What can be called into doubt." In this meditation, the meditator is forced to think about everything that he h Continue Reading...
ethnological investigation and analysis, is centered on cultural and religious activity in a contemporary community situation. Essentially, the aim of this research was to observe various cultural and social behavior patterns as they pertain to reli Continue Reading...
d.). By our very nature of being able to ask questions, we refocus on our ability to image a creator who gave us the power to self-actualize. Since we know that we can think, posit, and live, if not through our physical means, then through what we w Continue Reading...
According to these arguments, God does not have a beginning in time, nor is he contingent. Therefore he is in a position to have created the universe. The moral argument (Hick 28), in contrast to those above, focuses on the existence of human being Continue Reading...
Is it possible that four or five billion people could be mistaken when it comes to believing in the existence of God? For the most part, organized religion was created by human beings who found it necessary to construct a belief system in order to Continue Reading...
The Humanistic Faith proposes neither a concept of deity nor a concept of Evil. We allow each individual practitioner to conceive of God in whatever way best suits their personality or cultural environment with the one caveat: that God never sugges Continue Reading...
Existence of God This report has the difficult task of trying to prove the existence of God. But there is a silver lining in this challenge -- we have ancient philosophy to help. By using the beliefs, works and philosophies of Saint Anselm and Desc Continue Reading...
Whereas Origen did, to a certain degree, follow Clement's teachings, he introduced his own point-of-view in the matter and provided his followers with less information regarding Christian mysticism. This is most probably caused by his interest in te Continue Reading...
Religion and Spirituality in a Broad Sense Spirituality and religion are two terms that have rather unstable, historically changing definitions, characterized by numerous implied and explicit theological considerations. Further, the general contenti Continue Reading...
There are further characterizations of God's perfection as a deity, and these include: (1) infinity; (2) unity; (3) simple; and (4) divine. These characteristics, identified by Toner, are evidences that show how monotheism as an idea differs from du Continue Reading...
Jesus Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz bridge a gap between trade book and scholarly discourse with their 642-page tome The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide. This joint effort by Theissen and Merz explores the subject matter of the historical Continue Reading...
McCloskey responds to this by asking "might not God have very easily so have arranged the world and biased man to virtue that men always freely chose what is right?" But in that case, humans would not have genuine free will. And God is justified, Ev Continue Reading...
" It caused missionaries to deal with peoples of other cultures and even Christian traditions -- including the Orthodox -- as inferior. God's mission was understood to have depended upon human efforts, and this is why we came to hold unrealistic univ Continue Reading...
This work provided an intensive discussion historical forces that were to lead to modern humanism but also succeeds in placing these aspects into the context of the larger social, historical and political milieu. . Online sources and databases prov Continue Reading...
Book ReviewGeisler, Norman L., and Frank Turek.I Don\\\'t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist.Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004.IntroductionGeisler and Turek have written a book that seeks to show why faith in atheistic materialism is irrational and not bas Continue Reading...
Pascal's Wager Pascal's "wager" is a fundamental philosophical argument defending belief in God. Through logical analysis based on a punishment-reward premise, Pascal shows that believing in God is preferable to not believing. The argument is called Continue Reading...
162) This solution also helps us to assert a response to one that might employ the existence of evil as a rational indication that God does not exist. That is, we are not any of us in a position of such divine knowledge as to discern how or why cer Continue Reading...
This essence is based on his belief that free will an the freedom of choice which is the exercise of free will are rooted in "uprightness": If freedom-of-choice had not been given to rational nature in order for it to keep uprightness-of-will for t Continue Reading...
Not only is a challenge present for Muslim teachers in attempting to standardize this curriculum but as well "this is compounded by the fact that curriculum materials related to teaching about Islam produced overseas - even for Arabic language studi Continue Reading...
1. Using the language of possible worlds, explain what it means to say that ‘p is consistent with q.’ The idea that p is consistent with q is a logical premise that supposes there is a world in which p and q can both be true. This premise Continue Reading...
160). Furthermore, Aquinas considers all people as being creations of God and parts of a whole that God represents. God's perfection has been passed on to its creations and thus all humans are perfect in their nature. Aquinas is obsessed with demon Continue Reading...
