TOPIC - Philosophy religion

Index • Philosophical Religion 1. Argument for theism a) Ontological arguments.b) Design arguments c) Cosmological arguments d) Moral & experimental arguments 2. Arguments for atheism e) The logical problem of evil b) The evidential problem of evil 3. Death & afterlife

Philosophy religion • The philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts

involved in religious traditions. • It is an ancient discipline, being found in the earliest

known manuscripts concerning philosophy, and relates to many other branches of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.

• The philosophy of religion differs from religious philosophy in that it seeks to discuss questions regarding the nature of religion as a whole, rather than examining the problems brought forth by a particular belief system.

• It is designed such that it can be carried out dispassionately by those who identify as believers or non-believers.

Arguments for theism

Theism is generally taken to be the view that there is a person who is bodiless, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, perfectly good, perfectly free, and who is the creator and sustainer of the universe. There are of course different ways to spell out these attributes, for example some spell out ‘eternal‘ as ‘being outside of time‘, others as ‘everlasting‘. However, those who present arguments for or against the ‘existence of God‘ use the term ‘God’ similarly enough to be discussing the same question. Philosophers rather say that there is no God than using ‘God’ in a very different sense, for example in the sense of something other than a person. Most or all arguments for or against theism, today as well as in the past, are not assumed to make belief in God somehow ‘apodictically‘ certain. However, some arguments are deductive, others inductive.

The Western tradition of philosophical discussion of the

existence of God began (Cosmological)

Plato and Aristotle

Other arguments (first ontological

argument) (Averroes) and Thomas

Aquinas (René Descartes), who

said that the existence of a benevolent

aforementioned Kant, David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche and Bertrand

Russell.

Modern culture

Stephen Hawking, Francis Collins, Lawrence M. Krauss, Richard Dawkins and John Lennox, as well as

philosophers including Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane

Craig, Rebecca Goldstein, A. C. Grayling, Daniel Dennett, Edward

Feser, David Bentley Hart and Sam Harris.

Against the existence of God

Ontological arguments• An ontological argument is a philosophical

argument for the existence of God that uses ontology.

• Many arguments fall under the category of the ontological, and they tend to involve arguments about the state of being or existing.

• More specifically, ontological arguments tend to start with an a priori theory about the organization of the universe.

• If that organizational structure is true, the argument will provide reasons why God must exist.

• The first ontological argument in the Western Christian tradition was proposed by Anselm of Canterbury in his 1078 work Proslogion.

Design argument Briefly compare three different design arguments for the existence of God, or an intelligent creator; the probability argument, Paley’s argument by analogy and Richard Taylor's argument by example.

The first of these, the probability argument is perhaps not strictly speaking a design argument but it is at the very least a close relation.

What the argument by probability does is to reflect on the “fine-tuned of a universe in which life can exist, reflects on the chance of life occurring through purely random events, and concludes that the chance of life coming into existence through purely random forces of nature is so infinitesimally small as to be almost non-existent.

Cosmological argument • cosmological argument is the existence of a unique being,

generally seen as some kind of god or demiurge is deduced or inferred from facts or alleged facts concerning causation, change, motion, contingency, or finitude in respect of the universe as a whole or processes within it.

• It is traditionally known as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, or the causal argument. Whichever term is employed, there are three basic variants of the argument, each with subtle yet important distinctions: the arguments from in causa (causality), in esse (essentiality), and in fieri (becoming).

Moral & Experimental argument • The argues that the very existence or nature of morality implies the existence of God. The

argument takes various forms, among which are sometimes distinguished: the Formal, Perfectionist and Kantian Moral Arguments and the Argument from Values (or Moral Absolutes).

• The Formal Moral Argument suggests that the very form of morality implies that it has a divine origin. If morality consists of an ultimately authoritative set of commands, where can these commands have come from but a commander that has ultimate authority (namely God)

• The Argument from Values or Moral Absolutes rests on an indefensible premise: that moral absolutes require a god. The very existence of living, breathing atheists who follow moral absolutes seems in itself to negate the claim.

• Confucius, founder of the ancient atheistic religion of Confucianism, stated his own version of the so-called “Golden Rule” - do not impose on others what you would not choose for yourself - some five centuries before Jesus was teaching a very similar ethical code.

Arguments for atheism • Two kinds of argument for atheism: a priori and a posteriori.• A priori arguments for atheism claim that there is some logical

contradiction in the theistic conception of God, and so that it is impossible for such a being to exist.

• A posteriori arguments for atheism claim that the world is other than it would be if God existed, and so conclude from it that there cannot be a God.

Logical problem of Evil • The most weighty of the arguments against God’s existence is an a posteriori argument: the problem

of evil. • The atheistic arguments, this is the one that has been around for longest, that has had the most

words written about it, and that draws the most diverse responses from Christians.• In brief, the problem is that the traditional conception of God implies that if God

exists then he knows how to, wants to, and is able to prevent all suffering. If such a God existed, though, then we would expect him to prevent all suffering. Suffering, though, is a familiar part of the world around us; it has not been prevented. therefore, the argument concludes, no such God.

• Other arguments for atheism are of the second kind, claiming that the concept of God is incoherent, that there are logical problems with the existence of such a being, and that God therefore cannot exist.

Evidential problem of evil • There exist instances of intense suffering which an omnipotent, omniscient being could have

prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

• An omniscient, wholly good being would prevent the occurrence of any intense suffering it could, unless it could not do so without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse.

• (Therefore) There does not exist an omnipotent, omniscient, wholly good being.

• Another by Paul Draper:

• Gratuitous evils exist.• The hypothesis of indifference, i.e., that if there are supernatural beings they are indifferent to

gratuitous evils, is a better explanation for (1) than theism.• Therefore, evidence prefers that no god, as commonly understood by theists, exists.

Death & Afterlife Death is the cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include biological aging, predation, malnutrition, disease, suicide, homicide, starvation, dehydration, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death.• Other concerns include fear of

death, necrophobia, anxiety, sorrow, grief, emotional pain, depression, sympathy, compassion, solitude, or saudade. The potential for an afterlife is of concern for some humans and the possibility of reward or judgement and punishment for past sin with people of certain religion

AfterlifeThe concept of a realm, or the realm itself , in which an essential part of an individual's identity or consciousness continues to exist after the death of the body. • The essential aspect of the individual that lives on after death may be some

partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, of an individual, carries with it and may confer personal identity or, on the contrary, may not, as in Indian nirvana. Belief in an afterlife, which may be naturalistic or supernatural, is in contrast to the belief in oblivion after death.

• This continued existence often takes place in a spiritual realm, and in other popular views, the individual may be reborn into this world and begin the life cycle over again, likely with no memory of what they have done in the past.

• Major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism and metaphysics.

Conclusion • The existence of God is a subject of debate in the philosophy of

religion, popular culture and philosophy.• A wide variety of arguments for and against the existence of God can

be categorized as metaphysical, logical, empirical, or subjective.• In philosophical terms, the notion of the existence of God involves

the disciplines of epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge) and ontology (study of the nature of being, existence, or reality) and the theory of value (since concepts of perfection are connected to notions of God).