Religious diversity and disagreement

Hick

the cultural contingency of religious belief gives us reason to examine claims of exclusive religious truth more critically

Aquinas’ principle

‘things known are in the knower according to the mode of the knower’

Hermeneutic of suspicion

critically examining beliefs that have been transmitted to us by our surrounding culture

Plantinga

my religious situation is fortunate, but being fortunate doesn’t make my belief irrational

Bogardus

had you been born at another time or place, you could have easily held different religious beliefs as they are formed through early teaching and socialisation. this method could have easily produced beliefs that you now regard as false

The Bare Counterfactual Argument

if you had been born elsewhere/when, you would have possessed different religious beliefs. therefore, your current religious beliefs are not knowledge

Plantinga’s Michigan object

had I been born in Madagascar, I wouldn’t believe I was born in Michigan, therefore I do not know I was born in Michigan

Epistemic luck

suppose your religious belief is ture, you obtained a belief using a method that could have produced a false belief

Baker Hytch - safety

could I have easily have formed a false belief in a relatively similar situation using a similar method

Baker-Hytch sensitivity

if P were false, would I still believe P using the same method

rebutting defeater

a reason for thinking P is false

undercutting defeater

a reason for doubting the reliability of the method through which I formed P

Lackey

epistemic peer disagreement

conformism

if an epistemic peer disagrees with you, you have no disagreement independent reason to think that you are more likely to be correct, you should revise your belief

non-conformism

peer disagreement doesn’t necessarily require revision

Basinger - religious evidentialism

there is a set of objective and non-question begging criteria capable of adjudicating between religions such that all rational people could establish that one belief system is true

Gavin D’Costa

pluralism is secretly exclusivist, it is logically impossible because every pluralist needs some criterion for truth

Van Inwagen

different religions arose under different cultural, social, historical conditions,

Van Inwagen Christian privilege

if the Christian possesses a privileged relationship with God, that is God’s doing and not an achievement for which the Christian deserves credit