Tiffin Year 9 Rp Cat

Dogmatist/Dogmatism

those who construct their life and beliefs around doxa/opinion, without investigating or fully understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments/premises for them

Examples of Dogmatists

Religious fundamentalism, Scientism

Humanism

Humanism is a belief that suggests that life, society and education should promote human happiness and flourishing

Christian Humanism

A philosophy that suggests that human happiness and flourishing arises best when life is lived in accordance with religious principles (in this case Christian) .

How was Christian humanism attempted

Historically, during the 15th century renaissance, this was attempted by studying what it is to be human (the humanities) and how this was informed by (Christian) theology.

What does it promote

It promotes rationalism, empiricism, mysticism & fideism as the basis of ethics and metaphysics. Dogmatic versions often stress fideism alone and can be “fundamentalist”.

Secular Humanism

A philosophy that suggests that human happiness and flourishing arises best when life is lived without reference to religious principles.

What does it promote

It promotes rationalism, empiricism but usually rejects faith and mystical epistemologies as the basis of metaphysics and ethics. Secular humanism is often atheistic or agnostic. It is sometimes known as "scientific humanism".

Epicurus Premise 1

P1 - Theists believe that God is Omnibenevolent Omnisceient Omnipotent

Epicurus Premise 2

P2 - Evil and suffering exist

Epicurus Premise 3

P3 - If God was OOO he would eradicate evil

Epicurus Premise 4

P4 - But he has not eradicated evil

Epicurus Conclusion 1

C1 - Therefore God is not OOO and is not theistic but a deistic deity

Epicurus Criticism 1

If the problem of evil fails, the gods might be personal and they might be interested in our immoral/hedonistic behaviour and reward/punish us in an afterlife

Epicurus Criticism 2

The problem/argument from evil may be unsound. God might allow evil in order to permit freewill. There can be no freedom of choice without the possibility of freedom being misused.

Epicurus Criticism 3

There can be no good without evil. The possibility of evil is a precondition for goodness and freedom

Dawkins Premise 1

P1: Life forms evolved from a simple, single celled unintelligent organism into complex, multiple celled and intelligent organisms over billions of years

Dawkins Premise 2

P2: Intelligent beings only come into being at the end of a natural evolutionary process.

Dawkins Premise 3

P3: God is believed to be an intelligent being

Dawkins Premise 4

P4: God is believed to be the designer and creator of the universe

Dawkins Conclusion 1

C1: These premises are contradictory, therefore, at least P4 must be false

Dawkins Criticism 1

In P3 Dawkins commits a conflation error and a straw man fallacy. Theists believe God’s intelligence is similar to human intelligence but it is not identical (God’s intelligence exists outside time and space and therefore does not evolve).

Dawkins Criticism 2

Some theists (YEC) do not believe in evolution; so there is no contradiction for them. He seems to conflate YEC with OEC

Dawkins Criticism 3

P1 is weakened (all things evolve from simple to complex) because it is speculative (no substantive empirical fossil record in the beginning and before the Cambrian Explosion)

Marx Premise 1

All history is a history of class struggle (dialectical materialism) with history having the telos of moving from inequality (master/slave) to a communist classless utopia of equality.

Marx Premise 2

For Marx, religion was one of the methods used by the ruling classes to prevent the working classes realising that they were being exploited by the former.

Marx Conclusion 1

Religion was therefore used for A pain killer (to reduce the pain of poverty) and that it makes you passive and removes the desire to revolt against the ruling classes and change your life

Marx Criticism 1

Nietzsche argued Marxism is Christianity for atheists. Nietzsche argued that Marx’s concept of the communist utopia is merely the Christian concept of heaven (where all are happy and equal) secularised and realisable.

Marx Criticism 2

Nietzsche also rejects marxism’s need to “level down” and drag the upper classes down to the status of the working class, he wants them to “level up” into ubermensch

Marx Criticism 3

Nietzsche also thought that without the Christian god you could not have the Christian morality with the core of this morality being the equality of people irrespective their race and class. The latter essential for Marxists, but it was a belief that was rarely held in the ancient world, before the coming of Christianity).

Nietzsche Premise 1

For most Europeans “God is dead”

Nietzsche Premise 2

If God is dead, then traditional religious morality is dead

Nietzsche Premise 3

If there is no morality, life has no intrinsic point or meaning, nihilism

Nietzsche Conclusion 1

We must create our own values and purpose and become supermen (ubermensch)

Nietzsche Criticism 1

Like Marx, the “village” humanists in the market place never give an argument that God is dead. They have given no premises for this belief and thus it is merely a dogmatic opinion.

Nietzsche Criticism 2

The madman’s “raa” argument outlines the consequences of not believing in god morally and epistemologically (no purpose, direction or knowledge), but could this be a case of a slippery slope error (fallacy)

Nietzsche Criticism 3

If we agree with Nietzsche’s teachings and follow him, is that not an example of a slave morality and not that of an ubermensch?

Nietzsche Criticism 4

If everyone creates their own morality this would result in chaos

Qutb Premise 1

Qutb argued that Nietzsche and Marx were correct in their diagnosis of the Western world being marred by nihilism and inequality

Qutb Premise 2

The people in the Western world have a type of schizophrenia/”split brain” where:
1. religion, spirituality and values is one onside of the brain
2. and science is on the other (and this becomes more dominant over the other (nihilism))

Qutb Premise 3

Qutb thought this was brought about by Christianity which divided the sacred/spiritual and the secular/material into two (similar to Gould’s idea of NOMA)

Qutb Conclusion 1

The only solution was Islam as it brought the sacred and secular, religion and science into a unity (tawhid)

Qutb Conclusion 2

Qutb’s followers suggested violence and extremism can be used to bring this unity about

Qutb Criticism 1

Qutb Criticism 1

He seems to straw man Christianity by suggesting that all forms of the religion separate the spiritual life from secular life. Some forms of medieval Christianity existed separate from secular life in monasteries but from the 13th century Christianity and also from the Reformation Church was fully embedded in Christian society.

Qutb Criticism 2

Although Qutb’s solution to the above problem seems to overcome nihilism (Nietzsche) and the excesses of Capitalism (Marx), advocating violence, the harshest sharia law and martyrdom has been highly influential and his writings have influenced and promoted Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism

Gould Premises

He believes that religion and science should be separated. Religion covers morals and ethics, while science covers the empirical universe. Both kingdoms (magisteria) should not overlap

Gould Criticism

Gould provides and interesting way to manage the world of facts and values and science and religion in a manner where they are both preserved but must be kept apart

Gould Criticism 2

Qutb would argue that this is unstable and results in a diseased split brain/mind and that science would encroach on the domain of values (resulting in Nihilism)

Gould Criticism 3

Many philosophers like William James and Hillary Putnam would argue that the fact/value dualism is false. Facts and science themselves both require values (that we should be honest, accurate, objective and seek the truth) and without these there would be no science, scientific method of factual domain.

Answer The question
"God is dead,or if not, he and his religion should be"

Have you answered the question?