Definitions and Philosophers

• Anselm: came up with the Ontological argument

• Atheism: denial of theism; the view that God or a go does not exist.

• Agnosticism: a claim of ignorance particularly of religious matters; the claim that God’s existence can be neither proved nor disproved.

• Anthropomorphism: the attributing of human qualities to a nonhuman entities, especially God.

• Cosmological Argument: argument for the existence of God that claims that there must be an ultimate casual explanation for why the universe as a totality exists.

• Design Argument: an argument for the existence of God that claims that the order and purpose manifest in the working of things in the universe require God.

• Ontological Argument: an argument for the existence of God based on the nature of God’s being.

• Religious Belief: the doctrines of a religion about the universe and one’s relation to the super natural.

• Theology: the rational study of God, including religious doctrines.

• Religious Experience: subjective experience interpreted within a religious framework.

• Teleological Argument: the view that natural organisms have a purpose or are designed to achieve an end; a view that maintains that purpose is inherent in nature and affirms that the universe was either consciously designed for or is operating under some partly conscious, partly unconscious, purpose.

• St. Augustine: Reality contains within itself every possible kind of being from the lowest kind of inert matter to the highest kind of spirit. Since God filled reality with goodness, all creatures have some degree of goodness. Humans are in the middle of the hierarchy of reality.

• George Berkeley: Founder of modern Idealism.  He reacted against Hobbes’ views on materialism. Claimed the conscious mind and its ideas and perceptions are the only reality.

• Thomas Hobbes: we can know only the measurable aspects of objects, so we can only say that measurable objects exist.

• Democritus: all real objects are made up of atoms

• Immanuel Kant: argued that the ontological argument was flawed because it implies that existence is a characteristic of God to prove the argument/ that existence is a part of the concept.

• Thomas Aquinas: came up with the cosmological argument based on Aristotle’s ideas

• W.A Dembski: one of Paley’s defenders and believers of intelligent design, stated that the specificity and improbability of genes implies that they were produced by God and not by chance.

• William Paley: supported the design argument

• Sigmund Freud: argued that people believe because they have an infantile need to be watched over by a father-like figure.

• John Hick: argues that evil is necessary because a paradies without pain, suffering, or evil, ethics would be meaningless and people would not be virtuous.

• Prof. Ninian Smart: religion has six dimensions: doctorine, experience, myth, ritual, morality and organization

• Ernest Nagel: atheism is a form of materialism

• Paul Davies: physcist that pointed out that the laws of the universe seem to be designed in a way that human life could flourish

• Rene Descartes: we have in our minds an idea of a perfect God that we could not have made up ourselves, this means he must exist

• George Mavrodes: theistic understanding of evolution, teleology played part

Questions

1. Who is St. Anselm? What was his proof for God?

The archbishop of Cantrerbury offered an argument that relied on reason alone of that the nature of God is the proof of God.

2. What are the major criticisms of his argument?

The criticism against his argument by Kant was that existence in itself can not be a property or part of a concept.

3. What are Aquinas’ Five Proofs for the Existence of God?

Aquinas’ 5 proofs were:

a) some things move

b) what moves must be moved by another moving thing and so on

c) this series cannot be infinite because then there would be no origin

d) the origin cannot be "moving” itself because it would have to be moved by something else

e) the unmoving origin is God

4. Are there any objections to these five proofs? If so, what are they?

Some objected the Newton’s law disapproved this, others said that it is possible for the moving to have no origin. The strongest was that Big Bang was the first, original movement.

1. Who was William Paley and which argument did he support? What was his ‘proof’?

   A theologian, William Paley, support the design argument. He argued that all things that are found have a purpose determined by an intelligent being. So by analogy it can be concluded that God is that intelligent being.

2. What are the problems with Paley’s argument?

Hume objected that even though we know how watches are made, we do not know how the universe came to be and it could just all be by unintelligent coincidence. Darwin said natural selection is so skilled that it can loo like someone intelligent was behind the actions.

1. Are there any supporters of Paley? What do they say?

   Supporters claimed that the selection and its actions could’ve been chosen by God. Dembski said that the gene code is too specific to be random.

2. Does Atheism have a purpose?

   focusing on the here and now and being good to others just to be good

3. Where do atheists get their moral codes?

   science! we hate science! science bad! atheist bad! - my “unibased'“ philo textbook

4. People claim because evil exists, then there must be no God.  How do theologians respond to this claim?

God only creates good. The absence of good is evil. They also say evil is necessary for good. Human freedom can also be pointed for the root of evil.

1. How do agnostics define and defend themselves?

   suspending of judgement, no commitment to either view

2. What were Freud’s and Kant’s view on why we believe?

Freud just said we have daddy issues bcz why do we need a “god-daddy”. Kant said we need it for our moral so we can convince ourselves to be righteous.

1. What are the main differences between Eastern and Western views of a God?

   one & multiple gods?

2. Hinduism B) Buddhism C) Zen Buddhism