index argument for theism design argument cosmological argument moral argument arguments for atheism death & afterlife

1. TOPIC - Philosophy religion

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

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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).

10. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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

19. Afterlife
The 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.

20. 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).