Summary Bush begins his work by showing how the world has adopted a philosophy that has swapped reality for and illusion. He states that decisions are made off the cuff and that there are no absolute moral standards and everything is relative. Therefore, the dilemma that this creates for the Christian is grave. In Chapter One Bush focuses on how the Christian worldview parallels with the dominant worldview of today. It is in this chapter that Bush reveals a new
Dawkins and Aquinas: Theology Whether it’s argumentative or sentimental, an author always aims to get a significant truth across to the reader. In the novel “The God Delusion,” Richard Dawkins analyzes many theories that theologians have developed about the existence of God and essentially squanders them. Through his unique sense of humor and his idea of “logic”, he gives reasons of why the theories of Thomas Aquinas, and other theories as well, are not well developed and are incorrect. Although he does raise some interesting points in his arguments, he does not address enough issues to completely reject the theories of God’s existence. God has a very broad meaning and the meaning varies from person to person.
This divergence from Christian doctrine and thus universal truth places the effectiveness of the scientific method in doubt as it is subject to human nature and its inherent imperfection. Kim et al. (2012) acknowledge this fact stating, “Over time, human reason essentially replaced God in determining moral laws. For instance, under utilitarianism moral issues were no longer based on God’s Word, or transcendent truth but on practicality” (p. 3). This modification of truth to a form of relativism; however, is not regulated to modern times.
He backs this statement up with numerous facts and hypothetical situations that could’ve happen if the US government had not invaded Iraq. Being an anti-theist, Dr. Hitchens is very much against the use of God in politics. The Tea Party, on the other hand, is trying to “put God back into the United States of America.” He sees Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky both as great men and he no longer considers himself a socialist but rather a Marxist. Marx states that: “Man created God, God did not create Man.” Dr. Hitchens gets his conclusion, “God did not create man, we created God,” from Karl Marx’s statement: “Man makes religion, religion does not make man…” Many members of the Tea Party focus on just the “fiscal” issues facing the government, however, they do not believe in the beliefs of Marx, Lenin or Trotsky. Dr. Hitchens was also recently diagnosed esophageal cancer.
During this same time, the Catholic Church was moving further from the theology of the Protestants. The reformation was also known as the “Protestant revolt from the medieval Roman Catholic Church” (Harvey, 1918, p. 321). Luther was active in pointing out the “characteristic differences of attitude, of tendency, and of judgment, as well as of method, exhibited in these modern attempts to portray and interpret the most widely influential of the earliest founders of Protestantism” (Harvey, 1918, p. 321). Luther wanted to stress that there was a need to expunge the “corrupt bureaucracy” within the church, which can only be done when the church returns to the Bible (Owenby, 2011, p. 1). Luther believed that all believers should abide by the words of ‘our Lord and Master Jesus Christ” and repent of our sins (Morris, 1998, p. 56).
April 5 Notes Public protestant Originated from Calvinist Christianity Protestant ethic is hard working The protestant code Patterns of the code (rules governing behavior) Activism- this is not just religious activism but to approach beliefs generaly in the world. Reductionism- “reducing matters to their simplest terms” How to spend money, how to allocate resources, elections, budget cuts, political and social issues. Nonitellectualism- people are more attracted to a sort of street smartness than actual intelligence. Ahistoritism- we have no history, we left the old world behind. We are making history.
Atheist vs. Theists: McCloskey vs. Me McCloskey in his article "On Being an Atheist" has a strong opinion on not only God but on the beliefs of the theists. According to McCloskey he disagrees with the theists argument on the uncaused cause. The uncaused cause states that a something or someone that has to have been here first to cause the cause to happen. In our case of theology we are saying that God was the "someone" that is the necessary being that had to have always have been here in order for the caused event which in this case is the creating of the universe to happen. He also has some strong opinion on the solutions that the theists have on the resolution to the problem of evil.
The three postulates namely freedom, God and Immortality though can’t be theoretically proven, is incorporated into the already coherent and meaningful ethical structure of Kant to give more practicability to his ethical theory taking into account the fact that man is not a purely rational being but a creature haunted by inclinations. Freedom, God and Immortality, the three postulates are not theoretical dogmas but are presuppositions having necessary practical reference. The introduction of postulate in Kant’s philosophy can be considered as an attempt to limit the theoretical and extend the practical so as to make them stand together. God as postulate by Kant is not the God of religion. This postulate of God has origin in one’s own reason which would necessarily mean that submitting to will of God is submitting to one’s own reason.
‘The moral argument for God is not convincing.' Discuss. (10 marks) Kant’s moral argument attempted to answer questions surrounding the idea of “right and wrong” and whether we got these ideas from a God and subsequently whether our morality depends on God. Thus his argument obtains a stronger focus on morality and duty as he felt it was not in human knowledge to prove God’s existence which is arguably why part that proves God is not necessarily as convincing and Kant merely states that we should postulate the idea of God as to explain morality it is necessary to believe that God exists. Kant believed that everybody had an innate moral awareness, “two things fill my mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe... the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me”.
Kant proclaims “the belief that we have cognition of something through experience which we in fact cannot accept as happening according to objective laws of experience (faith in miracles)”(p.185). He credits faith's mass appeal and staying power as the main reason for the growth of corrupted notions of miracles and saving grace. Kant was not a believer that accepting Jesus Christ as our savior would be all that is needed in Christian grace to free oneself from sin. Kant says “It is totally inconceivable, however, how a rational human being who knows himself to deserve punishment could seriously believe that he only has to believe the news of satisfaction having been rendered Page 1 for him, and accept it utiliter, in order to regard his guilt as done away with” (p. 123). These ideas of Kant seem to imply he is not a believer of Jesus or that miracles have never happened, the idea Kant is developing that miracles are not necessary for us to develop moral