Pascal pointed out that Aquinas’ made the assumption that the uncaused cause, which is necessary for the Cosmological Argument, was the Christian God. As there is no empirical or scientific evidence for this to be the case then his argument does have little value for religious faith. For this reason, I agree with this claim. Karen Armstrong also criticises the Cosmological Argument as she says that Christians do not need to find reason, as Aquinas is trying to do, in order to debate with science. In her book “The Case for God” she writes that religion requires leaps of faith and should accept that there is no scientific proof for the existence of God.
Evan Polinsky History 9.22 The purpose of life in Hinduism is to have a good karma and to reach Moksha. Hinduism believes in a caste system. In its caste system the most important people are the priest followed by warriors, then merchants and artisans, then farmers, and lastly the untouchables. They believe that during your lifetime you cannot go up or down in the caste system, and that all you are supposed to do is complete your dharma, which is your role in life. If when you die your karma, which is the total of good and bad of your life, is closer to good than bad than you will be reincarnated a level up in the caste system and vice versa.
APOL104-D55 4/27/15 Critical Thinking When looking at Christian worldview the main question is, is there a God? Now when looking at Buddhism, this question does not apply. Buddhism became a tradition that is passed down from a teacher to a student that is a set of pragmatic instructions and techniques for cultivating sanity and brilliance in us and our world (Shambhala International, 1994-2015). Question of Origin The question of origin is a tough question to answer when looking at Buddhism. They do not worship a God.
For Anselm, God cannot not exist. Descartes supported Anselm in his book ‘meditations’ and developed Anselm’s argument particularly in terms of necessary being. He based his argument for God’s existence on the idea that God is a ‘supremely perfect being’. Descartes believed that we can conclude that God exists, because existence is a predicate of a perfect being; therefore God must exist to avoid being self contradictory.
According to Descartes, we simply have no idea what is and what is not possible for God, so we cannot lay down any limitations on God’s absolute omnipotence. However, this theory does not come without weaknesses. The biggest weakest, in my view, is that if God could do the logically impossible, why didn’t he create a world in which we are free yet at the same time always choose and do good? This could eradicate the problem of evil and suffering which all of humanity are faced with. Furthermore, even the Bible
His arguments to this effect are persuasive. In ‘The God Delusion’, Dawkins successfully shows how the arguments from beauty, personal experience, scripture and the anthropic principle fail in their attempts to establish the existence of an intelligent creator. His attempts to refute the more philosophical arguments, such as the cosmological and ontological arguments, are less persuasive. However, the likes of Hume, Russell and Kant had already successfully shown that such philosophical arguments do not prove that god exists. To be sure, no one has proven that god does not
In this perspective, Dao is not a religion as the concept of gods and afterlife is vague and almost nonexistent. Daoism’s main concern is here and now, how to live a pleasant life without causing unnecessary commotion or distress to yourself or what’s around you. It is the natural law behind all creation and those who can harmonise with it will find bliss (taoistic:N.d. Para :1). A person can be Daoist without embracing any of its religious aspects. Dao is an expression of the unity of the universe and of the path human beings must take to join that peaceful unity (religion: n.d: para:3).
The author concludes that the person who has no faith in religion could watch religious debates go on and never be affected, either positively or negatively. The other conclusion is that a person who has even the smallest amount of faith in a religion should dive head first into that religion because of the promise of infinite reward. All other religions should be denounced because they are in conflict with his chosen religion. The author did not sufficiently support the premise of disbelief in faith and or religion. He states that if one does not believe in a religion then one can gain nothing from religious debates.
In the first principle, it is evident that he is referencing his own beliefs about the existence of God. He believes his idea of God manifest as an object of his understanding, and that a perfect being such as God, could have only been placed through the act of nature itself. He also felt that believing in God is more reason and logic, than revelation or tradition (Skirry, 2008). Descartes believed that if there was indeed a God; God was not at all interested in interfering with human affairs (Sayre, 2011). In addition, he also believed that God lacked any resemblance of human character.
Boethius used this theory to illustrate how God is not able to relate to humans as he is not in time with them, nor one of them. This means that he can also not interact them including punishing and rewarding humans. Boethius explains that if God were to interact, punishing and rewarding, it would mean he would be experiencing time as one and so undermining Boethius’ theory of god being eternal. This idea is more consistent with the idea that God is immutable and is not contingent. On the other hand, Boethius also states that humans do not have free will.