Those supporting these points have been 19th century philosophers A.J Ayer and Antony Flew however their argument is apposed by those who believe it is meaningful as we simply do not know how to falsify the language. At the heart of this argument stood John Hick as he defined religious language as ‘believing in something and experiencing something’. Logical positivists thought up the concept of the verification principle in the 1920’s while in Vienna. Spearheading this movement was British philosopher A.J Ayer (1910-1989) and his argument was that in fact religious language is meaningless due to the lack of empirical evidence. He said that a proposition is meaningful if and only if it is known how we can prove it is either true or false.
He is almost certainly sure that no God exists, but says that he would change this view if he were confronted with empirical evidence that suggested otherwise. However, Dawkins’s declaration that he is not a fundamentalist could be questioned by examining other parts of his book. Dawkins seems to focus more on the evidence that religion lacks opposed to the evidence that his evidence-based worldview contains. He also holds Darwinism in a very high esteem. One might say that Dawkins’s view of Darwinism is a strict set of basic ideas and principles, embodying the definition of fundamentalism.
It says that knowledge is innate, and that it cannot come from sources such as the senses. Rationalists believe that we are all born with a means of obtaining truth and knowledge. Empiricism also came about in the 17th Century, mostly through the ideas of the philosophers Locke and Bacon. Although Hume wrote several decades after these two, he probably wrote the strongest arguments for empiricism, covering some questions not answered by Locke and Bacon. Empiricism says that
But unlike earlier philosophers, such as Socrates who were concerned with how to live a good/ethical life, and famously said ‘the unexamined life is hardly worth living’, both Nietzsche and Sartre are concerned with being and existence. The first and most important tenet of Existentialist thought is that Man Is Free. Nietzsche believed that the ‘will to power’, was the primary drive and the source of all creative activity and the key to human freedom. It was the all-important way to achieve freedom of the individual and that absolute objective truth of the world was an illusion and our search for such a truth is bred from fear. While having much in common with Nietzsche, both are atheistic existentialists, Sartre proposed that man is nothing but what he makes of himself and therefore by taking responsibility for his actions he can change his life and create a new Man.
In William L. Rowe’s essay The Ontological Argument Rowe carefully details an argument that, upon first read, appears to convincingly prove that God does not exist. His argument has, however, been even more carefully torn apart and examined by some of the worlds greatest philosophers and is often criticized. In my essay I will prove that Rowe’s argument although seemingly perfect comes nowhere near disproving the existence of a God. Quote #1 “…Anselm insists that anyone who hears of God, thinks about God, or even denies the existence of God is, nevertheless, committed to the view that God exists in the understanding.” I will use this quote to support the idea of God. This quote does not prove his existence but it does prove that
For thousands of years there has been conflict between belief and reason, there is one side, Rationalism, holds that belief can only be derived from evidence and reason, the other side, Fideism, holds that faith is independent of reason. With a certain perspective it can be seen that faith and reason work together for a greater understanding. Strong rationalism holds that the sole source and final test of all truth is human reason. Evidentialism, as a strong rationalist position, states that the justification of a belief depends solely on the evidence for it and that we should not hold any religious positions that we do not have evidence for. English philosopher William Clifford backs the position of the strong rationalist with his story of the boat owner who has faith is vessel, but, failing to find evidence for his faith his boat consequently sinks.
Spiritual Reassessment and Moral Reconciliation at the End of Huck Finn In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain addressed several issues including religion and morality. By the end of the story, Huck has readjusted his views on both. He now bases his judgment minimally on his religion due to a series of events that led him doubt it. The same goes for his sense of morality. Throughout the story Huck has had to deal with other people’s views on religion.
McCloskey contended against the three mystical verifications, which are the cosmological argument, the argument from design and the teleological argument. He called attention to the presence of evil on the planet that God made. He likewise called attention to that it is irrational to live by trust or faith. As indicated by McCloskey, confirmations do not essentially assume a fundamental part in the conviction of God. Page 62 of the article expresses that "most theists do not come to have faith in God as a premise for religious conviction, however come to religion as a consequence of different reasons and variables."
Dennett, on the other hand, is a philosopher. He has questioned the prevailing Darwinism schools of thought, consciousness, free will and even the moral thought relative to religion within human life (Dennett, 1995, p. 38). Questioning the scientific traditions and reductionist thought that has extended from Aristotelian and the ways in which it has wrongly informed science and even delimited discoveries, Dennett (1995) addressed all of these shortcomings and their traditions through the scholarly traditions upon which they were founded. Lifting the veil of ignorance, Dennett acquainted his readers and colleagues with the historic environments and factors that coauthored the aforementioned traditions. Ultimately demonstrating the ways in which (Dennett, 1981) the Cartesian superficially created a false dichotomy and ultimately informed reductionist and essentialist traditions, Dennett (1995) articulated Darwin’s intentions and those of scientists and philosophers that followed (p
INTRODUCTION In other to expose Husserl’s phenomenology comprehensively, Matheson outlined two basic critiques on representationalism- the view that consciousness is something like a self enclosed room or box as against the Husserlian view of consciousness as intentional. CRITIQUE OF REPRESENTATIONALISM First, the common –sense realist view that we are conscious of the external world because the world streams into the mind via the senses is misguided because the mind is not literally a physical space (like a camera) into which sense-data can ‘stream’- the mind is not the eyeball or the eardrum. Second, the representationalist theory that states that sense-data allow the mind to reconstruct a ‘representation’ of the outside world and consciousness is an indirect experience of these representations is implausible on close inspection because it seems to be incapable of accounting for the truth: how can I know that my representations are true representations of the world if I never have access to the things themselves against which to measure them. If the representationalist is right, says Matheson, then we live exclusively in a world of ‘copies’ or ‘limitations’ without ever seeing the originals, consequently, we are deluded in thinking that we experience the world and possess no criteria for judging truth. For Matheson, Husserl provides a better conceptual ground for rejecting the representationalist theory.