Recognising this reaffirms that God is more than we can ever imagine – he is ineffable, can never be described so we cannot say what they are not. Strengths of via negativa are that it allows things to be said about God without implying that the finite (humans) can grasp the infinite (God), it also asserts the claims of revelation, that God is good and then recognises goodness to be a human word and so must be negated by saying too that God is not good to
“What do the Ten Commandments say about Jewish (and Christian and Muslim) beliefs in the powers of God?” The Ten Commandments demonstrate that Jewish, Christian and Muslim beliefs are similar in that God’s powers are that God’s powers are exceptional because there is only one God to be worshiped and he is the most powerful god for creating Earth itself. In adhering to the Ten Commandments, Jews, Christians and Muslims are surrendering to God’s supreme power and in turn, shall benefit in the afterlife. The Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions are all monotheistic and therefore they worship only one god. In these three religions, God is the only god that can be praised and worshiped according to the Ten Commandments. This is evident in Exodus, the First Commandment is, “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt […]” From this statement, God is declaring his almighty power and complete authority over his followers.
Anselm (1033–1109) had opposed an Ontological Argument that one understands God as a being and cannot conceive anything greater because God cannot be understood not to exist. On the other hand, another philosopher named Gaunilo objected Anselm’s Ontological Argument by suggesting that the same style of argument can be used to prove the existence of other entities, such as the idea of a greatest possible island. Although this may be the case, Anselm never got the opportunity to plead his case against Gaunilo’s objection. However, there are numerous biblical evidence to help support Anselm’s argument. Anselm’s Ontological Argument states that one understands that God, as a being, cannot be conceived a greater.
Also, many people do not believe in God. Jung himself countered this argument by stating that atheism itself is a religion. It seems that he will not allow anything to counter his ideas. If his theory is not open to falsification, some would argue that it is meaningless. • Jung’s idea of religious experience – Martin Buber argues that an experience which takes place in the mind, rather than externally to the individual, is not a religious experience.
Agnosticism is the purely epistemological stance that sufficient evidence does not exist for or against theism therefore the best stance on the argument is no stance at all. Combinations of these positions are possible due to their varying natures, but here only the argument between theism and atheism is examined more closely. The problem of evil is described and used to argue against the existence of God. Richard Swinburne’s solution to the problem of evil is explained and used to revise the original atheist’s argument from evil to its best, but still insufficient, form. Commonly, atheists hold the view that organized religions are corrupt and actually cause more harm than good.
Cognitive psychologists believe that mental processes and stored representations of the world determine behaviour and are central to human experience. Psychologists see the mind as a complex machine – where they believe that it is useful to model mental processes using an information-processing approach whereby: Information is examined from the outside world is received and encoded, Storage and representation of this information to ourselves, Ways in which this information is manipulated and used by the individual, And how we output information back into the world to be received by others. Many
One could argue that the logical positivists were unsuccessful in arguing that religious language is meaningless because the verification principle has many weaknesses. For example Strong verification is not possible to talk meaningfully about history as no self- observation can confirm historical events. Swinburne stated that strong verification excludes all types of universal statements as there may be a random event that occurs that may mean that this cannot be verified. However, A.J Ayer developed a solution for this which is the weak verification principle. This form of the principle allows for statements to have meaning if the means to which a statement can be verified are known.
Oedipus Tyrannus is written by Sophocles serves to distanced ourselves from gods, a point Sophocles uses to drive home the point: In absences of divine intervention, human are capable of acting in a moral and ethical manner. The Gods are not present in the story at all. While assuming that the gods inflicted Oedipus's suffering just as other greek tragedies leads us to incorrect conclusion. But if we view Oedipus's blinding and banishment not as punishments by the gods but as the logical and moral conclusion we can shed light on the moral structure to
Yet Berkeley, in Datta’s view, seems to employ the very notion he so adamantly denied in his endeavor to prove the existence of God. This paper will examine two criticisms that Datta lodges against Berkeley’s Arguments for God’s existence: 1) Berkeley’s illegitimate use of the notion of abstraction, and 2) Berkeley’s erroneous description of spirit as purely active. Datta approaches Berkeley from the perspective of Eastern philosophical thought and feels that Berkeley’s errors inevitably lead to either solipsism or to a single, universal cosmic spirit. Berkeley’s use of abstraction Berkeley does not address the issue of God’s existence in a formal way until late in The Principles of Human Knowledge (PHK) and the issues he does address prior to discussing God build upon one another to set the stage for his proof of God’s existence. Berkeley begins PHK with an introduction demonstrating the impossibility of abstracting the concept of matter from our ideas of objects, and indeed rejecting any form of abstraction.
He believed that life is meaningless and that we have no souls, so we should therefore grasp everything that the world has to offer whilst we can as there is no chance of an afterlife in his perspective. Neitzche also said that everyone should strive to seek pleasure and success wherever it could be found, he also thought religious beliefs to be false. But what did Neitzche mean by God is ‘dead’? He felt that religious outlook is no longer credible for the modern intellectual person. He meant that humans had advanced their understanding of the natural world enough to realize that the literal teachings of the religions that espoused God were not true.