Inclination essentially relinquishes scholarly objectivity. McCloskey contended that the cosmological argument was an argument from the presence of the world, as people know it. He expressed that having faith in an uncaused first cause for the universe is an issue in light of the fact that nothing about our universe powers us to that conclusion. The reason impact defense comprehends a connection between things that are in existence and will come
“From this it is sufficiently clear that he cannot be a deceiver: for all cunning and deception presuppose some shortcoming, as is plain by the natural light.”(37) In Descartes third meditation he has proven and answered questions that he has set out to prove. Descartes has ruled out the possibilities of the ‘cause’ being; himself, that existence has always been, his parents, and/or of something less perfect than God. Descartes has proven that God does in fact exist and as such must not be a
Aquinas generalizes everything in the universe based on the small amount of things he has actually seen or experienced. These generalizations should not be made without strong evidence. It can also be argued that not taking your surroundings into account whilst considering the universe is a huge error of over simplification, which makes the argument of induction seem week. David Hume however had a very strong empiricist view on the universe and can say that the assumptions based on what’s around us can only be applied to the present and do not provide any information on the past or future of the universe. Bertrand Russell also put forth the argument that the universe is a brute fact and it created itself.
Some people assume that he does not believe in miracles but he does not say this he just says you have to be careful about the difference between a ‘miracle’ and something extraordinary happening. Hume’s argument on miracles was written in his essay ‘Of Miracles’, he rated his argument very highly, claiming that it was an argument that “which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion and consequently, will be useful as long as the world endures.” To understand Hume’s argument against miracles we have to understand his definition as his argument is based on his understand of ‘miracles’ and his understanding of ‘the laws of nature’. He defines a miracle “as a transgression of the law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent.” Hume’s argument against the likelihood of miracles rests on his use of induction. This is explained in ‘The Question of God’ by Micheal Palmer, he explains that “It is…a fundamental principle of inductive reasoning that the more I see A followed but B, the greater is my expectation that A will be followed by B in the future. That I expect a rubber ball to bounce is dependent on my having seen the rubber ball bounce not once but many times.
Sadly again, almost none of these paradoxes are quoted in Zeno's original words by their various commentators, but in paraphrase. 1. Background Before we look at the paradoxes themselves it will be useful to sketch some of their historical and logical significance. First, Zeno sought to defend Parmenides by attacking his critics. Parmenides rejected pluralism and the reality of any kind of change: for him all was one indivisible, unchanging reality, and any appearances to the contrary were illusions, to be dispelled by reason and revelation.
Alex Griffiths AO1: Examine the main features of the cosmological argument (21) AO2: Comment on the view that the weaknesses of the cosmological argument show it is a failure (9) The cosmological argument is an a posteriori argument based on the existence of the universe. The argument is based on the fact that the universe exists but is also based on the assumption that there must be an explanation for its existence and that this explanation is infact God. Thomas Aquinas is the scholar behind this argument and he believed that everything we observe today has a first mover and therefore there has to be a first cause (a first cause) in order for the universe to exist. The argument concludes that this first mover is God. Infinite regress is rejected by this argument, it argues that there has to be a first cause, and explanation for the existence of the universe.
As with all debates, however, there is more than one side, and I am going to present my arguments as rebuttals for McCloskey. According to McCloskey, We can’t say that there is a necessarily existing being that is the cause of the universe. There are a few issues with this idea. First, to say that an uncaused cause would not exist would be faulty. If you are to look at the universe and say that there was no cause, it just is and always has been, then you are making the point of an uncaused cause.
The teleological theory offers no scientific evidence, or evidence of any kind for the creation of the universe, it is based loosely on an analogy. The analogy opinion is too broad to be valid. I believe that things like volcanos and earthquakes that happen naturally are better explained by science. These things seem more probable in a universe that was created randomly by science, by the big bang, than if the universe was created specifically for a certain function by
McCloskey attempts to make an argument for the non-existence of God and to give reasons why atheism is more comforting than theism. This paper is a response to that article which will address certain ideas raised by Mr. McCloskey. This author is a theist and will present arguments to show the reasoning for the existence and necessity of God. To begin with, McCloskey suggests in his article that the theist’s arguments are “proofs” which do not provide definitive evidence for the existence of God, so therefore, they should be discarded. This is not a justified argument due to the fact that theists do not try to definitely prove the existence of God.
‘Religious language is meaningless.’ Analyse and evaluate this claim with reference to the verification and falsification debates. I disagree with the statement that religious language is meaningless, but Logical positivist within the Vienna circle applied the idea of the verification principle to religious language, and saw religious language as meaningless. The verification principle is the philosophical movement which claims that language is only meaningful if it can be verified by sense-observation or if it is known as a tautology. And they saw that religious language cannot be empirically tested through the senses, and neither is it known as a tautology so then it is considered as meaningless. Philosophers like Moritz Schlick and others who were supporters of the verification principle, believed that the meaningless of a statement is shown by the way in which you verify it.