McCloskey is reminding atheists the ways theists argue for their belief in God. He is reminding atheists the reasons they believe that there is no God. He feels atheism is superior to theism; however; I find that his opinions only strengthen my belief that there is a God. Proof, as he states, carries no weight for a theist. He is half correct in his statement as a theist does not believe in the proofs individually, but finds enough evidence in them to form the belief that God does exist; He is the creator of the universe, and He is morally perfect.
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
Using these different types of language demonstrates a difficulty; assuming that when we speak of God, we are speaking cognitively- assuming that our statement is something that is either true or false and that it is able to describe an extinct being, God. Philosophers have always had a debate between this. Some say that a statement of God is non-cognitive, statements not subject to true of falsity. This led to a strong trial and tribulation to religious faith and its believers. Some such as Mortiz Schlick claim that religious belief is literally meaningless; religious statements are nonsense and should not be the basis of philosophical discussion.
Cameron Farrell God’s Involvement in the Creation of Right and Wrong The argument pertaining to God’s involvement in the existence of right and wrong is very complex, as one can gather from analyzing the text. The general idea the author is trying to convey to the reader is that it is difficult to say that God is good while also saying he created right and wrong, and specified the differences between the two. The writer is not trying to argue against the differences between right and wrong, but more so the situation that exists within the difference between the two. The situation at hand is if the differences of right and wrong were God’s decision to create, or not. If God did create the difference between right and wrong then that means that for God, initially, there wasn’t a difference between to two.
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
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.
If God is all knowing and all powerful and all good, therefore god would not want us to suffer and not put evil on earth. I believe that evil and suffering does exist because of the simple fact that we wouldn’t know the difference between good and bad, sad and happiness, love and hate. We wouldn’t know to appreciate god and everything he does for us. God being an all tri-omni god would not put anything on earth that he knew we couldn’t handle. There are two varieties of evil, moral and natural evil.
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.
Additionally, some Christians believe in the ontological argument by St Anselm, which suggests that God cannot not exist and so that it is logical to believe. This means that, Christians believe this, because God, which exists, is definitely greater and better than the one that doesn’t. Anselm writes, “we believe that thou art a being than which nothing greater can be conceived”, meaning that by “God”, we mean an absolutely unsurpassable being, a being that cannot conceivably be improved upon. Moreover, some Christians believe in the cosmological argument, which is; the universe must have been caused by something, which states that, everything that exists has a cause of its existence. The universe exists, therefore; the universe has a cause of its existence.
But also Absolutism does not take other situation into consideration, things change and people change, so should the rules change as well? Personally, I think that they need to be amended; this could cause even worse conflicts than they are in this day and age, although it might be necessary, Common sense isn’t that common. An example of the Absolute theory is the Divine law theory; this is all stated in the bible, it dictates what’s good and what’s bad, according to the will of God. Everything we do, has the question behind it: Does it follow the will of God? This is the question absolutes ask before making any decisions.