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.
On one hand you have the philosophers who believe you can speak and write about God, because God is reality. On the other hand, are the Logical Positivists who claim that statements about God have no meaning because they don’t relate to anything that is real. There are a number of philosophers who claimed to have proven conclusively that religious language is meaningful, for example Aquinas’ theory of analogy. An analogy is an attempt to explain the meaning of something which is difficult to understand and forming relations through attributes or relations that are similar. Aquinas rejected univocal and equivocal language when talking about God.
It would seem that both Diana Eck and John Stott are correct to a point. All religions cannot be truly be equal because then there would be no point, as the authority of the religious doctrine and its rites would be lost to some neutral all-purpose pseudo faith. But, pluralism as practiced in institutions such as the U.S. military and the U.S. legal system is not some neutral all-encompassing attempt at a single faith. Nor is it the suggestion that all faith paths lead to the same source. Rather, pluralism is really the commitment to and execution of religious tolerance.
Essay 1 Faith and Reason “Reason, aided by Christian faith, reveals truths about the universe and about humans that could never have been reached by reason alone. Conversely, Christian faith needs reason in order to communicate its beliefs clearly, to arrange those beliefs in a more systematic form, to guard it from straying into fanaticism or error, and to provide answers to reasonable objections to those beliefs”(1-2). Many argue that faith and reason are two very different things, when in all reality they both need each other and as Albl states they are actually “inseparable”. I am Catholic myself and I have always learned that authentic Christian faith does not limit human liberty and reason. Instead, faith supports reason and perfection; and reason, illuminated by faith, finds strength to raise itself to the knowledge of God.
That did not turn out that good. Even though they were the main religion, they weren’t controlling anything, Constantine loved being in charge of everything, playing are religion like little puppets. I think know that church is getting way to public and God doesn’t want public Now moving into God and the bible’s perspective on things. Here is a quote directly from Exodus 20:1, NIV, and “You shall have no other gods before me”. And I interrupt this not only as just other gods, but also things that hinder our religion.
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.
This argument is very important for religious believers, but has come under criticism from those who do not believe, who say that it is flawed. Gaunilo, and Immanuel Kant, feel that we will never have the answer to this question due to our human limitations, and reason. . St. Anselm’s first form of the argument is that God is “that than which none greater can be conceived”. This means that no one can think of anything that is greater than God.
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
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.
In the Dialogues of Concerning Natural Religion by David Hume, he explains his thoughts concerning God and the higher power that in his opinion should not be accepted. “There is no ground to suppose a plan of the world to be formed in the Divine mind…”(Hume, 714). From this we can concur Hume is no full hearted believer that he considers God knows and will know what has to come. From his distinctions, there is no good reason for a designer, and to think that God is an all-powerful being that also is subject to human like or materialistic traits should not be looked upon as valid. From his theories the only way we can know things for sure is through cause and effect.