• 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. Jung has also been criticised for suggesting that any vision is religious. Perhaps he has failed to understand the uniqueness of a religious experience and the effect that they have on religious believers. • Individuation – Is this a religious process? If it is concerned with the Self, is it really about God?
Aquinas rejected univocal and equivocal language when talking about God. Religious language often attempts to describe the attributes or qualities of God. This is hard because God is generally not something we have direct experience of, whereas most of the things that language refers to are things that we can experience e.g. love, walking, hair. So when we say ’God is good’, we need to know that we are using ’good’ in that sentence.
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.
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. McCloskey touches on faith in his article. It is defined by Tillich: as the state of being ultimately concerned as claiming truth for concern, and is involving commitment, courage, and the taking of risk. Theists have faith in God, and treat Him as the most important person in their lives. To have faith in someone on past knowledge, according to McCloskey, is reasonable however; it is unreasonable to have faith in God as we have no past knowledge of God.
Commonly, atheists hold the view that organized religions are corrupt and actually cause more harm than good. Contempt for organized religion is not, however, grounds for calling oneself an atheist. An atheist is someone who has considered all sides of the argument and come to the conclusion that God does not exist, not due to opinions on organized religion, but on the actual facts and arguments of the discussion. A
Situation Ethics is the teleological theory which aims to bring the greater good, it’s similar to the idea of utilitarianism which was also aiming for the greater good for the most amount of people. Situation Ethics looks at the intentions instead of the outcome. This is the opposite of the deontological ethics which focuses on the intrinsic rightness or wrongness of actions. The theory would also acknowledge the consequences of the actions, not the actions themselves, therefore it suggests that the action would be ‘good’ if it brings out a good consequence. Situation Ethics runs on the idea of agapeistic love which is the Christian concept of unconditional love, which is how the greater good works.
This divergence from Christian doctrine and thus universal truth places the effectiveness of the scientific method in doubt as it is subject to human nature and its inherent imperfection. Kim et al. (2012) acknowledge this fact stating, “Over time, human reason essentially replaced God in determining moral laws. For instance, under utilitarianism moral issues were no longer based on God’s Word, or transcendent truth but on practicality” (p. 3). This modification of truth to a form of relativism; however, is not regulated to modern times.
Although this may not seem like God is issuing the justice being met, believers of the DJT will argue that God is the one controlling the people who are sentencing the criminal with their punishment, and therefore God is ensuring that justice is met. The DJT is a more plausible explanation of God relating to morality than both the Divine Informer Theory (DIT) and the Divine Command Theory (DCT). The DIT states that God has given us knowledge of moral law, and has done so through religious texts or by putting the knowledge directly in our mind. This is not plausible, however, because many religious texts are interpreted differently, and therefore moral standards differ from culture to culture. Therefore, DIT isn’t a
This conception of morality provides the wrong reasons for moral principles. Going back to the child abuse example if God didn’t exist, child abuse wouldn’t be wrong. This is because if God wouldn’t be around to make abuse wrong. However, child abuse would still be malicious so it would still be wrong (Rachel’s and 50-53). Which makes this theory impossible to be right, second even god faring people don’t always agree with everything god states.
Can one be moral and not believe in God? Have you ever judged or been judged unfairly? How about thinking someone’s a bad person because they don’t believe in God? In the world today we are beginning to see an ethical system being built based on tolerance and enlightenment; apart from God. A person undoubtedly can ne moral without believing in God.