Atheism

Today, religion and science are often regarded as being in conflict with one another. Broadly speaking, these conflicts between religion and science occur in two ways: that science opposes religion and that religion opposes science. Science misunderstood is, indeed, a threat to religion. In theory, religion does not give answers, science does, and science does not give guidance, religion does. Both must therefore pose challenges to each other. Science challenges my Christian worldview of…

The unfortunate reality of evil being an element of humanity is a hard pill for some to swallow, and can be an even more difficult concept to comprehend and breakdown philosophically. In a pluralistic world with many competing religions and worldviews, the concept of what is morally wrong can definitely be distorted to fit one’s lifestyle, or the norms of a particular culture. The presence of wickedness introduces the proverbial monkey wrench scenario for atheists, pantheists, agnostics, and…

Robert E. Webber addresses a very important important issue in the modern Christian era by asking, “Who gets to narrate the world?” He is pressing the fact that the majority of Christians have failed to realize the wholeness of scripture in regard to practicality and application to our everyday lives. He also addresses how modern Christians live in such a way that when people look at scripture, they perceive it as “my” redemption story instead of realizing the global and even universal impact of…

A place where Sartre’s influence on de Beauvoir’s work is commonly analyzed is in the similarities between Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, and de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Both philosophers were existentialist atheists and had several perspectives in common. However, they had their disagreements as well. Sartre believed in the idea of essence, which for some objects and nonrational beings, it is already determined. Humans, however, do not have a determined essence. Unlike objects, humans have…

The article H. J. McCloskey wrote, On Being an Atheist, discusses how arguments presented are proof that God does not exist. As I learned from Dr. Foreman’s presentation, Arguments for God’s Existence, there is nothing that can be proven with one-hundred percent certainty. We need not use arguments, but we should use evidence, just as an attorney in building a case against or for an accused. (Foreman, Approaching the Question of God 's Existence n.d.) Evidence sometimes is circumstantial, full…

One of the most seemingly apparent philosophical questions in the world is regarding the existence of God. The topic has been the cause of much controversy for over a millennium. Within the questioning of God’s existence there are several more philosophical arise+, that ignite just as much argument within philosophical circles. One example is the flawed nature of God’s omnipotence. Mackie believes that, “…unqualified omnipotence cannot be ascribed to any being that continues through time.” In…

In the “Roundtable Discussion on the Problem of Evil”, Meghan Sullivan, Trent Dougherty, and Sam Newlands discuss the Problem of Evil for theism. All three people do not take the side of a theist or an atheist, but instead discuss the problem from a mostly objective view. The Problem of Evil is also discussed by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and William Craig in God? A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist, where Sinnott-Armstrong argues from the atheist’s point of view and Craig argues from the…

faith was of a magnitude that he wrapped his mind at least partially around the divine Warrior and Enemy also being the perfect divine Advocate and Intercessor. This was one more step in peeling back the layers of Job’s faith. His unshakeable confidence in God’s absolute sovereignty undergirded each succeeding declaration in its context. For the past three chapters, Job’s thinking was in the judicial framework. He was about to add another dimension. Sidebar - Is this the end of the discussion?…

Samuel Clarke set out to refute Thomas Hobbes in his second set of Boyle Lectures: A discourse Concerning the Unalterable Obligations of Natural Religion, to do so Clarke stated in it that there are different relations among people. Which he goes on to explain that from these relations arise “Fitness” and “unfitness” in behavior among people. To explain this, we must look at the relationship between man and god. The relationship between man and god is infinitely disproportional, there for as…

David Hume is an enlightenment philosopher of the 18th century. In general, Hume says that miracles are something that defy the laws of nature and have never, or should never, occur. He does not claim that miracles never occurred, but concludes that it is not rational to belief them. Most miracles are religion based because God would be the only one with the power to perform them. Hume says that everyone should be skeptical of miracles, and has two main arguments for why he says that; a priori…