Religious Belief: Types, Strengths + Weaknesses
- Created by: MattyLew
- Created on: 05-05-18 19:01
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- Religious Belief
- Strengths
- Provides a meta-narrative for one's life
- It is an expression of culture and creates a social bond
- It explains the existence of the universe and things science cannot (yet!) explain
- Provides comfort
- Explains life after death
- Provides purpose
- Provides a moral code and guidance
- Scriptural evidence: Bible, Quran
- Helps cultivate the the end of suffering (buddhism)
- Argument of Probability: Swinburne argues it is the most likely answer that there is a God
- Evidence of Design, a posteriori nature
- Weaknesses
- Logical Positivism: statements about God are not analytic or synthetic, therefore are meaningless
- Religious experience can be explained biologically/medically: Paul (epileptic fit), 'The God helmet' Persinger, St Theresa hallucinations due to starvation
- Biblica criticism/analysis: writer's had been influenced by their cultural environment, therefore the Bible does not contribute to proving existence of God
- The Problem of Evil (Hume's inconsistent triad)
- Hatred towards religious believers and beliefs "the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike him"
- distrust of organised religion e.g. illuminati conspiracy
- Hatred towards religious believers and beliefs "the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike him"
- Perhaps believers are deluded OR have been deluded by religious leaders for their own purposes e.g. Ghanaian prophet TB Joshua
- Loss of faith (unanswered prayer, and experiences) e.g. Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal (public vs private image, abuse of power and clericalism, protecting the institution)
- Contradictoryteachings (hermeneutical issue) = lack of logical coherence
- Other ways to interpret the world: Science + rationalism
- Modernism: rejects literal uses of outdated mythical concepts e.g. heaven, hell, demons
- Contradictory religious texts
- Religions claim exclusivity... but they can't all be right?
- Not suitable for the modern age: society is becoming more secular, rational
- Types
- Weak Atheism
- absence of the belief in the existence of God (includes children)
- Strong Atheism
- Explicit belief that God does not exist; would argue against a belief in God to show its wrong/dangerous
- Scepticism
- Ambiguous/doubtful - critically examines and questions knowledge or beliefs
- Weak Agnosticism
- God is not known; but it is possible he may be be known.
- Strong Agnosticism
- God is not known and God cannot be known to anyone
- Limited Agnosticism
- God is partially knowable; some things can be known, but not all.
- Unlimited Agnosticism
- God is completely unknowable;;it is impossible to know anything of God
- Who holds the burden of proof?
- Weak Atheism
- Strengths
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