Belief in God

• Alvin Plantinga said belief in God is basic, and needs no justifcation
• However, there could be any number of beliefs that can be deemed basic, e.g. voodoo, ghosts and the Great Pumpkin that returns each Hallowe'en
• Plantinga responds: Belief in God has grounds, whereas the belief in the Great Pumpkin does not
• If you saw a man on the floor, writhing as a he clutches his foot, you would have grounds to belive that he is in pain, even if you have no solid evidence

Justifications for belief in God?:

• Basic instinct -> you intuitively know
• It's a good bet (Pascal's wager)
• So many people believe, must be true
• You want to believe
• Religious experience
• You trust the word of reliable people
• peer pressure
• Socialisation

Fideism is the claim that reason is independent to, or opposed to religious faith.

Faith

·         Faith is not rational

·         Faith is a matter of inwardness

·         Real faith takes over your life

·         Real fifth is total acceptance

·         Those who pick and choose what they believe do not have real faith

Soren Kierkegaard:

• Arguments for the existence of God are too riddled with weaknesses to be convincing
• They only work to support those people who already believe in God
• People believe in God because of faith
• Faith is a 'leap in the dark' - Blind and total acceptance

Rational belief:

• Empirical Evidence

• Sound justification

• Can be verified

Irrational Belief:

• Wishful thinking

• Faith

• Superstition

• Can’t be verified



• Believers have their own language of belief - "language games"; there is a language game of religion
• In religion, we are dealing with a whole way or living, or form of life
• To come to faith in God is to have one’s life changed; whereas to come to believe that there are three chairs in the room is not at all like that.”

• AJ Ayer was involved in a car crash, he had a near-death experience and his heart stopped. He claimed that he 'floated up' once he was 'dead', and felt himself being drawn up a tunnell and felt paradise. It felt vivid to him.

Plantinga:

• A feeling of conscience
•   A sense of intelligence and power at work in the universe

  ·         A conviction after inexplicable or miraculous events

Ludwig Feuerbach:

• Rational man created God in his image
• Aspects of God correspond to human needs
• God emerges from man's needs
• Religion is anthropological
• Religious Dogmas are damaging

Sigmund Freud:

• Religion is wishful thinking - human minds create the illuision to combat psychological turmoil
• The turmoil stems from inner conflict, stress or fear
• The human mind creates images and beliefs to fulfill basic needs and desires
• Religion is an illusion - not necessarily false, but something that answers inner needs

• Boys become sexually attracted to their mothers
• They also become jealous of their fathers because of this 
• Feelings of fear and guilt arise in the child
• The child develops a "superego" to overcome their feelings 
• The superego is the repressive part of the brain
• It manifests itself in conscience, shame and guilt
• Relgion results from this repressed sexual guilt
• Idols are created to direct towars making reperation & seeking forgiveness
• The idol is treated like the father, with both hatred and veneration (respect & admiration)

• Rejected Freud's views, including the claim that religion was a neurosis caused by sexual trauma
• Unconcious part of the mind can be divided into two - personal and collective
• Collective: series of images, or archetypes, which have been passed down through the generations, developed by a culture, or society - THROUGH GENES
• Religion provides many archetypes
• People are born with the tendency to generate religious images
• God exists as a psychcic reality - he is real to those who believe in him. Existence cannot be known.
• Relgion is a necessary safety feature, acting as a balance, preventing disparity between different archetypes and thereby preventing neuroses
• This is called individuation

Durkheim:

• God is a symbol created by humans, representing their eperience of the power of society
• Religion is an instrument of society, it creates a sense of moral obligation that holds society together
• Social creation. When people celebrate sacred things, they are unwittingly celebrating the power of their society

Marx:

• All religious, moral and polictal life is rooted in economics
• Induces rise to a capitalist society where workers produce goods and services and the rich profit from this
• Societies keep the working class under control through laws, customs and religion
• necessary to abolish religion if the working class are ever to become free

Max Weber:

• Society is only one of several factors that explains religion's origin
• Charismatic prophets are a major force behind religious development
• the ideas of religious leaders are accepted because they have the personality to attract a following
• Religion fulfills a basic psychological need to make sense of life

Note: Hitler was a leader, Germany accepted his horrific ideas. The same can be said of religion - easy indoctrination.