Analysis Of H.j 's Article ' A Journal Call Question

To reply to McCloskey’s claim that there could not be a God due to the amount of evil there is I would first acknowledge this claim. At first I too agreed with this claim that how could someone so great and loving let so much evil and pain into the lives of people who do not deserve it. Simply because I did not understand how God could be so great and let evil into this world. Since then certain truths about theology have been explained to me so I can understand the good of God verses the evil found in this world.

Having completed the unit of philosophy of religion, you are now ready to respond to an article written by an actual atheist.  This article, titled “On Being an Atheist,” was written by H. J. McCloskey in 1968 for the journal Question.  McCloskey is an Australian philosopher who wrote a number of atheistic works in the 1960s and 70s including the book God and Evil (Nijhoff, 1974). In this article, McCloskey is both critical of the classical arguments for God’s existence and offers the problem of evil as a reason why one should not believe in God.

In the article “ On Being an Atheist,” H.J. McCloskey attempts to inform his readers that the belief in atheism is a “much more comfortable belief” by effectively using a disdainful rhetoric towards theists and their faith. McCloskey delves into both the Cosmological and Teleological arguments, which within he criticizes the arguments and to further his argument against theism, he also presents the Problem of Evil and why evil cannot possibly exist with a perfect God being the creator of universe. What will be displayed in this essay are the counter-arguments to McCloskey’s criticisms and the attempt to discredit his claims that regard the “comfortable” position that lies within atheism and its arguments.

The argument rests on the grounds that the first cause must rely on nothing to exist, must be powerful enough to create something from nothing, must have the will to create and must exist outside the universe it creates. The

McCloskey also claims that the cosmological argument “does not entitle us to postulate an all-powerful, all-perfect, uncaused cause.

Frederick Copleston was a priest, and historian of philosophy who supported Aquinas’ rejection of infinite regress. Copleston reformulated the argument by concentrating on contingency, which he discussed in depth during a radio debate with Bertrand Russell in 1947. Copleston, like Aquinas, argued that there are things in the universe which are contingent, for example, us – we would not have existed if our parents had not met. All things in the world are similar to this, nothing in the world is self-explanatory, and everything depends on something else for its existence. Therefore, we are forced to search for an external explanation. The explanation must lead us to a cause which is self explanatory, i.e. one which contains within itself, the reason for its own existence – a necessary being. The conclusion must be God. Copleston argues that if we don’t accept the existence of an ‘unmoved mover’, like Aquinas suggested, there is no explanation for the universe at all. Copleston believes the universe is gratuitous without a first cause, because without an explanation, nothing has meaning – “Everything is gratuitous. This garden, this city, and myself; when you suddenly realise it, it makes you feel sick and everything begins to drift… that’s nausea”.

The argument between the theistic and atheistic viewpoint has been and always will be relevant. The relevance of this argument continues to carry over throughout generations because, as humans, we all have the desire to know the answers to the questions presented about life. We all want to be able to answer the hard questions, is God real? If the answer is yes, how did we come to that conclusion? H.J. McCloskey is the author of an article titled, “On Being an Atheist,” within this article he argues against the theistic viewpoint in hopes of shaking the theists conclusion that there is a divine creator. He answers the questions about God and his relevance to life by saying there is no God. He came to this conclusion by determining that if

H.J. McCloskey published an article in February of 1968 called “On Being an Atheist,” in the journal Question One. McCloskey compelling exposition in why the arguments of God’s existences is ineffective. The response paper to McCloskey’s arguments will be answered by way of theistic worldview.

In today’s society there is a lot of skepticism regarding the belief in God and his existence. There has been and will always be the question of whether or not we have a God who is all seeing and all knowing. In the article “On Being an Aetheist” by H J McCloskey the existence of God is challenged through dismissing the arguments of cosmological and teological evidence. McClosky’s main objective in the article is to give an account that if God existed then how are there so many evil and unfathomable issues happening around the world?

In the article, “On Being an Atheist”, H.J. McCloskey discusses the reasons of why he believes being an atheist is a more acceptable than Christianity. McCloskey believes that atheism is a more rational belief versus having a God who allows people to suffer so he can have the glory. He believes to live in this world, you must be comfortable. The introduction of his article, he implements an overview of arguments given by the theist, which he introduces as proofs. He claims that the proofs do not create a rationalization to believe that God exists. He provides 3 theist proofs, which are Cosmological argument, teleological argument, and the argument of design. He also mentions the presence of evil in the world. He focuses on the existence

A cosmological argument focuses on the notion of causation and that everything in the universe including us must have an initial cause, for nothing comes from nothing. Thomas

I believe that that the Cosmological argument gives good reason to believe in the existence of God. The Cosmological argument focuses on everything having a cause except one thing that started it all, this starter is known as the “Prime Mover”. The Prime Mover is the one that starts everything without anything having a previous effect on it. With that people have assumed that the logical answer to who the prime mover is, is God. This to me seems the most logical of arguments because although there is the idea of eternity and an eternal cycle there has to be a starting point. I do not believe the argument is successful.

Some Christians firmly believe that the universe has arisen completely through a miraculous act of God and completely reject scientific theories. This is called ‘creationism’. Another attack on scientific arguments is the ‘First Cause’ theory introduced by Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas once quoted that “the universe couldn’t have simply sprung from nothing”; therefore, one is forced to reach the conclusion that it is caused to exist by something. The ‘big bang’ is not accepted, as this is not answering what caused this to happen. After a series of questioning, most reach the conclusion of God.

McCloskey nevertheless attends to specific claims presented in each of the more popular proofs for God’s existence. Regarding the Cosmological Proof, he says, the existence of the world does not entitle one to hold that, since the world consists of an

One thousand years later, his proof is still a powerful argument against the plague of atheism. With it, we can turn the tables on physicists, biologists, chemists, and psychologists. We can fall asleep at night knowing in our soul that God does indeed exist. We can use the scientist’s weapons of logic and rhetoric to injure that scientist’s theories.