Pascal's Wager

William James’ Untenable Defence of Faith In his essay ’The Will to Believe’, William James promotes a seemingly pragmatic defense of religious faith by taking a benign form of religion from an already preselected set of concepts he wishes to consider. William James’s philosophy however is not motivated by pragmatism, nor is it pragmatic, but instead is an attempt to blow smoke to veil indefensible beliefs. Faith, for the purpose of William James, would be belief lacking sufficient evidence to warrant

We are born and then we die, since no human is immortal, we must all endure this cycle of life. Since each human must endure the dying process, it is common that as humans we have and share mutual feelings and thoughts toward the experience of dying, such as a fear of death. In a poll of the top one-hundred phobias in America, Thanatophobia or the fear of death ranked number twelve, signifying that the experience of death is considered by many to be a very frightening thing ("Top 100 Phobia

The purpose of the paper is to answer several questions arising from an article by H. J. McCloskey entitled “On Being an Atheist”. McCloskey makes the claim that he is reminding fellow atheist why they believe there is no God. He claims that the traditional proofs have no merit. I believe the sheer magnitude and complexity of the world we live in is strong evidence of an intelligent designer and creator. Only an intelligent creator could form a world where the air that we breathe is part of

Throughout the history of philosophy, the thoughts and works of two men have intertwined their way into the philosophers to follow. The two men were followers of Socrates; thus, technically, Socrates can take some of the credit. These two men are Plato and Aristotle. The Platonic and Aristotelian ideas of philosophy are contradicting but equally represented in their influence. Plato believed that to find truth, one must look to the metaphysical world beyond reality. He believed this because he thought

God’s existence cannot be proved nor disproved, but this is an attempt to refute the existence of this all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good being through an analysis of arguments and theories that try to prove or insinuate His reality. To embark, Pascal’s Wager attempts to show non-believers that “it is in one’s best interest to believe in God” through a cost-benefit analysis. It examines the consequences of believing or not believing in God if he does or does not exist. It states: “If one believes in

Compare and contrast the views of John Searle and Rene Descartes on dualism John Searle developed a theory where he recognized there is a mental and a physical, like substance dualism for Rene Descartes, the difference is that he held they may be two aspect of a single substance. In the other hand, Descartes beliefs that dualism is composed of two different substances which are mind and body. One is physical, our body and the other is nonphysical, our mind where our thoughts and feelings exist. He

Question 1. What are the three "alones" of Reformation theology? How do they relate to one another in Luther's theology? How does Luther's use of them respond to the dominant question of the sixteenth century: How can I know that God is favorable to me? The three "alones" in Reformation theology refer to that which is needed for "justification" or salvation favorableness in the sight of God. Luther describes them as 1) Christ, or the Gospel of Christ (Scripture), alone, 2) faith alone, and 3) grace

Anselm’s interpretation of who God is that he or she is completely good,all-seeing, divine, personal and fundamental. In short, a perfect being. Anselm characterized God as being the greatest of which nothing else can be perceived, and challenged that he must live in all people’s consciousness regardless of the individual’s who deny his presence. Anselm contemplated that if God does exist in our minds, then in turn God also must be a reality. He also thought that if God only exists in our minds

Chapter four of the Roots of Wisdom describes three primary arguments for the existence of God, these arguments include an Ontological Argument, a Cosmological Argument and a Teleological Argument. All of these aforementioned cases express valid philosophies and rational theories, however they also appear to be incomplete, by that I mean to say, they lack the “hard evidence” in which our scientific community demands as proof that God exists. I could just as easily turn the table in the same direction

Assessment of the View that it is Rational to Believe that there is a God Rational: To be rational is to think logically and within reason. To base your thoughts on evidence, and then use that evidence to come to a "rational" conclusion. Motivation: To be motivated to do or think something, normally the motivation will be because it will benefit you in the long run. Many philosophers use theses types of words when talking about whether or not it is rational to believe