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Kant's Theoretical Conception Of
KANT’S THEORETICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD Yaron Noam Hoffer Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, September 2017 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Doctoral Committee _________________________________________ Allen W. Wood, Ph.D. (Chair) _________________________________________ Sandra L. Shapshay, Ph.D. _________________________________________ Timothy O'Connor, Ph.D. _________________________________________ Michel Chaouli, Ph.D 15 September, 2017 ii Copyright © 2017 Yaron Noam Hoffer iii To Mor, who let me make her ends mine and made my ends hers iv Acknowledgments God has never been an important part of my life, growing up in a secular environment. Ironically, only through Kant, the ‘all-destroyer’ of rational theology and champion of enlightenment, I developed an interest in God. I was drawn to Kant’s philosophy since the beginning of my undergraduate studies, thinking that he got something right in many topics, or at least introduced fruitful ways of dealing with them. Early in my Graduate studies I was struck by Kant’s moral argument justifying belief in God’s existence. While I can’t say I was convinced, it somehow resonated with my cautious but inextricable optimism. My appreciation for this argument led me to have a closer look at Kant’s discussion of rational theology and especially his pre-critical writings. From there it was a short step to rediscover early modern metaphysics in general and embark upon the current project. This journey could not have been completed without the intellectual, emotional, and material support I was very fortunate to receive from my teachers, colleagues, friends, and family. -
Richard Dawkins • Daniel Dennett • Christopher Hitchins
Impact Hour January 10, 2016 Why People Don’t Believe: 1. The Power of Religion 2. Reason To Fear 3. Religion and Violence: A Closer Look 4. Is Christianity Irrational and Devoid of Evidence? 5. Is Christianity Anti-Scientific? 6. Is Biblical Morality Appalling? 7. Living the Way Jesus Calls Us to Live 8. Christianity’s Gifts to the World 9. Is There a Way Forward? True Religion Two Areas of Need: • The need for people of faith to hear and truly understand the concerns and challenges raised against religion • The need to engage in thoughtful and frank dialogue with those who raise such objections Three Aims of The Book: • Accurately represent the concerns and challenges raised against religious faith, particularly those against Christianity • Respond to those challenges • Examine the many god and humane contributions Christianity has made to the world throughout the past two thousand years A “biblical worldview”: • absolute moral truth exists; • the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches; • Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic; • a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or doing good works; • Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; • and God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today. The New Naysayers, Newsweek, September 11, 2006 “New Critics of Religion” http://www.newsweek.com/new-naysayers-109697 • Sam Harris • Richard Dawkins • Daniel Dennett • Christopher Hitchins “New Critics of Religion” Sam Harris “New -
Process Theology 1 Process Theology
Process theology 1 Process theology Process theology is a school of thought influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) and further developed by Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000). While there are process theologies that are similar, but unrelated to the work of Whitehead (such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin) the term is generally applied to the Whiteheadian/Hartshornean school. Process theology is unrelated to the Process Church. History The original ideas of process thought are found in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Various theological and philosophical aspects have been expanded and developed by Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000), John B. Cobb, Jr., and David Ray Griffin. A characteristic of process theology each of these thinkers shared was a rejection of metaphysics that privilege "being" over "becoming," particularly those of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Hartshorne was deeply influenced by French philosopher Jules Lequier and by Swiss philosopher Charles Secrétan who were probably the first ones to claim that in God liberty of becoming is above his substantiality. Process theology soon influenced a number of Jewish theologians including Rabbis Max Kadushin, Milton Steinberg and Levi A. Olan, Harry Slominsky and, to a lesser degree, Abraham Joshua Heschel. Today some rabbis who advocate some form of process theology include Bradley Shavit Artson, Lawrence A. Englander, William E. Kaufman, Harold Kushner, Anton Laytner, Michael Lerner, Gilbert S. Rosenthal, Lawrence Troster, Donald B. Rossoff, Burton Mindick, and Nahum Ward. Alan Anderson and Deb Whitehouse have attempted to integrate process theology with the New Thought variant of Christianity. The work of Richard Stadelmann has been to preserve the uniqueness of Jesus in process theology. -
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins Is Another
BOOKS & ARTS COMMENT ooks about science tend to fall into two categories: those that explain it to lay people in the hope of cultivat- Bing a wide readership, and those that try to persuade fellow scientists to support a new theory, usually with equations. Books that achieve both — changing science and reach- ing the public — are rare. Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) was one. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is another. From the moment of its publication 40 years ago, it has been a sparkling best-seller and a TERRY SMITH/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY SMITH/THE LIFE IMAGES TERRY scientific game-changer. The gene-centred view of evolution that Dawkins championed and crystallized is now central both to evolutionary theoriz- ing and to lay commentaries on natural history such as wildlife documentaries. A bird or a bee risks its life and health to bring its offspring into the world not to help itself, and certainly not to help its species — the prevailing, lazy thinking of the 1960s, even among luminaries of evolution such as Julian Huxley and Konrad Lorenz — but (uncon- sciously) so that its genes go on. Genes that cause birds and bees to breed survive at the expense of other genes. No other explana- tion makes sense, although some insist that there are other ways to tell the story (see K. Laland et al. Nature 514, 161–164; 2014). What stood out was Dawkins’s radical insistence that the digital information in a gene is effectively immortal and must be the primary unit of selection. -
Religious Fundamentalism in Eight Muslim‐
JOURNAL for the SCIENTIFIC STUDY of RELIGION Religious Fundamentalism in Eight Muslim-Majority Countries: Reconceptualization and Assessment MANSOOR MOADDEL STUART A. KARABENICK Department of Sociology Combined Program in Education and Psychology University of Maryland University of Michigan To capture the common features of diverse fundamentalist movements, overcome etymological variability, and assess predictors, religious fundamentalism is conceptualized as a set of beliefs about and attitudes toward religion, expressed in a disciplinarian deity, literalism, exclusivity, and intolerance. Evidence from representative samples of over 23,000 adults in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey supports the conclusion that fundamentalism is stronger in countries where religious liberty is lower, religion less fractionalized, state structure less fragmented, regulation of religion greater, and the national context less globalized. Among individuals within countries, fundamentalism is linked to religiosity, confidence in religious institutions, belief in religious modernity, belief in conspiracies, xenophobia, fatalism, weaker liberal values, trust in family and friends, reliance on less diverse information sources, lower socioeconomic status, and membership in an ethnic majority or dominant religion/sect. We discuss implications of these findings for understanding fundamentalism and the need for further research. Keywords: fundamentalism, Islam, Christianity, Sunni, Shia, Muslim-majority countries. INTRODUCTION -
Beliefs in Miraculous Healings, Religiosity and Meaning in Life
Religions 2015, 6, 1113–1124; doi:10.3390/rel6031113 OPEN ACCESS religions ISSN 2077-1444 www.mdpi.com/journal/religions Article Beliefs in Miraculous Healings, Religiosity and Meaning in Life Jakub Pawlikowski 1,*, Michał Wiechetek 2, Jarosław Sak 1 and Marek Jarosz 2 1 Department of Ethics and Human Philosophy, Medical University of Lublin, Aleje Racławickie 1, 20-950 Lublin, Poland; E-Mail: [email protected] 2 Institute of Psychology, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Aleje Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland; E-Mails: [email protected] (M.W.); [email protected] (M.J.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: [email protected]; Tel.: +48-81-4486-850. Academic Editors: Arndt Büssing and René Hefti Received: 1 June 2015 / Accepted: 9 September 2015 / Published: 17 September 2015 Abstract: Throughout centuries, many interpretations of miraculous healings have been offered by philosophers, theologians, physicians and psychologists. Different approaches to miracles originate from the differences in understanding of causative factors, concepts of nature and the relationship between God and nature. Despite many skeptical arguments, a vast majority of people (approximately 70%) in modern Western societies share a belief in miracles and millions of sick people pilgrimage to sanctuaries seeking their occurrence. The aim of the research was to describe the social perception of miraculous healings, and the relationship between beliefs in miraculous healings, religiosity and meaning in life. A survey was conducted on a group of 178 respondents aged 18 to 30 (M = 21.5; SD = 2.31), 90% Catholics. The obtained results show that it is possible to describe the perception of miraculous healings in category of the essence of the causative factors (natural/supranatural) and definiteness (defined/undefined). -
Writing Lourdes
Emilie Garrigou-Kempton Writing Lourdes Faith, Miracles, and the Elaboration of an Official Story Late nineteenth-century France is a place of renewed religious fervor, particularly around the miraculous healings at Lourdes, where sick masses converge in hope of being healed of a wide range of ailments. The same period is also known for its belief in medical and scientific progress, leading to the production of com- peting narratives about faith, and the question of its role in the healing process becomes a concern in both medical discourse and Catholic literature. Lourdes itself crystallizes these questions and texts written by doctors, clerics, historians, journalists, and novelists illustrate a wide range of opinions about miracles and participate in the production of an ever-growing authoritative list of texts about the events at Lourdes. An analysis of famed neurologist Charcot’s The Healing Faith (1892) in conjunction with Lasserre’s Notre-Dame de Lourdes (1868) and Père Cros’s Histoire de Notre-Dame de Lourdes (1925) explores the role of faith in these narratives, along with the tensions and convergences between them. 1. Healing in Lourdes France, in the second half of the nineteenth century is a place of renewed reli- gious fervor, prompted, at least in part, by the multiplication of apparitions of the Virgin Mary, most famously in the small Pyrenean town of Lourdes. There, in 1858, a young and sickly shepherdess named Bernadette Soubirous reported seeing the Virgin Mary appear before her eyes. As a spring erupted at the site of the apparition and as her early followers reported being cured of a range of physical ailments, Lourdes’s reputation soon went far beyond the Pyrenees and, by 1873, an annual national pilgrimage was established by the Assumptionists bringing in thousands of miracle-seekers by train and making Lourdes one of the most popular sites of Catholic pilgrimage in the world to date. -
Lourdes Slides
Lourdes Slides ACC/2014/5 Series of slides created by Thomas Holmes Mason of Dame Street Dublin, relating to Sanctuary of Our Lady at Lourdes and its healing powers. The majority of the slides show individuals before and/or after their cure at Lourdes. Catalogued by Harriet Wheelock February 2018 © Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, 2018 Lourdes Slides . Contents Lourdes Slides ...................................................................................... 2 B1 Series ..................................................................................................................... 3 B2 Series ..................................................................................................................... 7 B3 Series ................................................................................................................... 12 B4 Series ................................................................................................................... 29 B5 Series ................................................................................................................... 46 1 Lourdes Slides LS Lourdes Slides [1930s] Series Extent: 140 slides Creator: Mason, Thomas Holmes, 1877-1958 Description: Series of slides created by Thomas Holmes Mason of Dame Street Dublin, relating to Sanctuary of Our Lady at Lourdes and its healing powers. The majority of the slides show individuals before and/or after their cure at Lourdes. Some have additional details including names, date cured, disease and date of recognition -
The Epistemology of Testimony
Pergamon Stud. His. Phil. Sci., Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 1-31, 1998 0 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved Printed in Great Britain 0039-3681/98 $19.004-0.00 The Epistemology of Testimony Peter Lipton * 1. Introduction Is there anything you know entirely off your own bat? Your knowledge depends pervasively on the word of others. Knowledge of events before you were born or outside your immediate neighborhood are the obvious cases, but your epistemic dependence on testimony goes far deeper that this. Mundane beliefs-such as that the earth is round or that you think with your brain-almost invariably depend on testimony, and even quite personal facts-such as your birthday or the identity of your biological parents--can only be known with the help of others. Science is no refuge from the ubiquity of testimony. At least most of the theories that a scientist accepts, she accepts because of what others say. The same goes for almost all the data, since she didn’t perform those experiments herself. Even in those experiments she did perform, she relied on testimony hand over fist: just think of all those labels on the chemicals. Even her personal observations may have depended on testimony, if observation is theory-laden, since those theories with which it is laden were themselves accepted on testimony. Even if observation were not theory-laden, the testimony-ladenness of knowledge should be beyond dispute. We live in a sea of assertions and little if any of our knowledge would exist without it. If the role of testimony in knowledge is so vast, why is its role in the history of epistemology so slight? Why doesn’t the philosophical canon sparkle with titles such as Meditations on Testimony, A Treatise Concerning Human Testimony, and Language, Truth and Testimony? The answer is unclear. -
Conceptualizations of God by Lutheran Laypeople Ashley Burgess Leininger Iowa State University
Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2009 Conceptualizations of God by Lutheran laypeople Ashley Burgess Leininger Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Leininger, Ashley Burgess, "Conceptualizations of God by Lutheran laypeople" (2009). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 10805. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/10805 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Conceptualizations of God by Lutheran laypeople by Ashley Burgess Leininger A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE Major: Sociology Program of Study Committee: David Schweingruber, Major Professor Gloria Jones-Johnson Carl Roberts Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2009 Copyright © Ashley Burgess Leininger, 2009. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ v INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. -
Theism in Christianity, Islam and Sikhism: a Comparative Analysis
THEISM IN CHRISTIANITY, ISLAM AND SIKHISM: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS Ekpenyong Obo Ekpenyong and Emmanuel Williams Udoh Department of Religious and Cultural Studies, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria Email: [email protected]; [email protected] ABSTRACT God is usually taken to be a necessarily existing being who is unsurpassably powerful, knowledgeable and good. Theism is conceptualized in a single being that is monotheism in some religions and polytheism that is more than one being in some others. Yet some others see theism in everything of human concern that is pantheism. The doctrine of God is strong-minded by means of the religious experiences of men and evident in the conduct of such religious persons. This work intends to show here, the points of similarities and dissimilarities between the concept of theism in Christianity, Islam and Sikhism. This work exposed among others that their major point of way out is that in Christianity, there is a distinctive and central teaching concerning Jesus Christ as unique incarnations, the word of God, pre-eminently manifested in a historic person, on the ground that his moral character perfectly represents the character and purpose of the invisible holy God. While Islam, and Sikhism, have no such doctrine, or theory of incarnation. INTRODUCTION Theism stems from the Greek word Theos meaning God or from the Latin word dues meaning Deity or God. But we are concerned here with the idea of God that is sacred power or different conceptions of God or deity in different world religions. Theism in some religions is conceptualized in a single being that is monotheism. -
PHILOSOPHY of RELIGION Selected Readings Second Edition IQ:Pl
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Selected Readings Second Edition IQ:Pl Edited by MICHAEL PETERSON Asbury College WILLIAM HASKER Huntington College BRUCE REICHENBACH Augsburg College DAVID BASINGER Roberts Wesleyan College New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2001 416 Miracles the event but whether nature was in fact the sole c I . question. ausa agent m the case in DAVID HUME The Evidence for Finally, many philosophical discussions revolve around th Miracles Is Weak whetherh hthe undisputed. occurrence of certa·1n un usua I events coulde question . of onest, t .oughtful individuals to acknowledge that G d h require all This selection contains a classic and influential argument against belief in mir- m ea:thly affairs. Some maintain that in- acles crafted by David Hume (1711-1776). The wise person, Hume informs us, healmgs or resurrections) would force all to '.e:g., as- Other philosophers argue that althou h belief . g.e d1vin.e .in- will always proportion his or her belief to the evidence. He goes on to say that may at times be acceptable for those al read .direct d1v1ne our belief in the relevant laws of nature are based on uniform, public, past ex- exists, no single event or series of events could ever com I y el1:ve that God perience, which provides a great amount of objective evidence, while the evi- to assent to the existence of a perfectly good people dence supporting alleged violations of these laws consists solely of personal tes- ample, the tremendous amount of horrific evil in th Id . agent. For ex- timonies that cannot be substantiated by independent testing.