K. D. Ellis refutes theism in his essay, Why I Am an Agnostic, on the grounds that there are no good reasons, meaning no reliable empirical evidence or sound rational arguments, to believe that there is a God (Ellis, p.296). He suggests that the classical arguments that are stated in Daniel’s essay, “may offer some support for the plausibility of the belief in a god, but they are not sufficiently strong enough to compel our assent to the conclusion that a god exists.” He also says that there is no knowledge in the statement, God exists (Ellis,…
In February of 1968, H. J. McCloskey’s published an article called, “On Being an Atheist.” In this, he argues that atheism is a more comfortable, logical and realistic than theism. He mentions the evil that is in the world and how it doesn’t make any sense to find comfort in a God that purposely causes pain, disease and natural disasters. McCloskey also mentions it is unreasonable to live by faith in this world. In this article, he argues the three theistic proofs including, the argument for design, the teleological argument and the cosmological argument.…
Theism- God exists, was the creator of the world, and is personally and intimately involved with His creation. God operates through natural law but can and does intervene in the affairs of mankind. Ex. Christianity, Judaism, Islam…
-1This is a response to H.J. McCloskey's Article, "On Being an Atheist". While I believe that Mr . McCloskey put a lot of thought into this article I think he made some assumptions about all theists that are not necessarily correct.…
Literature can be an extremely powerful tool of persuasion. One man with one idea has the potential to influence hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people through writing. In fact, one particularly influential piece of literature convinced an entire population of people to ostracize, shun, and even murder their fellow citizens. Compelling texts such as Hitler’s Mein kampf allow me to believe that literature could be considered propaganda. These pieces of literature, when written to pacify a specific audience, can strongly appeal to humanity’s “passions”, as Plato suggests. I believe that authors use literature as a vehicle to demonstrate their personal beliefs and influence their audience to share those beliefs.…
Atheism is contrasted with theism and on a broader sense opposes the existence of any form of deity. For most of their existence, Atheists have not been aggressively outspoken about their opposing beliefs against religion. However, over the last couple of decades, Christianity, along with religion in general, has received a massive amount public criticism stemming from the emergence of a group called the New Atheists.…
The first piece of evidence I will be using to determine if there is an existence of God is the cosmological argument. The cosmological argument was famously publicised by St Thomas Aquinas and tries to prove the existence of God with three points, which are motion, causality and contingency: Motion, everything that moves must be moved by something else as nothing can move itself. There cannot be infinite regression…
Evidence is the key to all arguments, it determines if an event is logical, and controls the human minds train of thought. Without some sort of evidence, it would surely be impossible and improbable to believe that a divine spirit did truly exist, and this is where the notion of faith versus belief enters the human mind. How can people of the twenty – first century believe in a spirit, with no proof that it actually did exist? The answer to the question will vary from individual to individual, however one thing is certain,…
Some people may find it difficult to prove the rationality of God’s existence, so they may propose alternate conceptions: pantheism and panentheism. Both conceptions continue to assume that there must be a presence of a supernatural being—one that is beyond nature. Therefore, these theistic alternatives are irrational due to their lack of evidence.…
In 1968, a article was published by a man named H.J. McCloskey called “On Being an Atheist”, in which an attempt to present arguments against the existence of God is made. In his work, McCloskey attempts to provide readers with the argument that atheism is more “reasonable and comfortable (McCloskey,1968)” compared to the alternative theistic view. In his article, McCloskey attempts to make arguments against the three typical theistic proofs of God which includes the cosmological and teleological arguments, along with the argument from design. McCloskey uses the existence of evil and the irrationalness off faith against the theistic view of God. At the beginning of the article it seems that an intriguing argument will be made regarding the theistic view point of God, yet as McCloskey continues the argument becomes more biased in attacking spiritual beliefs which questions his validity.…
In his article “On Being an Atheist,” H. J. McCloskey makes an entertaining, but in the end inadequate, explanation as to why the arguments for God’s existence fail (limiting himself to the only two he cared to deal with), and why Atheism provides more comfort to the hurting person than Theism.…
The theistic argument that I think is most plausible is the Cosmological Argument. I think this because to me this is the only argument that is plausible because things do not exist without a cause. For example, people and animals do not exist without reproduction. People must have a first cause to be created and exist. “The cosmological argument for God’s existence goes like this: The world could not exist on its own so there must have been a first cause that brought it into being.…
This research I want to prove that nobody can provide any evidence which god exists. There is a total lack of any evidence for the existence of god and the existence of alleged paranormal events. The supernatural event of proof is always in common sense, common human experience, natural laws and even some science phenomenon that regular people couldn’t…
Do you believe in God? God is a being that no one has ever been able to prove exists. When someone chooses to believe in God; that decision is based solely on their faith. It is a decision that someone decides in their heart, which is often based on experiences in their life; whether they are simply personal experiences or religious ones. It is not a secret to anyone that God has never been be seen, heard, nor touched by any living human according to history and the present day. Though, the bible gives the personal testimonies of many righteous men of God’s goodness and existence, how can one prove that to be true? According to Nils Ch. Raught (2007) “If [an] argument from religious experiences is to be successful, we must focus our attention on those religious experiences that closely resemble ordinary perceptual experiences” (p. 180). So, I…
need is faith, we just have to believe, trust and follow God. There’s a part of the…