02-phl110-src.Rmd

class: middle center

# *Philosophy of Religion*

.red[*reason, faith, belief and doubt*]

![:scale 50%, #ddd;](img/02/peter-h-4.jpg)

George Matthews, Pennsylvania College of Technology

*2020*

---
## *Perspectives on religion*

--

.red[From inside:] what religious beliefs or practices should I adhere to as someone aware of the mysteries of life and death?

--

.red[From outside:] 

--

- **Religious studies:** what are the practices, beliefs and histories of the many different world religions?

--

- **Sociology:** how do religions work as institutions expressing shared values and social meaning?

--

- **Psychology:** what is going on in the mind when people have religious beliefs and engage in religious practices?

--

- **Philosophy:** can religious beliefs be rationally justified?

---
## *What is religion anyway?*

.wide-list[

A set of beliefs about the nature of reality and the human place in reality. DOCTRINE.

]

.wide-list[

An attitude towards life. SPIRITUALITY.

]

.wide-list[

A set of practices. LITURGY.

]

.wide-list[

Ways of organizing all of this. RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS.

]


---
## *Philosophy of religion*

.left-column[

#### .red[metaphysics]

#### epistemology

#### value theory

]

.top-right[

![:scale 70%, #ccc;](img/02/peter-h-1.jpg)

]

--

![:vspace 160]()

.right-list[

- Does God exist?

]

--

.right-list[

- If so, in what form? As a supernatural being, as identical with nature, as many disembodied spirits?

]
--

.right-list[

- What does the existence of evil imply about the existence or nature of God or the gods?

]

--

.right-list[

- Is the universe the result of deliberate planning or the result of the blind forces of nature that could easily have been otherwise?

]
---
## *Philosophy of religion*

.left-column[

#### metaphysics

#### .red[epistemology]

#### value theory

]

.top-right[

![:scale 70%, #ccc;](img/02/peter-h-2.jpg)

] 

![:vspace 160]()

--

.right-list[

- Can we know whether or not a God or gods exist?
]

--

.right-list[

- Are appeals to faith to justify religious belief legitimate?

]

--

.right-list[

- Are science and religion in conflict or are they compatible as two different ways of approaching reality?

]

---
## *Philosophy of religion*

.left-column[

#### metaphysics

#### epistemology

#### .red[value theory]

]

.top-right[

![:scale 70%, #ccc;](img/02/peter-h-5.jpg)

]

![:vspace 160]()

.right-list[

- What is the relation between religion and morality? 

]

--

.right-list[

- Is religion a purely private matter or does it have any role to play in public life?

]

--

.right-list[

- Should parents be allowed to opt out of scientifically established medical treatments for their kids on religious grounds?

]

---
layout: true
## *Does God exist?*

.left-column[

#### .red[YES]

#### NO

#### MAYBE

]

---

--

.right-column[

**Theism** is the general term for the belief in the existence of a God or gods.

]

--

.right-list[

- Monotheism: there is only one God, and that God is a being with "personhood," with thoughts, feelings, intentions, free will...

]

--

.right-list[

- Polytheism: there are multiple gods often with many different personalities.

]

--

.right-list[

- Pantheism: God is everywhere or in every thing.

]

---

.right-column[

.caution[

Note that actual religions don't always clearly fit these definitions.

]

]

--

.right-list[

- Hinduism is polytheistic, but Krishna is often seen as the main "God" with many other divinities as Krishna's "avatars" or manifestations.

]

--

.right-list[

- Christianity claims that God is *both* unitary *and* has three separate "persons" -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

]

---
layout: false
## *Does God exist?*

.left-column[

#### YES

#### .red[NO]

#### MAYBE

]

--

.right-column[

**Atheism** refers to the denial of the existence of God, the gods or a supernatural realm of spirits.

]

--

.right-list[

.caution[

It is sometimes,asserted that it it impossible to "prove a negative," or demonstrate that something does **not** exist or is **not true**. 

But we do this all the time, whenever we show that the existence of something entails a contradiction, or is logically incompatible with other things we know to be true.

]
]

---
## *Does God exist?*

.left-column[

#### YES

#### NO

#### .red[MAYBE]

]

--

.right-column[

**Agnosticism** Is the view that we cannot tell for sure whether or not a God exists.

]

--

.right-list[

.caution[

This is more an *epistemological* than a *metaphysical* view -- it concerns what we can *know* and not what exists.

]

]

--

.right-list[

- Buddhism might be considered an agnostic religion since it has many features of religion, yet often denies that metaphysical claims about the ultimate nature of reality matter.

]


---
layout: false
## *Classic arguments for theism*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274, 80%](img/02/aquinas.jpg)

]

--

.middletext[

<br>

.left-blurb[

"God is evident in basic facts about the world of our experience."

]
]

--

.right-list[

- Aquinas was an important figure in the history of the Catholic Church.

]

--

.right-list[

- He combined the conceptual framework of Ancient Greek philosophy with Christianity, thus given definitive form to the medieval world-view of the Great Chain of Being, where everything in Nature has its place in a world ruled by God.

]

---
## *Classic arguments for theism*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait Saint Thomas Aquinas, 1225-1274, 80%](img/02/aquinas.jpg)

]

--

.topcap[

The Cosmological Argument

]

--

.right-argument[

Everything that exists has a cause.

The universe as a whole exists.

***

So the universe as a whole has a cause -- God.

]

--

.right-column[

- The key idea here is that *this* universe exists and that specific things need specific causes. But *must* this cause be the God of Christianity? 

]

---
## *Classic arguments for theism*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait Saint Anselm, 1033-1101, 80%](img/02/anselm.jpg)

]

--

.middletext[

<br>

.left-blurb[

"Reason alone can show us that God *must* exist."

]
]

--

.right-list[

- Anselm was an early Medieval philosopher convinced of the power of human reason to make sense of things.

]

--

.right-list[

- His most famous argument is a negative argument that shows that God cannot, *not* exist.

]

---
## *Classic arguments for theism*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait Saint Anselm, 1033-1101, 80%](img/02/anselm.jpg)

]

.topcap[

The Ontological Argument

]

--

.right-argument[

We can imagine the existence of a perfect being.

But if such a being *did not exist* it would lack something and so be less than perfect.

***

Thus a perfect being must exist -- God.

]

--

.wide-list[

- Something seems fishy here, but it is hard to see what. 

]

--

.wide-list[

- Can such abstract reasoning do more than just restate our original assumption that we *can* imagine such a being?

]

---
## *Classic arguments for theism*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait William Paley, 1743-1805, 80%](img/02/paley.jpg)

]

--

.middletext[

<br>

.left-blurb[

"The hand of God is visible in the complexity of the natural world."

]
]

--

.right-list[

- William Paley was an Anglican minister whose "natural theology" was taken to be the best explanation for biological complexity until Darwin challenged it.

]

--

.right-list[

- His argument is still popular among Christian fundamentalists who use it to oppose evolution.

]

---
## *Classic arguments for theism*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait William Paley, 1743-1805, 80%](img/02/paley.jpg)

]

.topcap[

Paley's Watch

]

--

.right-argument[

If you found a watch on the beach you'd be right to think it was not a product of chance but of design.

The organisms we "find" in nature are even more complex than a watch.

***

Thus a designer powerful enough to have designed biological organisms must exist -- God.

]

--

.wide-list[

- This argument fails to mention other possible explanations for biological complexity, like the "blind watchmaker" of evolution by natural selection. 

]

---
## *Faith and the limits of reason*

.top-right[

![:scale 60%, #ccc;](img/02/church-3-valter-cirillio.jpg)

]

<br>

--
.left-list[

- None of these arguments seem so convincing to modern readers.

]

--

.wide-list[

- Perhaps the Eighteenth Century philosopher Immanuel Kant was right that these kinds of big metaphysical questions cannot be answered in any definite way.

]

--

.wide-list[

- What then about appealing to faith as the basis of religious belief?

]

--

.caution[

Appeals to faith are a double-edged sword. If there are .red[no reasons] offered, only belief, we also have no reason to take such appeals seriously.

]

---
## *Atheism and the problem of evil*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait Epicurus, 341-270 BCE, 80%](img/02/epicurus.jpg)

]

--

.middletext[

<br>

.left-blurb[

"The existence of evil proves that God does not exist."

]
]

--

.right-list[

- Epicurus was a Greek philosopher who was skeptical of religion and advocated enjoying life to the fullest.

]

--

.right-list[

- He argued against religious belief in an era when it was almost universally accepted.

]

---
## *Atheism and the problem of evil*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait Epicurus, 341-270 BCE, 80%](img/02/epicurus.jpg)

]

.topcap[The Argument from Evil]

--

.right-argument[

If there is an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good God, then evil should not exist.

But evil does exist.

***

Thus such a God does not exist.

]

--

.wide-list[

- One typical response to this argument is to blame evil on human free will -- *we* would be at fault then, and not God.

]

--

.wide-list[

- Can this defense deal with "natural evils" like disease or natural disasters without blaming the victim?

]

---
## *Belief and uncertainty*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662, 80%](img/02/pascal.jpg)

]

--

.middletext[

<br>

.left-blurb[

"We are all compelled to gamble."

]
]

--

.right-list[

- Blaise Pascal was deeply religious, but also a mathematician and gambler who laid the foundations of probability theory.

]

--
.right-list[

- Pascal offers an argument in defense of belief in God that assumes that we cannot know for sure whether or not God exists.

]

---
## *Belief and uncertainty*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662, 80%](img/02/pascal.jpg)

]

.topcap[Pascal's Wager]

--

.right-argument[

There is no direct evidence for or against God's existence.

But the risk of not believing is far worse than that of believing.

***

Thus we should accept that God exists.

]

--

.wide-list[

- This argument may show that we have a *motive* to believe -- to avoid punishment for unbelief *if* God turns out to exist -- but is that really a *reason* to think the conclusion is true?

]

---
## *Buddhism*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait Buddha, 4th Century BCE, 80%](img/02/buddha.jpg)

]

--

.middletext[

<br>

.left-blurb[

"What we believe about ultimate questions is less important than how we live."
]
]

--

.right-list[

- Born Siddhartha Gautama, heir to a royal family, the founder of Buddhism sought a solution to the human suffering that inevitably arises from the impermanence of everything and our tendency to cling to things anyway.

]

--

.right-list[

- Buddhism spread throughout Asia and now takes a multitude of forms, but all emphasize self-discipline and not being too attached to things in the world.

]

---
## *Buddhism*

.left-column[

<br><br>

![:portrait Buddha, 4th Century BCE, 80%](img/02/buddha.jpg)

]

--

.topcap[The Parable of the Arrow]

--

.right-argument[

Arguing about God, the universe and the soul is like arguing about who exactly just shot you with an arrow and why.

It's more important to pull the arrow out.

***

That's what religion too should be about, addressing our suffering.

]

--

.wide-list[

- Is Buddhism even a religion or is it a philosophy, or agnostic spiritual and ethical system? 

]


---

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### *Find out more*
 
![:jump Anselm and the Argument for God](https://youtu.be/FmTsS5xFA6k): Hank Green explores Anselm's ontological argument in this episode of The Crash Course.

![:jump Aquinas and the Cosmological Arguments](https://youtu.be/TgisehuGOyY): more from the Crash Course, this time dealing with St. Thomas Aquinas' "five ways" to establish the existence of God.

![:jump Religion Facts](http://www.religionfacts.com/): this is a great website for exploring the many varieties of religion from around the world and throughout history.

![:jump Philosophy of Religion](https://www.iep.utm.edu/religion/): a comprehensive overview of the major issues in this sub-field of philosophy from the *Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy*.

---
class: center credits

![:scale 50%, #ddd;](img/02/church-4-valter-cirillio.jpg)

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