Questions tagged [philosophy-of-religion]
Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious vocabulary and texts, and the relationship of religion and science. Note that term is somewhat ambiguous as questions regarding atheism, secular humanism and agnosticism is included in the discipline.
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Can religions die out specifically lose followers and consequently stop existing? (ontologically speaking)
This question arose after I watched the movie Dune and made some interesting finds regarding the religious and sociopolitical environment of this masterpiece.
So the question arose, when I realized ...
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Are the subjective experience of the "inner witness of the Holy Spirit" and the subjective experience of an external world of equal epistemic value? [closed]
In 1998, Dr William Lane Craig debated Professor Keith M. Parsons at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, TX. The topic of the debate was "Why I Am/Am Not a Christian." After the debate ...
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If you believe that our reality is some kind of reflection, what should be your label? Atheist? Nonbeliever? Agnostic?
If you believe in the external presence (God), but you are not religious in a conventional way. You believe in destiny, guidance from above, the afterlife, but you don't believe that Jesus Christ or ...
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What exactly would count as a "positively meaningful and reciprocal conscious relationship" between a person and a God?
I would like to start by quoting this answer's summary of the divine hiddenness argument:
This is the crux of the atheistic Argument from Divine
Hiddenness:
(1) Necessarily, if God exists, then God ...
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Can belief in God be grounded in (and justified by) personal experience rather than philosophical argumentation?
Attempts at legitimizing belief in God through reasoned philosophical argumentation abound in the fields of natural theology and apologetics. This is particularly evident in formal debates and ...
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Are humans more forgiving and merciful than God? [closed]
Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are religions that follow a belief where if you commit certain sins, you'll end up being eternally punished unless you're forgiven by a higher power.
Although the ...
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Does guilt and conscience come from a higher source?
Can someone have a conscience if they never were taught what was good from bad? Could they feel guilty without the education of what was right? If so, does that mean that conscience could come from a ...
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Why can't God be limited? [closed]
As far as I understand, many religions claim that God is perfect and unlimited in (almost) any way (e.g. the Christian God is often described as omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent, ......
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Should I respect other people's religions?
My point of view is that there is no reason to believe any god exists without evidence.
So I find religions a very irrational idea and I mostly heard people saying
We have to respect other ...
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Should real possibilities be considered a part of reality and, as such, be regarded as evidence?
Can we say, with respect to reality, that "I AM not just What I AM"? That, aside from things actually existing or having been in the past, the real possibilities too must be treated as part ...
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Do gnostic valentinians contribute their sect nowadays? [closed]
Why did people abandon Valentinian teachings and why isn't it practiced today?
Here are links to who Valentinus was, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus_(Gnostic), and a summary of his views: ...
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Why are most philosophers non-theists and most non-philosophers theists? [closed]
According to PhilPapers Survey 2020, 66.95% of philosophers accept or lean towards atheism and 7.18% are agnostic or undecided, whereas only a 18.93% accepts or leans towards theism. In sharp contrast,...
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Can religious, mystical, or spiritual experiences reveal truth?
To what extent can we acquire reliable knowledge about the world through religious, mystical, or spiritual experiences?
Does the answer hinge on the context of these experiences?
Does the answer hinge ...
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Does theism postulate an overly complicated and unnecessary extra step?
One presentation of this argument is put forward by Carl Sagan:
"If the general picture, however, of a Big Bang followed by an expanding universe is correct - what happened before that? Was the ...
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Are there published rebuttals of Patrick Flynn's recent book "The Best Argument for God"?
The Best Argument for God, by Patrick Flynn, was recently published on October 17th, 2023. With only 21 votes on Amazon so far, it has garnered an average rating of 4.9 (as of March 25th, 2024). Does ...
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Is Christianity testable?
In a debate between John Lennox and Peter Atkins on the topic "Can science explain everything?", at minute 44:47 John Lennox claims:
Lennox: "And the major reason why I believe that ...
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Life: Pessimism vs optimism
I was reflecting a bit on the history of philosophy and religion and how they view human life. My question is the following: Why does it seem ( at least from my readings and knowledge, I might have ...
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Greek philosophy: Why would Finite Time weaken the forces of evil?
The inspiration for this question is the metaphysics of evil in Zurvanism, however, I do not want to use the internal logic of this religious system to understand this topic, rather I want to see if ...
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Does it matter if certain professions have a lower rate of theism, and if so, why does it matter?
Many of us are familiar with discussions bringing up the correlation with religion and IQ, or educational achievement, or being a professional in a certain field like physics or biology. These are ...
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Does philosophy suffer from an ad populum bias?
It seems to me that positions in philosophy are taken more seriously depending on how many people believe in them. For example, someone who believes in a monotheistic God is taken a bit more seriously ...
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Can atheism be considered as cult [closed]
I had recently conversation trying to understand if atheism is religion.
However best argument I had - is that lack of belief into something isn’t theology - and it seems fare to me.
However speaking ...
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Is the Skeptic's Prayer a valid scientific experiment?
The "Skeptic's Prayer" is introduced on page 411 of Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith, by Peter Kreeft & Fr. Ronald Tacelli.
The Skeptic's Prayer
...
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How could Occam's razor possibly be used metaphysically?
Occam's razor, or the law of parsimony, states that the simplest explanation for any given data is most likely the correct one.
Some have attempted to use Occam's razor in a metaphysical sense, to ...
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Can Reformed Epistemology be considered a special variant of mysticism?
First, some definitions (feel free to skip this part if you are already familiar with the concepts):
Reformed Epistemology
In the philosophy of religion, Reformed epistemology is a school of ...
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Are all explanations either personal or scientific?
In A New Cosmological Argument, Richard Gale and Alexander Pruss offer up a cosmological argument for a personal God, from the weak principle of sufficient reason (among other premises, but the WPSR ...
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Doesn't fallibilism complexify Pascal's wager further?
We can never know whether we have accumulated all the knowledge in the world or not. This is a general statement. For example, a powerful counterargument against the contingency argument might exist ...
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Is it defensible to claim that religion is a personal relationship with God and therefore contains no claims?
It is a common line of argumentation against religion that it includes dogmatic claims without evidence and that the resistance to change that is peculiar to religion and stems from its dogmatism ...
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How similar are Taoism and Christianity?
The current Wikipedia article on Taoism contains a relatively prominent section devoted to arguments in favor of an alleged similarity between Taoism and Christianity.
Some authors have dealt with ...
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Kant’s claim “there are only three kinds of proof for the existence of God”
There are only three kinds of proof for the existence of God possible from speculative reason.
All paths on which one may set forth with this aim either begin from determinate experience and the ...
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Is there a stalemate between Skeptical Theism and The Evidential Problem of Evil?
Skeptical Theism:
Skeptical theism is the view that God exists but that we should be skeptical of our ability to discern God’s reasons for acting or refraining from acting in any particular instance. ...
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Can God's existence be established through reason and publicly accessible evidence?
Is it possible for an ordinary individual possessing sound cognitive faculties and access to publicly available evidence to establish the existence of a God? Is there a prevailing consensus in ...
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Does the Problem of Evil address God's existence or his character?
The Problem of Evil, as most of us know, can be stated like this:
God is the all-powerful and all-benevolent creator of the universe.
Evil exists in that universe.
If God is all-powerful, and yet ...
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If Pascal's wager can be applied to belief in anything, then what is the fallacy in Pascal's wager?
I want to know the specific flaw in Pascal's wager that allows it to motivate belief in other things than God.
For example, a similar argument to the original wager can be used to say that it is ...
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Nietzsche on balancing service to the creation of (or becoming) the Overman and living a life of ones own choosing?
So, I have been looking into Nietzsche.
To be honest, I have thought a lot about Nietzsche for the past 2 years, and I am unsure of what to make of the nature of this need to become the Overman. My ...
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Why should I seek to determine the ultimate nature of reality (i.e. whether God exists or not)?
Here is my argument:
Until recently, I considered the pursuit (and eventual determination) of the ultimate nature of reality to be one of the most (if not the most) important goals for me. This is ...
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Is a miracle a sufficient evidence of the truth of a religion?
Does a miracle constitute a sufficient evidence for the truth of a claim?
I see lots of religions really presenting a history of their pivotal figures being able to perform miracles. However, the ...
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Does the requirement to use preferred gender pronous preclude the participation of people whose faith teaches that gender cannot be changed?
There are numerous cases where the views held by different people clash. Homosexual intercourses are one such obvious example: many religious denominations (for example Catholicism) consider them ...
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What is the utility of non-falsifiable beliefs about God?
Note: This question is derived from comments by the original poster of an earlier question (on my answer to that question, How can theists respond to the argument that God is "unfalsifiable"...
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Are there versions of Pascal's Wager in which the potential benefits can be realized during one's lifetime?
The conventional formulation of Pascal's Wager hinges on the uncertainty of awaiting confirmation until after death to determine the success of the wager. This assumes that the occurrence of death ...
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Can faith be based on hope rather than belief or intellectual assent?
I've been reflecting on the interplay between faith and hope, especially when hope entails some degree of uncertainty and lack of intellectual assent but a strong desire for something to be true. As ...
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A problem regarding an impermanent hell
Regarding the Abrahamic hells, one could say that they are absolutely terrible for it is suffering without end, an eternal suffering; but there is a puzzling different type of hell or hells, those of ...
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I am confused regarding my beliefs [closed]
I was born in a Muslim conservative family in Pakistan. I was taught Islam in my childhood. After growing up, I saw things differently. There was contradictions in all religious books, practices and ...
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In nondualistic religions (Shaivism/Hinduism/New Age) why does consciousness manifest the world at all?
Hi I do not understand why there is no religion stacks exchange but this question is more philosophy anyhow.
Nondualistic eastern religions (Traditionally tantra movement, some Hinduism strands, ...
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Is Plato's ideal world comparable to heaven?
Plato thought there was an ideal world where ideas live. Independently of people. These ideas throw a shadow on the material world we live in. By examining this material world we can get knowledge of ...
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Can the definition of philosophy be personal?
Is there a formal definition of philosophy agreed upon by everybody. If any new- or third-party decides to subscribe to "philosophy", do they compulsorily accept the formal definition.
Or ...
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The firmament in the hexaemeral cosmogony and compatibility with Thales
I realize any GPT analytical snippet may have its flaws, but I find it an alluring tool (if it continues to improve) to offer educated conjectures on what pre-Socratics would have to say about certain ...
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Would LEGIT miracles and prophecies serve as proof for a religion [duplicate]
Let's say that a random man comes to me and preaches his faith. He says that his religious book was sent down to Earth 3000 years ago and revealed to a man called 'X'.
I ask him for proof about his ...
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Is Romans 1:19-20 philosophically sound?
Romans 1:18-25 ESV
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about ...
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Should one consider it a 'miracle' that the world exists?
Miracles are used generally in theological/religious contexts. Outside of them they're seen as either rationally explicable as signifiers of theological truths that are uncovered by hermeneutics of ...
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In what sense is atheism scientific?
I have been reading a bit of Dawkins and the like and they all seem to hold a very strong viewpoint on atheism and its associated ideology. I have not found a direct citation for this but he ...
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