Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Arguments against the
Existence of God
- Projection Atheism
- Religion is created
by man to fulfil a human
desire or purpose
- Materialism
- Nothing exists but
the empirical world
- Psycological Critiques
- Freud
- Religion is just a way
to overcome inner
conflict
Anmerkungen:
- famous examples of this include the
primal horde theory and Oedipus compex)
- Need for a father figure
- Religion was necessary for developing world, to
restrain violent impulses. In modern society, this
can be put away for reason and science
- Carl Jung
- The 'collective unconcious' of
humanity projects the
'archetype' of Hero - in the form
of an anthropomorphisesed
God
- Sociological Critiques
- Marx
- Religion must be abolished as the illusory
happiness of people so that a true happiness
can be realised. Men will then control society
and thus not be controlled by it
- Religion is used to oppress the poor - for
example the Divine Order of Being places
the rich as closer to God.
- 'the opium of the people'
- Nietzche
- Religion is a way of giving the
oppressed strength in face of their
oppressors.
- Christian faith amongst Black groups in America
- Durkheim
- [Religion is] a unified system of beliefs and
practices relative to sacred things…beliefs and
practices which unite into one single moral
community called a church, all who adhere to them
- Life is in tension between the sacred
and the profane (everyday)
- while religion can be seen as a
positive force, it nevertheless is
motivated by society and not the
religious truths themselves
- Dawkins
- Religion teaches you to be satisfied
with not understanding the world.
Religion is about turning untested
belief into unshakable truth through
the power of institution
- Young Earth Creationism as
40% of American belief.
- Faith is the great cop out, the great
excuse to evade the need to think and
evaluate evidence
- Colorado Hell House - religion is used to suppress and
oppress. Anti-gay propaganda and Pro-Life extreamism
- Evidentialism
- W. K. Clifford "It is wrong,
always, to believe anything
upon insufficient evidence"
- Antony Flew - The Onus of proof is on the believer
to justify their claims, since the purpose of
philosophy is knowledge and they are
making 'unfalsifiable claims'
- Bertrand Russell's teapot
- Alisdair McGrath - "The capacity of science
to explain itself requires an explaination"
- Alvin Plantinga - reformed
epistomology, God is a basic belief,
which does not need to be inferred.
"Belief making tools" of humanity
shows we were "made to have a
belief"