5.1 critiques to religious belief Flashcards
What is meant by atheism?
- the lack of belief in any God or gods, not neccessarily the denial/rejection of their existence
What is strong atheism?
- antitheism = a conscious and deliberate opposition to theism is harmful to the believer
What is weak atheism?
- scepticism = doubting knowledge claims set forth in various areas, sceptics have challenged the adequacy of belief
What is meant by humanists and what do they believe in?
- they reject the belief in God and trust in scientific explanations
- morality is based on reason
- there is no afterlife and no ultimate purpose
What do rationalists believe in?
- reason, logic and truth
What do natutralists believe in?
- human life is natural
- belief in scientific enquiry
What are some reasons for atheism?
- existence of evil
- loss of faith
- contradictory teachings
- distrust of organised religion
What 5 crucial factors did Durkheim argue were the reasins why suicide rates were high?
- individualism
- excessive hope
- too much freedom
- atheism
- weakening of the nation and the family
How do functionalists view religion?
- the social glue that holds a community together
- God is the projected social cohesion of the group
- the clan and God are one
What are some criticisms of the functionalist view of religion?
- the beliver makes a distinction between community and God
- the willingness of believers to challenge the norms of society
- society may change and evolve but God doesn’t
What does Marxism argue about religion?
- it is an ideology, designed to pacify the workers
- used by the ruling class to dominate and oppress the masses
How did Marx refer to religion?
it is the opium of the masses
What are some criticisms of the Marxist view of religion?
- assumes close ties between the church and the state but this isn’t necessarily the case and the church has criticised the state e.g. the Joseph Rowntree foundation
- the faceless corporation has no need to pacify the workforce, they either conform or they’re gone
- liberation theology showed that Christianity can change society to improve inequality and poverty
What is Freud’s perspective on religion?
- religion is a projective system that is an universal neurosis
- the aim of the institution is to repress anti-social activities by inducing fear and guilt
- God is a substitute father and a projection of the super ego
According to Carl Jung, what are the 2 aspects of the unconscious mind?
- the personal
- the collective
What is the role of the collective aspect of the mind?
- holds the building blocks of more complex ideas
What is Jung’s perspective on religion?
- God and religion have a psychic reality, for those who experience the effects of these archetypes
- rejecting religion is the rejection of a part of the process of individuation and is more likely to result in neurosis
What are some critiques of the psychological view on religion?
- all religious behavior was based in the psychosexual relaionship to the father
- Freud’s need to make everything about sex says more about his own obssessional neurosis
- many people are atheist, so the existence of archetypes is questionable, but he refuses to allow the idea to be falsified
What is the postmodern perspective of religion?
- Christianity can no longer be trusted to be the truth
- it’s just one narrative amongst many that we are free to choose from
- reject the truth claim of all religions
What does David Lyon argue?
- religion is no longer embedded in cultures, countries or institutions
- religion is now a matter of personal choice and is not a duty
What does Merold Westphal argue?
- Christian theologiand should appropriate the methodology of postmodernism and reject the atheist project of some of its proponents
- the conflicts caused by religion could be unified under the ‘universality of reason’
- no religion has the monopoly on truth = anticlericalism
