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Philosophy of Religion > Exam 1 > Flashcards

Exam 1 Flashcards

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1
Q

Intro

The Problem of Definition

A

Focusing on a specific trait or a specific religion can both be distorting.

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2
Q

Intro

Philosophy of Religion

A

The discipline of philosophy that closely analyzes religious beliefs for consistency, coherence, reasonableness, meaningfulness, etc.

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3
Q

Intro

Classical Theism

A

There exists one transcendent God who is omnipotent, omniscent, perfectly good, and the creator and sustainer of the universe. This view is common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

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4
Q

Intro

God’s Hiddeness

A

God’s existence isn’t obvious. The universe seems religiously ambiguous.

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5
Q

Intro

Interested Objectivity

A

This is the approach of the authors. It is a position that aims to treat all sides of a debate fairly, but still tells the reader what one’s own views are.

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6
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Daniel Dennett

A

One of the “four horsemen” of atheism. Dennett seeks to give an explanation of the origins and survival of religion by using evolutionary biology.

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7
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Pros and Cons

A

Dennett acknowledges that religion has positive benefits for its believers, but it sometimes has very negative consequenses. We need to understand religion to protect ourselves from when it goes bad.

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8
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

The Good Trick

A

Some animals have a biologically driven propensity to take up the intentional stance. This means that these animals, including humans, tend to attribute beliefs and desires to entities around them. This propensity plausibly has survival value, but does sometimes attributes agency when it isn’t there, which explains the origin of primitive folk religion.

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9
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Religion and Morality

A

Dennett argues that
1. Religious motivation is not necessary to be morally good
2. Thinking that it is necessary is demeaning to human nature

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10
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Expression of Religious Belief

A

Dennett argues that expressions of religious belief cannot be taken at face value.

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11
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Methodological Religious Nonrealism

A

Adherents of this view do not take a stand on whether we can take religious beliefs at face value or not. In other words, the question of whether religious beliefs are referring or nonreferring is not something on which they take a stand.

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12
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Ontological Religious Nonrealism

A

Religious beliefs are nonreferring. This means that religious beliefs are not really about their content. Ex: Dennett, Freud, Huxley, Durkheim

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13
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Ontological Religious Realism

A

Religious beliefs are referring. This means that religious beliefs are about their content. This does not mean that one assumes that God exists. Adherents of this view believe it is legitamate to analyze religious beliefs for their coherence, consistency, meaning, reasonableness, etc. Ex: The authors of the course textbooks and Robert Trigg

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14
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Buddhist Nonrealism

A

Metaphysical questions are a distraction that get in the way of the religious life. They are best set aside.

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15
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Insider/Internal Perspective

A

If we focus too much on this perspective, it precludes understanding of a religion by outsiders so much that athiesm becomes impossible.

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16
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Outsider/External Perspective

A

Focusing much on this perspective can lead to dismissing the possibility of a belief being held because it is true.

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17
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Double Standard

A

Trigg accuses nonrealists of holding to a double standard. The religious believer is merely the product of biological and social forces, whereas the social scientist is immune from such influence.

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18
Q

Realism and Nonrealism

Flattening out Religious Belief

A

When the focus is purely on giving an explanation of the function and social effects of religion, this tends to make differences in the content of beliefs unimportant.

Truth cannot be arbitrarily denied for religion but assumed for scientific explantions of religion. Rather, once truth is denied at one level, it may be denied at another. The assumption that all religious beliefs are mistaken and so their content to be ignored is in need of justification.

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19
Q

Religious Experience-Alston

Alston is concerned with?

A

(Supposed) experiences of God: experiences in which the subjects take themselves to have direct awareness of God.

20
Q

Religious Experience-Alston

Nonsenory Experiences

A

These experiences are not mediated by sensory capacities. They are called mystical experiences.

21
Q

Religious Experience-Alston

Theory of Appearing

A

“… perceiving X simply consists in X’s appearing to one subject, for example, or being presented to one as so-and-so. That’s all there is to it…”

22
Q

Religious Experience-Alston

Three parts of perception

A
  1. The perceiver
    Ex: Alston
  2. The perceived object
    Ex: a cat
  3. The Phenomenon
    Ex: the appearance of the cat
23
Q

Religious Experience-Alston

Three necessary conditions for Genuine Perception

A
  1. X must exist
    Ex: A tree must exist to perceive it
  2. Casual Connection between X and the subject
    Ex: Can’t be a barrier between the subject and the object
    3.Doxastic Conditon: “Perceiving X at least tends to give rise to beliefs about X.”
    Ex: Alston seeing his house
24
Q

Religious Experience-Alston

If God exists, the mystical experience is properly called

A

mystical perception

25
Q

Religious Experience-Alston

Phenomenal Concepts

A

Specify felt quaities that objects present themselves as bearing
Ex: round, red, acrid, etc.

26
Q

Religious Experience-Alston

Comparitive Concepts

A

Specify a mode of appearance in terms of the sort of objective thing that typically appears in that way.
Ex: “She looks like Susie,” “It taste like pineapple,” “It sounds like Bach”

27
Q

Religious Experience-Alston

Importance of Alston’s Analysis

A
  1. If we are perceiving God, then we can quite literally have a personal realtionship with God
  2. Cognitive significance: Any problems arise in the same form for both, giving mystical experiences intellectual clout not present in the subjectivist constual.
28
Q

Swinburn and Martin

The ____ of seeming is in contrast to ____, in which something appears a certain way but does not entail that one believes it is a certain way.
Ex: Seeing a stick looking bent in the water.

A

epistemic sense
comparative sense

29
Q

Swinburn and Martin

Principle of Credulity

A

“…I suggest that it is a principle of rationality that (in the absence of special consideration), if it seems (epistimically) to a subject that X is present (and has that characteristic), then probably X is present (and has that characteristic); what one seems to perceive is probably so.” Swinburne takes PC to be a universal principle that applies to religious experience as well as normal perception.

30
Q

Swinburn and Martin

Consideration 4

A

Especially important for Martin’s critique of Swinburne.
States that even if the object were present, it is unlikely that the object caused the subject to experience it. One can do this by showing that something other than the object caused the subject to have an experience of the object.

31
Q

Swinburn and Martin

External Cause Hypothesis (H1)

A

In order to believe that the non-public object exists, Martin points out that the object, which is external to the subject must have caused the experience.

32
Q

Swinburn and Martin

Psychological Hypothesis (H2)

A

According to Martin, there is a rival hypothesis, namely that the cause of the religious experience is the mind of the subject.

33
Q

Swinburn and Martin

Religious experinces are more plausibly explained by ____ because _____.

A

(H2) instead of (H1) because religious experiences do not generate coherent or consisent accounts among those who have them.

34
Q

Swinburn and Martin

Swinburne believes that religious experiences are at their core ________.

A

Reconcilable
1. God may be known by different names
2. Lesser entities such as angels could have been experienced as deities such as Poseidon
3. We need to look at more numerous, better authenticated accounts

35
Q

Swinburn and Martin

We need ____ between religious experiences for them to be contradictory

A

direct contradictions

36
Q

Swinburn and Martin

Negative Principle of Credulity

A

If it seems (epistemically) to a subject that X is absent, then probably X is absent
Swinburne argues that in the case of God, we can’t really know in what conditions one would expect to see God if God existed

37
Q

Swinburn and Martin

Martin argues

A
  1. That there are direct contradictions between Eastern and Western religious experience
  2. Experiences such as those of Poseidon are indirectly incompatible with Western religion because they are of a deity within a different religion
  3. Mystical experiences are not well explained by the God of classical theism
38
Q

Faith and Reason-Aquinas

Twofold Mode of Truth

A

“Beneficially, therefore, did the divine Mercy provide that it should instruct to hold by the faith even those truths that the human reason is able to investigate. In this way, all men would easily be able to have a share in the knowledge of God, and this without uncertainty and error…”

39
Q

Faith and Reason-Aquinas

Sources of Evidence for Faith

A
  1. Arguments via natural reason
  2. Miracles: healing illness, raising the dead, and the Holy Spirit empowering people with wisdom
  3. The conversion of much of the world at the time to Christianity, even at times in the face of persecution
  4. Fulfilled Old Testament prophecy in the New Testament
40
Q

Faith and Reason-Aquinas

The Proper Construal of Reason

A

A. Some things are above reason
B. Sometimes people do make mistakes in their thinking
C. When reason is carried out without mistake, it will agree with revelation

41
Q

Faith and Reason-Clifford

The Ship Example

A

“…he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him”
Evaluation doesn’t change with different result

42
Q

Faith and Reason-Clifford

Belief and Action

A
  1. Beliefs motivate one to act
  2. Beliefs influence our minds holistically

It is not only leaders and intellectuals that have the duty to be responsible in forming beliefs, everyone has the duty

43
Q

Faith and Reason-Clifford

The highest and best of pleasures when it is justified by careful inquiry

A

A sense of power.
Without justification it is stolen pleasure.

44
Q

Faith and Reason-Clifford

Credulity leads to

A

dishonesty

45
Q

Faith and Reason-James

James calls the decision between the two hypotheses an __________.

A

option
1. Living vs. Dead
2. Forced vs. Avoidable
3. Momentous vs. Trivial

Philosophy of Religion (1 decks)

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