religious language

Question 1

what is religious language and the goal behind it

Answer 1

whether all religious statements are meaningful

Question 2

what is the distinction between cognitivism and non-cognitivism about religious language

Answer 2

cognitivism:
- Says that statements are meaningful in that they are expressions of our beliefs about the world
- They can be true or false
- e.g. ‘water boils at 100c’
‘triangles have 3 sides’
- Would say that ‘God exists’ is meaningful as it is a claim about the world and expressions of belief about the world are true or false

non-cognitivism
- does not aim to describe how the world is/don’t make claims
- statements are meaningful in that they express some other type of mental state for example, emotions, commands, values, attitudes
- neither true or false
- e.g. ‘ouch!’
- non-cognitivism would say that expressions like ‘god exists’ is meaningful because they are not claims about the world but are instead an expression of non-cognitive mental states and sentences are meaningful if they are expressions of a mental state

Question 3

explain the challenges to the status of religious language of the verification principle and verification/falsification

Answer 3

• The verification principle says that a sentence is meaningful if:
  1) it is true by definition (tautology), analytic truths
  2) it can be shown to be true or false (verifiable)
• ayer argues that although metaphysical claims (religious claims) appear to be meaningful they are not
  1. claims are meaningful if they are true by definition or verifiable
  2. religious language makes claims that are not true by defintion
  3. religious language makes claims about metaphysical entities (God, heaven)
  4. metaphysical entities are beyond observation and experience and so cannot be verified
  5. religious claims are not factually significant because we don’t know what conditions would need to be met for us to verify these claims as true or false
  6. religious statements like ‘god exists’ are not meaningful, but are pseudo-statements that lack factual significance

Question 4

what is hick’s response to ayer’s verification principle of eschatological verification (including the celestial city parable)

Answer 4

• an eschatological verification: is a statement that can be verified after death, or at the end of time
• he says that ‘god exists’ is not empirically verifiable in this life
• but he says it is possible to verify after we die
• hick says it is possible to verify ‘god exists’ because we can describe an experience where rational doubt about god’s existence can be removed
• he gives a parable to illustrate this: two people are travelling on a road. person A believes that the road leads to celestial city. Personal B believes that the road leads to no where. They encounter moments of delight, and moments of hardship and danger. When they turn the last corner one of them will be right and one of them will be shown to be wrong.
• Person B represents an atheist, Person A represents a thiest.
• Hicks argument says that verification means that we can describe a situation in which rational doubt is removed
• after someone dies, they will encounter and recognise god
• therefore, after someone dies the rational doubt that there is a god will be removed
• so the claim ‘god exists’ can be verified after death

Question 5

what are issues with Hicks celestial city response to ayer.

Answer 5

• Issues of personal identity are complex and problematic
• not necessarily true that someone being teleported will be the same person rather than an identical duplicate
• if all of your atoms were separated and then you were remade out of different materials available at the sight of teleportation that fully represented your genetics, would you still say this is you?
• if we go to heaven would it be us or an identical duplicate? we wouldn’t say that a clone of ourselves is us because it is not us - it is a copy

Question 6

explain Anthony Flew on falsification (Wisdom’s gardener)

Answer 6

• The university debate switches the emphasis of religious language from verification to falsification
• if a statement is falsifiable it means it is meaningful and capable of being true or false
• for a statement to be falsifiable it has to have possible evidence that could count against that statement
• flew says religious statements can’t be falsified because they are not genuine assertions and uses the parable of the invisible gardener
• wisdom’s original parable describes two people looking at a neglected garden; one believes a gardener has been visiting, one believes there is no gardener, what they observe is the same but they see the garden differently
• flew’s parable:
  two people find a clearing in a jungle, one believes there is a gardener, the other doesn’t. they keep watch but see no one. the believer suggests that it is an invisible gardener so they set up an electric fence. Still no movements, no sounds. the believer says it could be an invisible, silent, intangible gardener. The sceptic then asks how this claim differs from there being no gardener at all.
• Flew says that an assertion is genuine when you know what the world would look like if the claim was false
• Athiests provide many examples of what the world would look like if the claim ‘god exists’ was false. e.g. pointless suffering
• but believers use these statements to **quantify their claims **to avoid them being falsified
• believers cannot conceive of any examples of what the world would look like if the claim ‘god exists’ was false
• so believers claims that ‘god exists’ are unfalsifiable and meaningless

Question 7

explain Mitchell’s response to Flew (the Partisan)

Answer 7

• Mitchell says that religious statements can’t be falsified conclusively, but they are assertions and he uses the Partisan parable to show this
• Mitchell believes that believers recognise that suffering counts against the existence of God, but they will not allow suffering to count decisively against their belief because their faith commits them to finding an explanation for this suffering
• Mitchell’s parable:
  In war, a partisan member of the resistance meets a stranger who tells the partisan that he is also in the resistance. The partisan is completely convinced that ‘the stranger is on our side’ and sees him helping the resistance. But he also sees him acting against the resistance which worries the partisan. However, the partisan overcomes these trials of faith, seeking an explanation for the strangers betrayals and trusting that he knows best. He maintains his belief that ‘the stranger is on our side’.
• the stranger represents god and his ambiguous actions represent evil.
• Mitchell agrees that a meaningful assertion is one that can be falsified
• believers who claim that ‘god exists’ recognise that the problem of evil counts against their assertion
• so ‘god exists’ is a genuine assertion
• however the believers will not discard their belief because of their faith in god - they will always try and find an explanation
• therefore religious statements are genuine assertions but not conclusively falsifiable

Question 8

what is an issue with Mitchell’s response

Answer 8

• flew accepts that Mitchell is correct in recognising that believers try to explain the problem of evil, but he says that one day believers will have to qualify their claim that ‘god exists’ as the problem of evil cannot be solved.

Question 9

What is Hare’s response to Flew (bliks and the lunatics)

Answer 9

• Hare says that falsification of religious statements is not relevant because they are expressions of bliks and he uses the example of the paranoid student
• Hick’s example:
  a student believes that all his university tutors want to murder him. His friends try to convince him that this is not true by introducing him to the friendliest lecturers. After this meeting, the friends point out that they don’t want to murder him, but the student claims that the tutors are cunning and are plotting against him.
• Hick says that the students claim that ‘the tutors want to murder me’ fails the test of falsifiability as there is no evidence that the student would accept as counting against this claim.
• Hick proposes that the student’s claim is a ‘blik’ - a foundational attitude that we have to the world which our beliefs are based on.
• DESPITE being unfalisifable, Hick argues that bliks are still meaningful to the person that holds them - it may even affect their behaviour.
• the student has a deluded blik which leads to him avoiding his lectures and university tutors.
• religious claims like ‘god exists’ are expressions of fundamental attitudes to the world (bliks)
• these religious claims cannot be falsified because bliks cannot be falsified
• therefore religious statements are not assertions, but they are expressions of a blik
• religious statements are still meaningful to those that believe them, it means enough that it can effect their behaviour e.g. going to church

Question 10

explain an issue with Hick’s Blik’s

Answer 10

• Hick does not explain how we can distinguish between a ‘deluded’ blik like the students or a ‘correct’ blik like the students friends.
• Perhaps thiests bliks are deluded.