The God Hypothesis

Question 1

God Hypothesis

Answer 1

-Dawkins
- the belief that there must be a God who designed the universe for it to be as perfect as we see it today

Question 2

Natural selection

Answer 2

• if creation story was true, then animal would be how they were then now.
• natural selection explains how there can be complex and improbable things in the universe

Question 3

Complexity

Answer 3

• God designing complex things isn’t good enough because God would have to be as complex to design complex things .

Question 4

The multiverse

Answer 4

• instead of invoking God as the designer of the universe, we should consider the multiverse theory.
• our universe is just one of an endless number of universe each within different variations.
• the universe is one variation that supports life

Question 5

Religion as a aberration

Answer 5

• the brain has led us astray
• moth to a flame example (how the warmth and light saves them but could also lead to death)
• religion is death in a flame
• 2 qualities that provide survival
• 1 - humans need for authority
• 2- humans we look for purpose in everything
• hence why we have a psychological disposition to religious belief ( passed down through cultures by imitation and not genetics)
• these memes have been manipulated by religious leaders to develop religion

Question 6

God of the gaps

Answer 6

• science fills gaps that make God irrelevant
• explanation; by understanding natural selection we no longer need religion to explain life
• extortion; religion used to exhort us to live moral lives however it is easy to prove that religious people don’t lead moral lives
• consolation; it does not have to be the only source of consolation (religion)
• inspiration - we can be inspired by the natural world around us, the complexity of life inspire us

Question 7

Arguments against Dawkins were proposed by who?

Answer 7

Alister and Joanna Mcgrath - the Dawkins delusion

Question 8

Growing into faith

Answer 8

• it is significant that many humans have become Christian in their adult life
• opposite of beliefs such as Santa or the toot fairy
• e.g. Anthony flew was a n atheist who changed his mind about it in the 80s and wrote ‘there is a God’

Question 9

challenge to the Biological Argument

Answer 9

• if religion was a ‘virus of the mind’ then there should be scientific evidence
• there’s no evidence for religion being a ‘misfire to the brain’
• it contradictory for a scientist to present ideas with no evidence

Question 10

The Wall Part 1

Answer 10

• Dawkins has unnecessarily built a wall between science and religion
• Stephan Jay Gould said that religion and science represent ‘non overlapping magisteria’

Question 11

NOMA

Answer 11

• both science and religion are two separate areas so there doesn’t have to be a wall between them
• science deals with empirical realm (how) and religion focusses on the ultimate questions in life (why)

Question 12

The Wall Part 2

Answer 12

• Martin Rees believes that the answer to these ultimate questions lay beyond the realm of science
• McGraths advocated for the ‘partially overlapping Magisteria’

Question 13

POMA

Answer 13

• Science and Religion can interpenetrate each other, helping them become more informed

Question 14

The God of the gaps - against

Answer 14

• the majority of theologians view the reality of God as intimately and actively involved in all of life
• what requires an explanation is the notion that we live in an intelligible life and explainable universe
• Swinburne argues the best explanation for the fact of an intelligible universe is that it has been created by an intelligible being