Theme 2; Challenges to Religious Belief

Question 1

agnostic

Answer 1

a person who does not believe it possible to know whether God exists

Question 2

archetype

Answer 2

a typical example of something - the original form which others are copied

Question 3

atheism

Answer 3

a belief that there is no such things as a God

Question 4

Augustinian Type theodicy

Answer 4

argument based on genesis and the fall. Evil is caused by created beings and not God. People’s response to evil and God’s plan decides their destiny - often called soul deciding

Question 5

collective unconcious

Answer 5

the part of the unconscious mind which is derived from ancestral memory and experience and is common to all humankind, as distinct from the individual’s unconscious.

Question 6

epistemic distance

Answer 6

a distance of knowledge. Used by John Hick to explain free will.

Question 7

eschatological justification

Answer 7

all things will be made clear of justified in the ‘end times’

Question 8

fundamentalist

Answer 8

a religious believer or group who follow strict adherence to the fundamental principles of any set of beliefs. Sometimes they are intolerant of other views.

Question 9

individuation

Answer 9

In Jungian psychology, the gradual integration and unification of the self through the resolution of successive layers of psychological conflict

Question 10

Irenaeus type theodicy

Answer 10

the presence of evil is deliberate and helps people to grow and develop - soul making

Question 11

J.L Mackie

Answer 11

20th century Australian philosopher who formulated the inconsistent triad as an expression for the classical problem of evil

Question 12

moral evil

Answer 12

events in which responsible actions by human beings cause suffering or harm, e.g war

Question 13

natural evil

Answer 13

events caused by nature which induce suffering, but human beings have little or no control over.

Question 14

neurosis

Answer 14

a mental illness which results in high levels of anxiety, unreasonable fears, and behavior.

Question 15

New Atheism

Answer 15

views the concept of God as a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom - religion is seen as a threat to our civilizations.

Question 16

oedipus complex

Answer 16

• boys tendency to feeling sexual desires towards his mother and competition with his father for her affection.
• ## a product of the unconscious mind

Question 17

Gregory Paul

Answer 17

states that the statistical weight of the amount of suffering experienced in the world, especially by children, challenges the Christian understandings of a benevolent GOD

Question 18

primal horde

Answer 18

links to totemism and Darwins ideas of primal hordes

• the strongest tyrannical male dominated all the females and as his young approached maturity they were driven off by him.
  His offspring, dispossessed, one day united and killed the father and liberated the women whom they took for themselves

Question 19

privation

Answer 19

an absence of something that ought to be there

Question 20

second-order goods

Answer 20

moral goods that result from a response to evil, e.g compassion

Question 21

soul deciding

Answer 21

describes how suffering helps humans to choose whether to do good (and choose the path God intended) or do evil and reject God’s plan for humanity.

Question 22

soul-making

Answer 22

a concept within the traditions of Irenaen theodicy that states suffering helps humans to develop morally

Question 23

theodicy

Answer 23

a justification of the righteousness of God, given the existence of evil

Question 24

totem

Answer 24

a sacred object or symbol which serves as an emblem of a group of people

Question 25

wish fulfilment

Answer 25

attempts by the unconscious to resolve a conflict of some sort