Online research in philosophy

Introduction -- Religion and the philosophy of religion -- Religion and the world religions -- Philosophy and the philosophy of religion -- Philosophy of religion timeline -- Religious beliefs and practices -- Religious diversity and pluralism -- The diversity of religions -- Religious inclusivism and exclusivism -- Religious pluralism -- Religious relativism -- Evaluating religious systems -- Religious tolerance -- Conceptions of ultimate reality -- Ultimate reality : the absolute and the void -- Ultimate reality : a personal God -- Arguments for God's existence: cosmological -- The argument from contingency -- The sufficient reason argument -- The Kalam argument -- A cosmological argument for atheism -- Arguments for God's existence : teleological -- Paley's design argument -- A fine-tuning argument -- An intelligent design argument -- Arguments for God's existence : ontological -- Anselm's ontological argument -- Plantinga's modal ontological argument -- Problems of evil -- Sketching the terrain -- Theoretical problems of evil -- The existential problem of evil -- Theodicies -- Science, faith, and reason -- Religion and science -- Religious belief and justification -- Religious experience -- The nature and diversity of religious experience -- Religious experience and justification -- Scientific explanations of religious experience -- The self, death, and the afterlife -- Conceptions of the self -- Reincarnation and karma -- Arguments for immortality -- Arguments against immortality.

Belief in God's being -- Belief in God's love -- Belief and God's phoenix church.

By taking ‘existence in reality’ to be a great-making property and ‘God’ to be the greatest possible being, Plantinga skillfully presents Anselm’s ontological argument. However, since he proves God’s existence by virtue of a premise, “God (a maximally great being) is a possible being”, that is true only if God actually exists; his argument begs the question of the existence of God.

The modern situation: Causes and reasons for disbelief. Note: Desire for God as cause and reason for belief.--Two types of argument for belief. Note: The ontological proof.--Ideas of God in modern science and religion. Note: Bibliographical.--God in CHrist.

According to the much-discussed argument from divine hiddenness, God's existence is disconfirmed by the fact that not everyone believes in God. The argument has provoked an impressive range of theistic replies, but none has overcome – or, I suggest, could overcome – the challenge posed by the uneven distribution of theistic belief around the world, a phenomenon for which naturalistic explanations seem more promising. The ‘demographics of theism’ confound any explanation of why non-belief is always blameworthy or of why God allows blameless non-belief. They also cast doubt on the existence of a sensus divinitatis: the awareness of God that Reformed epistemologists claim is innate in all normal human beings. Finally, the demographics make the argument from divine hiddenness in some ways a better atheological argument than the more familiar argument from evil. (Published Online April 7 2006).

One of the most intractable problems for the contemporary Anglo-American theist is reconciling the enormous amount of apparent gratuitous suffering in the world with the existence of an all-perfect deity. Suffering Belief reviews the leading attempts at justifying the existence of evil and salvaging a rational basis of belief in the traditional Western God. Through a systematic evaluation of the kinds of evil that most strongly call belief into question, such as genocide, natural catastrophes, animal suffering, and disease, it is shown that there is scant basis for continued belief in an all-perfect God and compelling reason for abandoning such a damaging construct.

How to use this book -- Answering examination questions -- Timeline -- The God of philosophy -- Plato and philosophy of religion -- Aristotle and philosophy of religion -- The God of faith -- God the creator -- The goodness of God -- Parts 1 and 2: The gods of faith and philosophy compared -- The existence of God -- The ontological argument -- The cosmological argument -- The teleological argument -- The moral argument -- Challenges to the belief in God -- The problem of evil -- Religion and science -- Psychology and sociology of religion -- The nature of religious belief -- Life after death -- Revelation and Holy Scripture -- Miracles -- Religious language -- Nature of God.

This article attempts to strengthen Theodore M. Drange's Argument from Non-belief for the non-existence of the evangelical Biblical Christian God. An argument is proposed for the claim that God, if construed as an omniscient, morally perfect being, does not have conflicting desires of any kind. This argument, combined with Drange's evidence, is used to support the most controversial premise of the Argument from Non-belief. Biblical evidence is also presented which seems to compel the evangelical Biblical Christian to admit God's omniscience and moral perfection, thus blocking one avenue of retreat.

The ontological argument--first proposed by St. Anselm and subsequently deveIoped by Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel and Marx--furnishes a key to understanding the relationship between thought and reality. In this article we shall focus on Hegel’s attitude towards the ontological argument as set out in his Science of Logic, where it appears as a paradigm of the relationship between thought and reality. It should be remarked, moreover, that our choice of the subject was not random and that it was seIected for the reason that belief in God is a preeminent social reality, inasmuch as faith in God creates His existence. Therefore, an investigation of the concept of God is an inquiry into the most profound recesses of human consciousness.The great opponents of the ontological argument, from Hume down to our day--and even Kant--have based their arguments upon the fundamental empiricist assertion that existential judgments are not analytical. In this paper we attempt to defend the ontological argument against its opponents.

In this paper, I will analyze Charles S. Peirce’s “A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God.” I want to argue for two conclusions: 1) that Peirce’s conception of spontaneous conjectures of instinctive reason allows for a rationally justified belief in the reality of God; and 2) that this belief is not the result of a sound argument or even a complete argument and thus is not a secure belief. This paper is divided into three parts. First, I will explain some Peircean philosophical notions that are essential background information for a genuine understanding of the neglected argument. Second, I will present a sketch of Peirce’s three stages of inquiry and explain each stage’s relevance to the neglected argument. Finally, I will analyze Peirce’s first stage of inquiry, also known as the humble argument for the reality of God, and show how this incomplete argument can provide a rationally justified belief in the reality of God.