Introduction

Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious vocabulary and texts, and the relationship of religion and science. It is an ancient discipline, being found in the earliest known manuscripts concerning philosophy, and relates to many other branches of philosophy and general thought, including metaphysics, logic, and history. Philosophy of religion is frequently discussed outside of academia through popular books and debates, mostly regarding the existence of God and problem of evil. The philosophy of religion differs from religious philosophy in that it seeks to discuss questions regarding the nature of religion as a whole, rather than examining the problems brought forth by a particular belief system. It is designed such that it can be carried out dispassionately by those who identify as believers or non-believers.

Religion: A Part of Metaphysics

Philosophy of religion has classically been regarded as a part of metaphysics. In Aristotle's Metaphysics, the necessarily prior cause of eternal motion was an unmoved mover, who, like the object of desire, or of thought, inspires motion without itself being moved. This, according to Aristotle, is God, the subject of study in theology. Today, however, philosophers have adopted the term philosophy of religion for the subject, and typically it is regarded as a separate field of specialization, although it is also still treated by some, particularly Catholic philosophers, as a part of metaphysics.
Questions Asked About Religion

Theologians, distinct from philosophers of religion, often consider the existence of God as axiomatic or self-evident and explain, justify or support religious claims by rationalization or intuitive metaphors. In contrast, philosophers of religion examine and critique the epistemological, logical, aesthetic and ethical foundations inherent in the claims of a religion. Whereas a theologian elaborates rationally or experientially on the nature of God, a philosopher of religion is more interested in asking what may be knowable and opinable regarding religion's claims.
Other questions studied in the philosophy of religion include what, if anything, would give us good reason to believe that a miracle has occurred, what is the relationship between faith and reason, what is the relationship between morality and religion, what is the status of religious language, and does petitionary prayer (sometimes still called impetratory prayer) make sense?
Going beyond metaphysics, the philosophy of religion also addresses questions in areas such as epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and moral philosophy.
What Is GOD?

Among theists, some believe there is just one God (monotheism), while others believe in many gods (polytheism). Some Hindus have a widely followed monistic philosophy that can be said to be neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. Within these two broad categories (monotheism and polytheism) there is a wide variety of possible beliefs. For example, among the monotheists deists believe that the one God is like a watchmaker who wound up the universe and does not intervene further in the universe, and some theists believe that God continues to be active in the universe. Ignostics object that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of God can be meaningfully discussed.
Rationality of Belief

The second question, "Do we have any good reason to think that God does or does not exist?” is equally important in the philosophy of religion. There are several main positions with regard to the existence of God that one might take:
• Theism - the belief in the existence of one or more divinities or deities.
1. Pantheism - the belief that God exists as all things of the cosmos, that God is one and all is God; God is immanent.
2. Panentheism - the belief that God encompasses all things of the cosmos but that God is greater than the cosmos; God is both immanent and transcendent.
3. Deism - the belief that God does exist but does not interfere with human life and the laws of the universe; God is transcendent.
4. Monotheism - the belief that a single deity exists which rules the universe as a separate and individual entity.
5. Polytheism - the belief that multiple deities exist which rule the universe as separate and individual entities.
6. Henotheism - the belief that multiple deities may or may not exist, though there is a single supreme deity.
7. Henology - believing that multiple avatars of a deity exist, which represent unique aspects of the ultimate deity?
• Agnosticism - the belief that the existence or non-existence of deities or God is currently unknown or unknowable and cannot be proven. A weaker form of this might be defined as simply a lack of certainty about gods' existence or nonexistence.
• Atheism - the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.
1. Strong atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.
2. Weak atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.
• Apatheism - the lack of caring whether any supreme being exists or lack thereof.

These are not mutually exclusive positions. For example, agnostic theists choose to believe God exists while asserting that knowledge of God's existence is inherently unknowable. Similarly, agnostic atheists reject belief in the existence of all deities, while asserting that whether any such entities exist or not is inherently unknowable.
Natural Theology

The attempt to provide proofs or arguments for the existence of God is one aspect of what is known as natural theology or the natural theistic project. This strand of natural theology attempts to justify belief in God by independent grounds. There is plenty of philosophical literature on faith (especially fideism) and other subjects generally considered to be outside the realm of natural theology. Perhaps most of philosophy of religion is predicated on natural theology's assumption that the existence of God can be justified or warranted on rational grounds. There has been considerable philosophical and theological debate about the kinds of proofs, justifications and arguments that are appropriate for this discourse.
The philosopher Alvin Plantinga has shifted his focus to justifying belief in God (that is, those who believe in God, for whatever reasons, are rational in doing so) through Reformed epistemology, in the context of a theory of warrant and proper cognitive function.
Other reactions to natural theology are those of Wittgensteinian philosophers of religion, most notably D. Z. Phillips. Phillips rejects "natural theology" and its evidentialist approach as confused, in favor of a grammatical approach which investigates the meaning of belief in God. For Phillips, belief in God is not a proposition with a particular truth value, but a form of life. Consequently, the question of whether God exists confuses the logical categories which govern theistic language with those that govern other forms of discourse (most notably, scientific discourse). According to Phillips, the question of whether or not God exists cannot be "objectively" answered by philosophy because the categories of truth and falsity, which are necessary for asking the question, have no application in the religious contexts wherein religious belief has its sense and meaning. In other words, the question cannot be answered because it cannot be asked without entering into confusion. As Phillips sees things, the job of the philosopher is not to investigate the "rationality" of belief in God but to elucidate its meaning.
Analytic Philosophy of Religion

As with the study of ethics, early analytic philosophy tended to avoid the study of philosophy of religion, largely dismissing (as per the logical positivists view) the subject as part of metaphysics and therefore meaningless.The collapse of logical positivism renewed interest in philosophy of religion, prompting philosophers like William Alston, John Mackie, Alvin Plantinga, Robert Merrihew Adams, Richard Swinburne, and Antony Flew not only to introduce new problems, but to re-open classical topics such as the nature of miracles, theistic arguments, the problem of evil, the rationality of belief in God, concepts of the nature of God, and many more.
Plantinga, Mackie and Flew debated the logical validity of the free will defense as a way to solve the problem of evil. Alston, grappling with the consequences of analytic philosophy of language, worked on the nature of religious language. Adams worked on the relationship of faith and morality. Analytic epistemology and metaphysics has formed the basis for a number of philosophically-sophisticated theistic arguments, like those of the reformed epistemologists like Plantinga.
Analytic philosophy of religion has also been preoccupied with Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as his interpretation of Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy of religion. Using first-hand remarks (which would later be published in Philosophical Investigations, Culture and Value, and other works), philosophers such as Peter Winch and Norman Malcolm developed what has come to be known as contemplative philosophy, a Wittgensteinian school of thought rooted in the "Swansea tradition" and which includes Wittgensteinians such as Rush Rhees, Peter Winch and D. Z. Phillips, among others. The name "contemplative philosophy" was first coined by D. Z. Phillips in Philosophy's Cool Place, which rests on an interpretation of a passage from Wittgenstein's "Culture and Value." This interpretation was first labeled, "Wittgensteinian Fideism," by Kai Nielsen but those who consider themselves Wittgensteinians in the Swansea tradition have relentlessly and repeatedly rejected this construal as a caricature of Wittgenstein's considered position; this is especially true of D. Z. Phillips. Responding to this interpretation, Kai Nielsen and D.Z. Phillips became two of the most prominent philosophers on Wittgenstein's philosophy of religion.

The Problem of Discussing Religion

Religion is a difficult subject to discuss since it would be difficult to be objective about because it is such a personal topic, meaning subjective claims are always expressed. An Objective claim to test the existence of a supernatural all powerful deity/deities would be the law of non-contradiction meaning that such a belief is either real or imaginary.[20] Due to the fact, that there cannot be a middle ground between the two possibilities of existence versus non-existence. This means that a Supernatural all powerful deity/deities can only be real or imaginary, not both. Throughout articles Authors would start with an objective claim and relate them back to validate their individual subjective claim. Furthermore this could explain the obvious bias illustrated throughout this page. Elaine Howard Ecklund, Ph.D. survey of 1700 natural and social scientists in the university environment shows fifty- four percent of university scientists claim that Religion in the Academic life would be dangerous if it went wrong, particularly in the science department. She concludes her article with her difficulty with the upbringing of religious studies, as the director of the religion and public life program at Rice University.