...The Kalam Cosmological Argument: (KCA) Of the things debated in society, perhaps nothing is more hotly contested than the existence of a God. Over the course of time there have been many arguments made from many different angles. For example, an argument in favor of existence is the teleological argument also known as “fine tuning,” or the “argument from design” argues that the universe is so organized as to suggest the necessity of a designer. (1) Likewise there are many arguments against the existence of a God; perhaps the most well know is the “problem of evil” which argues if there is an omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect being, he (or she) would know where evil is, have the power to destroy it, and being morally perfect would...
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...introductory explanation b. Historical development of doctrine II. Arguments for the Existence of God 3 c. Cosmological Argument d. Teleological Argument e. Anthropological III. Atheism Versus Existence of God 11 f. Evidence used to disprove God’s existence g. The believers evidence to counter IV. Conclusion 13 h. Summary of the arguments i. Applications in the church today V. Introduction The existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, immutable, monotheistic God has come up against enormous resistance from the beginning of time. Early believers such as Moses, Elijah, Paul, and Peter all had to demonstrate that their God is the one true God at times. These believers even encountered persecution and ridicule for holding on to these beliefs at times. Nevertheless the challenges to these early believers tended to be demonstrating that their God was greater than their accuser’s god or gods. At times, it was through the words of men that the God of the Bible was shown to be greater, and other times it was through the action of God in the world and the inaction of the other gods that demonstrated His power and existence This paper will explain three arguments used to demonstrate the existence of God through scientific principles. His existence will be shown using the cosmological, teleological, and anthropological arguments. In academic areas especially science, the question of...
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...Phil 110 Heter Lecture Two: The Argument from Design by Paley [1] Overview. William Paley argued that the universe is so complex that it must have been designed by a higher power. Paley compares the natural universe to a watch. The complexity of the watch proves that it must have been designed. Such a meticulous machine could not have arise by chance. Since the natural universe is far more complex than a watch (think of a human heart), the natural universe must have a designer that is very powerful. This designer must be all powerful; thus the designer must be God. Paley’s argument has been revived in the past five years under the name of “Intelligent Design.” The Intelligent Design Argument is exactly the same as Paley’s argument, with only one exception. The Intelligent Design Argument concludes that “a higher power of some sort, that we might call an ‘intelligent designer’ must exist.” But the argument does not call the ‘intelligent designer’ God. [2] Note on terms: “Teleological.” The Argument from Design has two different names. The argument is also called the “Teleological Argument.” The word “teleological” comes from the Greek word “telos” which means “end” or “purpose.” Paley believes that the universe has a purpose (telos) just like a watch has a purpose (to tell time). For example, the purpose of a human heart is to pump blood. [3] The Argument from Design Premise 1.If an object has a design then it must have a designer....
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...21201085 WENDY KARANI APOLOGETICS MIDTERM OPEN SOURCE PAPER. 1. What is Christian Apologetics and why should we do it Apologetics is defined as "reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine." It is to be specific with this class, a branch of Christianity that deals with the aspect of defending the Christian faith against those who care to attack us. Apologetics comes from the Greek word “apologia” or in Greek: ἀπολογία which when translated mean a “defense especially of one's opinions, position, or actions”. Apologetics is therefore in reference to Christianity is a field in which apologists provide rational arguments with adequate information in order to defend their faith against objects provided by members of the secular society....
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...was to just get by, finish my last general education requirement class, and possibly learn a thing or two about philosophy. in fact, when i first entered the class, i was already thinking to myself what’s even the point for this class. but, the moment professor nall spoke, i knew i was in for a ride. throughout my time on the course, i did develop new insights about myself. when you describe a journey, you describe obstacles an individual faces in it. in this class, i actually faced several of those. obviously they are not of no means physical, but i questioned a lot of the different things i believe in, including my religion. there was actually a time this semester where i actually questioned if god did exist during the time between the arguments of an existence of a creator to the topic about the different types of evil. furthermore, after different events that have happened outside of class and actually learning about the information in class, i personally believe my thinking developed in a way that makes me critically think about everything i decide to believe in and not just follow it like a robot. To clarify, I am still a roman catholic and i think my faith actually strengthened because of this class. additionally, i have developed new insight and a new perspective on fallacies and contradictory statements. Before this class, i never really thought of fallacies and how often they take place in our society today. Ultimately, in this class, i definitely discovered a different...
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...problems facing modern cosmology. The problem is a long-standing one, going back to early observations of mass-to-light ratios by Zwicky1 . Given the distribution (by number) of galaxies with total luminosity L, φ(L), one can compute the mean luminosity density of galaxies L= which is determined to be2 L ≃ 2 ± 0.2 × 108 ho L⊙ M pc−3 (2) Lφ(L)dL (1) where L⊙ = 3.8 × 1033 erg s−1 is the solar luminosity. In the absence of a cosmological constant, one can define a critical energy density, ρc = 3H 2 /8πGN = 1.88 × 10−29 ho 2 g cm−3 , such that ρ = ρc for three-space curvature k = 0, where the present value of the Hubble parameter has been defined by Ho = 100ho km Mpc−1 s−1 . We can now define a critical mass-to-light ratio is given by (M/L)c = ρc /L ≃ 1390ho(M⊙ /L⊙ ) (3) ∗ Summary of lectures given at the Theoretical Advanced Study Institute in Elementary Particle Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder - June 2-28, 2002. † This work was supported in part by DOE grant DE-FG02-94ER40823 at Minnesota. 1 2 which can be used to determine the cosmological density parameter Ωm = ρ = (M/L)/(M/L)c ρc (4) Mass-to-light ratios are, however, strongly dependent on the distance scale on which they are...
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...------------------------------------------------- Course Syllabus PHI 105 Introduction to Philosophy Course Start Date: 08/15/2011 Course End Date: 10/16/2011 Please print a copy of this syllabus for handy reference. Whenever there is a question about what assignments are due or when they are due, please remember this syllabus is considered the ruling document. Copyright Copyright ©2010 by University of Phoenix. All rights reserved. University of Phoenix© is a registered trademark of Apollo Group, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft©, Windows©, and Windows NT© are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Use of these marks is not intended to imply endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation. Edited in accordance with University of Phoenix© editorial standards and practices. Facilitator Information Larry Waggle, Ph. D. larrywaggle@email.phoenix.edu (University of Phoenix) Unclelahr@live.com (Alternate) 480-330-0953 (MST) Facilitator Availability I am available from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Arizona Time on most days, but I attempt to reserve Sunday for my family. On Saturdays, I tend to be online in the morning only. If these times are not...
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...AS Religious Studies [pic] PHILOSOPHY & ETHICS Revision Summary Notes Revision Notes Foundation for the Study of Religion Part One: Philosophy of Religion Plato and the Forms Influence of Socrates • Socrates said that virtue is knowledge – to know what is right is to do what is right. • All wrongdoing is the result of ignorance – nobody chooses to do wrong deliberately. • Therefore, to be moral you must have true knowledge. The problem of the One and the Many Plato was trying to find a solution to the problem that although there is underlying stability in the world (sun comes up every morning), it is constantly changing (you never step into the same river twice). 1. An old theory about this problem is that we gain all knowledge from our senses – empirically. 2. Plato disagreed with this. He said that because the world is constantly changing, our senses cannot be trusted. Plato illustrated his idea in the dialogue, ‘Meno’: Socrates sets a slave boy a mathematical problem. The slave boy knows the answer, yet he has not been taught maths. Plato suggests that the slave boy remembers the answer to the problem, which has been in his mind all along. So, according to Plato, we don't learn new things, we remember them. In other words, knowledge is innate. Plato’s Theory of the Forms Plato believed that the world was divided into: 1. Reality and; 2. Appearance |REALITY ...
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...The Problem of Evil William Lane Craig Examines both the logical and probabilistic arguments against God from suffering and evil. The problem of evil is certainly the greatest obstacle to belief in the existence of God. When I ponder both the extent and depth of suffering in the world, whether due to man’s inhumanity to man or to natural disasters, then I must confess that I find it hard to believe that God exists. No doubt many of you have felt the same way. Perhaps we should all become atheists. But that’s a pretty big step to take. How can we be sure that God does not exist? Perhaps there’s a reason why God permits all the evil in the world. Perhaps it somehow all fits into the grand scheme of things, which we can only dimly discern, if at all. How do we know? As a Christian theist, I’m persuaded that the problem of evil, terrible as it is, does not in the end constitute a disproof of the existence of God. On the contrary, in fact, I think that Christian theism is man’s last best hope of solving the problem of evil. In order to explain why I feel this way, it will be helpful to draw some distinctions to keep our thinking clear. First, we must distinguish between the intellectual problem of evil and the emotional problem of evil. The intellectual problem of evil concerns how to give a rational explanation of how God and evil can co-exist. The emotional problem of evil concerns how to dissolve people’s emotional dislike of a God who would permit suffering. Now...
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...on What is the Relation between Science and Religion William Lane Craig Examines several ways in which science and theology relate to each other. Back in 1896 the president of Cornell University Andrew Dickson White published a book entitled A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. Under White’s influence, the metaphor of “warfare” to describe the relations between science and the Christian faith became very widespread during the first half of the 20th century. The culturally dominant view in the West—even among Christians—came to be that science and Christianity are not allies in the search for truth, but adversaries. To illustrate, several years ago I had a debate with a philosopher of science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver , Canada, on the question “Are Science and Religion Mutually Irrelevant?” When I walked onto the campus, I saw that the Christian students sponsoring the debate had advertised it with large banners and posters proclaiming “Science vs. Christianity.” The students were perpetuating the same sort of warfare mentality that Andrew Dickson White proclaimed over a hundred years ago. What has happened, however, in the second half of this century is that historians and philosophers of science have come to realize that this supposed history of warfare is a myth. As Thaxton and Pearcey point out in their recent book The Soul of Science, for over 300 years between the rise of modern science in the 1500’s and the late 1800s the relationship...
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...A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence.[note 1] Many religions have narratives, symbols, and sacred histories that aim to explain the meaning of life, the origin of life, or the Universe. From their beliefs about the cosmos and human nature, people may derive morality, ethics, religious laws or a preferred lifestyle. Many religions may have organized behaviors, clergy, a definition of what constitutes adherence or membership, holy places, and scriptures. The practice of a religion may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of a deity, gods, or goddesses), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human culture. Religions may also contain mythology.[1] The word religion is sometimes used interchangeably with faith or set of duties;[2] however, in the words of Émile Durkheim, religion differs from private belief in that it is "something eminently social".[3] A global 2012 poll reports 59% of the world's population as "religious" and 36% as not religious, including 13% who are atheists, with a 9% decrease in religious belief from 2005.[4] On average, women are "more religious" than men.[5] Some people follow multiple religions or multiple religious principles at the same time, regardless of whether or not the religious principles they follow traditionally...
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...The Power of Logic The Power of Logic FOU RTH E DITION Frances Howard-Snyder Daniel Howard-Snyder Ryan Wasserman WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Published by McGraw-Hill, an imprint of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. Copyright © 2009, 2005, 2002, 1999, by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of The McGrawHill Companies, Inc., including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning. This book is printed on acid-free paper. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOC/DOC 0 9 8 ISBN: 978-0-07-340737-1 MHID: 0-07-340737-2 Editor in Chief: Michael Ryan Editorial Director: Beth Mejia Sponsoring Editor: Mark Georgiev Marketing Manager: Pamela Cooper Editorial Coordinator: Briana Porco Production Editors: Melissa Williams/Melanie Field, Strawberry Field Publishing Cover Designer: Ashley Bedell Cover Photo: © Dan Trist/Corbis Media Project Manager: Thomas Brierly Production Supervisor: Louis Swaim Composition: This text was set in 10.5/12.5 Goudy by Aptara, Inc. Printing: Printed on 45# New Era Matte by R.R. Donnelley & Sons, Inc. Credits: The credits section for this book is on page 647, following the Answer Key in the back of the book, and is considered an extension of the copyright page. ...
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...ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN THOUGHT AND THE OLD TESTAMENT BOOK SUMMARY by JOE VALENTI Old Testament Introduction OBST 590 B06 Dr. Randy Haney March 1, 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 1 CHAPTER 2 2 CHAPTER 3 3 CHAPTER 4 5 CHAPTER 5 7 CHAPTER 6 9 CHAPTER 7 11 CHAPTER 8 12 CHAPTER 9 14 CHAPTER 10 15 CHAPTER 11 17 CHAPTER 12 19 CHAPTER 13 20 CHAPTER 14 22 POSTSCRIPT 23 WORKS CITED i CHAPTER 1 The opening chapter begins by orienting the reader to the idea of "comparative study," or the area of study that strives to understand things within their broader cultural context. In the case of this book, the goal is to understand the Old Testament within the context of the Ancient Near Eastern milieu. Walton explains that over the years there has been much debate on the issue of comparative study and the way in which it is to be exercised. Scholars, always biased by their presuppositions, tend to enter the argument negating the importance of the Old Testament on the one side, or defending the inerrancy of Scripture so vehemently that the cultural context is lost. Walton poses a better way, namely, accepting the study of the Ancient Near Eastern cultures as important and academic in their own right while attempting to comprehend the Old Testament in light of what modern scholarship is learning about the ancient world...
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...Astronomy 2B03: Lecture 2: What’s Out There? * Objects in the universe come in a hierarchy of scales and sizes: * Planets * Stars * Galaxies * The universe as a whole * These scales are so different from one step to the next that they are incredibly hard to comprehend all at once – no “everyday” experience to refer them to * If the Earth were a basketball how big would the moon be? Tennis ball * How many Earths would fit into the Sun? ~ 1 million * How many Jupiter’s would fit inside the Sun? 900 * How many Moons would fit inside the Earth? 50 * If we say the distance from here to Toronto (71 km) represents the distance between the Earth and the Sun, how far are we from Pluto? From Hamilton to Mexico, or from Hamilton to Calgary * If we say the distance from here to Toronto represents the distance between the Earth and the Sun, how far is the Earth from the Moon? From here to the edge of campus (Sterling and Forsyth) * If we say the distance from here to Toronto represents the distance between the Earth and the Sun, how big is the Earth? 3 meters * If we say the distance from here to Toronto represents the distance between the Earth and the Sun, how far is the Sun from the next nearest Star? 1/10th the distance from the Sun to Earth Lecture 3: The Earth: * Our starting point and only home * Both land and water * The only planet to have liquid water at its surface * Atmosphere: dense...
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...notion that to understand the world one needed to know its nature and that there was an explanation for all phenomena in natural terms. That was a giant step from the assumptions of the old world that supernatural forces determined almost everything. While considering the effects of magnetism and static electricity, he concluded that the power to move other things without the mover itself changing was a characteristic of "life", so that a magnet and amber must therefore be alive in some way (in that they have animation or the power to act). If so, he argued, there is no difference between the living and the dead. If all things were alive, they must also have souls or divinities (a natural belief of his time), and the end result of this argument was an almost total removal of mind from substance, opening the door to an innovative non-divine principle of action. Thales recognized a single transcendental God (Monism), who has neither beginning nor end, but who expresses himself through other gods...
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