...intelligent designer (or orderer) usually identified as God. A classic version of this argument appears in William Paley's 1802 Natural Theology, where Paley compares the complexity of living things to the inferior complexity of a watch that we deduce to be designed by an intelligent being. Just as a watch could not exist without a watchmaker, Paley argued, living things could not exist without an intelligent designer. The teleological or design argument is a derivative of the Greek word Telos which means end, goal or purpose. It is this end or purpose that Paley is looking for that suggests the existence of a divine creator. Aquinas’ fifth way ‘From the governance of things’ or design qua regularity argument (qua meaning through or pertaining to) foregrounding the argument for design, observed the universe and saw that everything in the universe appeared to be working in some sort of order. In particular he noticed that ‘natural bodies’ behaved in a regular way. Here Aquinas addresses flowers or insects - One could use the example of a daffodil that flowers in spring time. He then goes on to evaluate the fact that these natural bodies ‘lack intelligence’ - they are not conscious or sentient beings of their own movement, yet even so they appear to move or act in regular fashion - as daffodil flowers every spring time. Aquinas suggests that these things cannot provide their own movement as they lack the intelligence to do so. We must then conclude that their movement or regularity...
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...Philosophy of Religion My God or Your God Throughout the history of mankind, humans have believed and had no doubt in the existence of a God or gods, for thousands of years. People lived their lives believing and worshiping some sort of superior power. But after thousands of years, we notice that in the 19th century and beyond to present day, people have lost connection with God and stopped having faith. In regards to faith, I believe that we are limited with evidence, therefore we have limited answers. With so many beliefs, religions, and faiths out there in the world, it is easy for someone to give up in their faith, and end up believing in nothing. We then potentially become atheists or agnostics. Also, if we are born with no strong background religion, then it will be impossible for someone to believe in God or any faith. I think people take the easy route; if it does not make sense to them, then they automatically do not believe in it. This acquisition questions our purpose of living in this world. Why are we here? What is our purpose? These questions I believe are difficult or maybe even impossible to understand. As a Gnostic theist I strongly believe that God does exist. I am going to defend my position using the teleological argument. Here are the reasons that I am going to discuss that justify the existence of God: 1. the universe has complex purposes. 2. The human mind is incapable of understanding the complexity and aims of the universe. 3. There are no valid...
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...Design Arguments St. Thomas Aquinas was an important theologian and philosopher whose work on the nature and existence of God and his arguments for a moral code based on the ‘natural law’ God has instilled in the universe have formed the central teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. He sought to bring faith and reason together in order to develop the place of theology in the world. The argument from design finds its origins in Aquinas’ Summa Theologica and is the fifth of his five ways of proving the existence of God. Aquinas’ argument can be explained as follows: “The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.” Aquinas argued from design qua regularity. He saw the overall order in the world as proof of a designer: ‘this being we call God.’ Aquinas stated that everything works together to achieve order, despite the fact that inanimate objects have no mind or rational powers to achieve...
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...The Existence of God PHI 208 Ethics and Moral Reasoning The existence of God Since the beginning of time, people have often questioned the meaning of life, how the universe was created and the purpose for the wildlife and creatures that roam the earth. These things often lead us to question the existence of God. In order to even begin to answer these complex questions, we must uncover the source of all of these occurrences. In this paper, I will discuss the issue of Gods existence; present one basic dispute and clarify the arguments on multiple sides of this issue. I will structure an argument that supports the side of the issue I find to be better defended while explaining why I find my side of this debate stronger. In conclusion, I will state my own view and defend it with an argument. Does god exist, or did the “Big Bang theory” or other natural theories play a role? Even though it is absolutely impossible to prove Gods existence, I personally believe that the presence of God is so evident; we do not need solid proof to verify that he is our creator. When it comes to the issue of Gods existence, everyone has his or her own view of whom or what “God” really is. Some people believe that there is one God while others believe in multiple gods or even goddesses. Most believers do not feel that it is necessary to prove that God exists however; there are others that believe that it is essential to provide proof since there...
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...that is what physics is today. In fact, theoretical physicists of today do just about anything they can to make their equations simpler. For example, we believe there are four fundamental forces of the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Each one of these forces alone is represented by ugly, chaotic equations. In an attempt to “splice” all four equations together, each equation was revised to include a component that allowed the forces to operate in 10 dimensions instead of the four we are familiar with. Low and behold, after the adjustment, the equations magically fit together like puzzle pieces in a theory called heterotic string theory, also known as M-theory. Not only does the equation appear simpler but it also predicts that there is indeed a fundamental substance at the base of all creation in the universe. While the original string theory emerged in 1943, this final current theory was perfected in 1994, approximately 2500 years after Thales. In a way,...
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...A literary genius, Poe, caused the faint of heart to shudder and the squeamish to tremble. And this he could do succinctly as illustrated in “The Cask of Amontillado”. On the surface, this short story appears to only be concerned with mere revenge over the possible imaginary slights committed by Fortunato against Montressor. However, if you look underneath the cloak of retribution you find darker, deeper motives that may explain Montressor’s radical behavior. Analysis Left to his own devices we find Montressor rationalizing sinister thoughts of retaliation against a fellow citizen, Fortunato, eventually reaching the conclusion that he must commit the dastardly deed of immolation if he is to regain his injured pride. This story is not as simple as it first appears to be. There exists a manifestation of different emotions which have developed over time for both characters. The aforementioned emotions could also be regarded as sinful in nature, and if left unchecked create situations where more serious sinful acts could occur as demonstrated in this...
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...one must stand firmly in christ and in understanding him, lest fall for anything. The bible says that christians must ‘Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.’ (1 Peter 3:15) Furthermore understanding and being able to explain christian thought allows christians to evangelize to non believers. Matthew 16:15 says "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" Finally, better understanding one's beliefs strengthens faith and relationship with God. 2.Discuss the relationship between Faith and Reason. Faith can be defined as a strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof. Hebrews says “Now faith is the conviction concerning those things that are in hope, as if it were these things in action, and the revelation of those things that are unseen” Reason can be defined as a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event. the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of...
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...World Religions Report HUM/130 November 30, 2012 The religion Buddhism is a religion with approximately 300 million adherents worldwide. Buddhism comes from 'budhi', meaning 'to awaken'. It is one of the largest religions in the world, just behind Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. For this study, I conducted an interview and researched the religion to gain a better understanding of their practices and beliefs. I also included a comparative section to help understand the differences and similarities between this religion and Christianity, one of the largest known religions. Buddhism is different from many religions because they there is no belief in a supernatural deity, known as nontheistic (Fisher, 2005, pg. 134). Buddha is not a God and is not worshipped as one. Buddha was the man that founded the religion based on his desires to end human suffering. Instead of worshipping a God, Buddhists follow beliefs that will eventually lead them to an enlightened life and Nirvana in the afterlife. The beliefs that they follow are known as the Eight Fold Path. This path is used to help humans end the suffering in their life and achieve liberation. It is based on The Four Noble Truths that Buddha set forth in his first Sermon (Fisher, 2005, pg. 135). The Four Noble Truths speak of suffering as an inevitable part of life. It states that suffering can be ceased through the ending of wants and desires, because these things cause our suffering in life. By understanding...
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...mTELECOURSE STUDY GUIDE FOR The Examined Life FOURTH EDITION author J. P. White Chair, Department of Philosophy Santa Barbara City College contributing author Manuel Velasquez Professor of Philosophy Santa Clara University This Telecourse Study Guide for The Examined Life is part of a collegelevel introduction to philosophy telecourse developed in conjunction with the video series The Examined Life, and the text Philosophy: A Text with Readings, tenth edition, by Manuel Velasquez, The Charles Dirksen Professor, Santa Clara University. The television series The Examined Life was designed and produced by INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications, Netherlands Educational Broadcasting Corporation (TELEAC/NOT), and Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company (UR) Copyright © 2007, 2005, 2002, 1999 by INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of INTELECOM Intelligent Telecommunications, 150 E. Colorado Blvd., Suite 300, Pasadena, California 91105-1937. ISBN: 0-495-10302-0 Contents Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Lesson One — What is Philosophy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....
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...that there is a universal belief in God, god or gods in every nation on the face of the earth including the most primitive societies. The reason being that after the fall of man in the Garden of Eden as the bible describes in the book of Genesis, man was separated from His creator and became spiritually dead. With a fallen spirit and a blinded mind, man who was created with an intuitive belief and knowledge of the existence of God was drawn by the religious instinct within him to worship something or someone. Unable to find his creator, man produced deities out of his own imagination to worship. Deities of stone, wood, water, fire, air, sun, moon, stars, mountains, birds, kings, emperors etc. giving birth to several religions, the majority being polytheistic and some are still today. Man missed the object of his worship, worshipping the creation rather than the creator. The bible says “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever.”(Romans 1:25). God none the less had an elaborate and well-designed plan for the restoration of fallen man. A plan which existed from the very beginning even before man transgressed, to show the fallibility of proponents of Deism that present an absentee god who created the universe and went into oblivion, leaving man to his own fate and the universe to run itself. The deistic view of God falls short of the truth because the bible reveals God laid His plan of salvation from...
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...Note: This Introduction appears in Christopher Napier & Roszaini Haniffa (eds) Islamic Accounting (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2011), pp. xiii-xx. The printed version may differ slightly from the text set out below, and the printed version should be regarded as definitive. An Islamic Perspective of Accounting: Introduction and Overview Christopher Napier and Roszaini Haniffa Introduction The emergence of Islamic banks and other Islamic financial institutions since the 1970s has stimulated a modern literature that has identified itself as addressing “Islamic Accounting”. What does the term “Islamic Accounting” mean in the rapidly growing contemporary literature? Napier (2009) has proposed three interrelated aspects: a historically-oriented sense, in which “Islamic Accounting” refers to ideas and practices in Muslim-majority countries in past periods; a practice-oriented sense, where the focus is on how entities describing themselves as “Islamic” account for and report their transactions and activities; and a principle-oriented sense, where fundamental accounting concepts and methods form a coherent body of ideas and practices based on the religion of Islam. The word “Islam” means total submission or surrender to the will of God (Allah), and a Muslim is one who so submits. However, this raises the question of how Muslims can determine what the will of God is. The principal sources are the Qur’an, which is considered by Muslims to be the exact words of revelation from...
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...It is almost daunting to start such a journey. I have had such a tremendous adventure with the topic of this paper, which continues to unfold and expand. I do believe that it will continue to unfold as I write it. Freud is proving to be one of those authors where at the surface his work presents itself in bold letters, leaving me the feeling that I can get what he is saying by reading the titles. Yet the deeper I go the deeper Freud goes. He has writing in-between the lines and then in-between those lines making it very difficult to ingest in a sitting. I will come up with a theory and then in re-reading, to find evidence for my theory, I find that his theory is actually the same as mine. At first I find myself upset because I am looking for something to prove my point yet this turns to a huge admiration for the personal work that Freud did himself to deliver such thought provoking ideas and material, not to mention this is not about proving a point. I started with the intention of comparing the differences in my understanding what life is all about in contrast with Freud’s. This sounds like, and is a massive undertaking, but Freud has really spent his entire adult life writing about what experience is for himself and his patients. I also have spent a good portion of my life trying to make sense of it in an intellectual way, which I have recently found a bit restrictive. I get the feeling that Freud renounced religion based on the freedom that it provided in staying “still.”...
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...Grand Design Copyright © 2010 by Stephen W. Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow Original art copyright © 2010 by Peter Bollinger All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Cartoons by Sidney Harris, copyright © Sciencecartoonsplus.com BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. eISBN: 978-0-553-90707-0 www.bantamdell.com v3.0 The Grand Design The Grand Design The Grand Design The Grand Design E EACH EXIST FOR BUT A SHORT TIME, and in that time explore but a small part of the whole universe. But humans are a curious species. We wonder, we seek answers. Living in this vast world that is by turns kind and cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above, people have always asked a multitude of questions: How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our time worrying about these questions, but almost all of us...
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...ACCRA, NOVEMBER, 2011 Table of content pages Introduction 1 1. Philosophy of history 1 2. Philosophy of religion 4 3. Logic 6 4. Ethics 8 5. Cosmology 10 6. Philosophy of mind 12 7. Metaphysics 14 8. Philosophy of beauty 16 9. Philosophy of language 18 10. Philosophy of science 20 11. Epistemology 21 Conclusion 23 Bibliography 24 Introduction Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom. Philosophy at this contemporary world has gone through a lot of changes before getting to this stage. It can be seen in the historical perspective and also the topical perspective. The historical or chronological is when we look at the ideas of some philosophers in the past how they influence society with their way of thinking and the motive behind them. In these chronological system is the ancient era, the medieval era, the modern era and presently the contemporary era. In the beginning all systematic search for knowledge was philosophy. This is clearly seen in the modern university where the highest degree granted in all of the science and humanities is the Ph. D. the doctor of philosophy. But the children began to leave home. The first to leave was physics and astronomy. As they begun to develop experimental techniques of their own. This exodus, led by Galileo and Isaac Newton and Johannes...
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...Buddhism William Brittelli University of Phoenix Buddhism “Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things, which renew humanity.” Buddhism is considered the fourth largest religion in the world and was founded by Prince Siddhartha during the sixth century BC. Buddhism does not have a central belief of worshiping a universal creator or God; but rather focuses on growth of the individual. Buddhism philosophy teaches individuals to attain personal enlightenment, the persona of non-violence, and the ability to tolerance differences among people. Buddhism is less often referred to as organized religion and more often as a culture or way of life (Boeree, n.d.). “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.” Prince Hiddhartha Gautama or the Buddha is the founder of Buddhism. His name means, “One who has achieved his aim.” When resting under a Bodhi Tree in Gaya, the prince gained his goal of enlightenment and experienced three spiritual breakthroughs; 1. He developed the ability to recall his past lives and life events resulting from death and reincarnation. 2. He learned that deeds, whether good or bad that occurred during past lives, directly relate to subsequent reincarnations. 3. He learned to attain nirvana. The Buddha learned...
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