Questions tagged [philosophy-of-religion]

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. Note that term is somewhat ambiguous as questions regarding atheism, secular humanism and agnosticism is included in the discipline.

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.

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Why is faith seen as a sign of weakness, instead of an unexplored land/opportunity?

Hope this is the right place to put this question! I am a person of faith (more specific, a Christian) and most of the time people consider me somehow inferior for my belief. I am not antisocial, not sick, nor crazy, but rather rational (even if…
lukuss
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What fallacy in Pascal's Wager allows replacing God with the devil?

I wanted to know the name of the fallacy or fallacies the Pascal's Wager in the sense that it can be applied to motivate one's belief in many things. A similar argument to the original Wager can be used to say that it is prudent is to believe in the…
Barinder Singh
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How can one rebut the argument that atheism is inherently immoral?

It not uncommon to see religious people arguing that without the moral center of a religious text, true ethics are impossible. The reasoning goes that, without a fixed moral center, atheists are free to make up their own beliefs about what is right…
Bob Tway
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Is it a fallacy, and if so which, to believe we are special because our existence on Earth seems improbable?

People often use the argument that there must be a God, for example, because Earth and the laws of physics are perfectly situated for humans to exist the way we do. However, if Earth or even the universe as a whole were not situated so that life…
Tori
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Should I respect other people's religions?

My point of view is that there is no reason to believe any god exists without evidence. So I find religions a very irrational idea and I mostly heard people saying We have to respect other people's religion But I have barely heard: We don't…
Danowsky
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Fundamental idea on proving God's existence with science

I think that proving God's existence or any deity from any culture with the rigors of science is fundamentally absurd. The popular arguments usually involve space-time and the big bang theory. (I have a layperson's understanding of those ideas).…
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Why are believers criticized so much for being anti-science when so many scientists are ... believers?

My first introduction to philosophical debate was through Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. The idea that they hammered into a younger me was that faith was stupid and irrational and any person with faith was themselves stupid and irrational and…
user32029
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In what sense is atheism scientific?

I have been reading a bit of Dawkins and the like and they all seem to hold a very strong viewpoint on atheism and its associated ideology. I have not found a direct citation for this but he frequently makes a very close connection, e.g.: An…
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In what way(s) does popular New Atheism fail to be philosophical?

I've seen some derision against the popular New Atheism movement, in particular against Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris (particularly interesting since he makes a big deal that he studied and received a philosophy bachelor's). …
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Why does Dawkins think it is wrong to posit that a paragon of 100% morals could theoretically exist?

Let’s move on down Aquinas’s list. 4. The Argument from Degree We notice that things in the world differ. There are degrees of, say, goodness or perfection. But we judge these degrees only by comparison with a maximum. Humans can be both…
user8572
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Isn't the existence of Hell inherently evil, and isn't God therefore evil in allowing Hell to exist?

In many religions, for example, the Abrahamic ones, there exists a place of eternal punishment for those who live in violation of God's commandments. Assuming an infinitely-long afterlife, in which "sinners" are punished with all the punishments…
Ivan T.
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Are omniscience and omnipotence mutually inconsistent?

I see this in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins: If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can't change his mind about his intervention,…
Yashar
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Is religion necessary for the good life?

According to Aristotle, you will be deemed as living well if you experience worldly pleasures while still being morally upright and virtuous. How can you identify what is morally right without the help of religion? Doesn't morality depend on…
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Theories of Everything as a hold over from monotheism?

In his book "A Tear at the Edge of Creation", physicist Mario Gleiser argues that results from cosmology and particle physics make it unlikely that we will ever find an elegant unified theory of everything. He suggests that the current search for a…
Alexander S King
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Are we all ‘atheist’ or 'agnostic in a pandemic'?

Saudi Arabia is a deeply religious country. Most of the people in the Persian Gulf nation pray five times a day, 35 times a week, 140 times a month and 1,680 times a year. But they banned pilgrimages (one of the pillars of Islam), because of the…
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