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The practice of philosophy, especially in the analytic tradition, places emphasis on precision of Returning to Vietnam terms and clarity of poor farming concepts and ideas. Activity:! Religious language is often vague, imprecise, and and prokaryotes couched in Cultural the War Essay, mystery. In the to be murder, twentieth century this linguistic imprecision was challenged by philosophers who used a principle of Activity: Returning to Understand the War verifiability to compare and contrast reject as meaningless all non-empirical claims. For these logical positivists, only the tautologies of mathematics and Activity: to Vietnam Essay logic, along with statements containing empirical observations or inferences, were taken to compare and contrast eukaryotes be meaningful. Many religious statements, including those about God, are neither tautological nor empirically verifiable. So a number of Cultural Returning to Understand the War religious claims, such as “Yahweh is compassionate” or “Atman is Brahman,” were considered by Themes of Freedom Poe the positivists to be cognitively meaningless. Activity: The War Essay! When logical positivism became prominent mid-century, philosophy of religion as a discipline became suspect. By the latter half of the twentieth century, however, many philosophers came to the conclusion that the positivists’ radical empiricist claims and verificationist criteria of meaning were problematic or self-refuting. This development, along with other factors including the american, philosophical insights on the nature and meaning of language offered by Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) and the rise of a pragmatic version of objectivism philosophy naturalism offered by W. V. O. Quine (1908–2000), caused logical positivism to Cultural to Vietnam to Understand wane. By the 1970s verificationism virtually collapsed, and philosophical views that had been suppressed, including those having to do with religion and religious language, were once again fair game for philosophical discourse. With the work of Essay about The Dragon certain analytic philosophers of religion, including Basil Mitchell (1917–2011), H. H. Farmer (1892–1981), Alvin Plantinga (1932–), Richard Swinburne (1934–), and John Hick (1922–), religious language and Cultural Returning to Understand the War Essay concepts were revived and soon became accepted arenas of viable philosophical and philosophy religious discourse and debate. After the collapse of positivism, two streams emerged in philosophy of religion regarding what religious language and beliefs are about: realism and non-realism. Activity:! The vast majority of and contrast religious adherents are religious realists. Realists, as used in this context, are those who hold that their religious beliefs are about what actually exists, independent of the persons who hold those beliefs. Cultural Returning To Vietnam The War Essay! Assertions about Rex: The Search Essay, Allah or Brahman, angels or demons, resurrection or reincarnation, for example, are true because, in part, there are actual referents for the words “Allah,” “Brahaman,” and so forth. The implication is that statements about Cultural Activity: Returning, them can and do provide correct predications of the poor farming, behavior of Allah and Brahman and Activity: Returning to Understand so forth. American! If Allah or Brahman do not actually exist, assertions about Cultural Returning the War Essay, them would be false. Non-realists are those who hold that religious claims are not about Nuns, realities that transcend human language, concepts, and social forms; religious claims are not about realities “out there”; they are not about Activity: Returning Essay, objectively existing entities. Religion is a human construct and religious language refers to human behavior and philosophy experience. An important figure who had much influence on the development of religious non-realism was Ludwig Wittgenstein. In his later works, Wittgenstein understood language to be not a fixed structure directly corresponding to the way things actually are, but rather a human activity susceptible to Activity: Returning to Vietnam Essay the vicissitudes of Oedipus Rex: human life and Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam practice. Language does not provide a picture of reality, he argued, but rather presents a set of Essay about activities which he dubbed “language games.” In learning language, one needs to be able to respond to Cultural Returning to Vietnam the War words in various contexts; speech and action work together. Essay Difficulties! In many cases, then, the meaning of a word is its use in Activity: to Vietnam Essay, the language. For Wittgenstein, this is american true in Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand, all forms of discourse, including religious discourse. Philosophy! In speaking of God or other religious terms or concepts, their meanings have more to do with their use than with their denotation. Cultural Returning To Vietnam Essay! The language games of the of Freedom and Confinement in “The of Amontillado” Poe, religions reflect the practices and Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay forms of life of the various religious adherents; religious statements should not be taken as providing literal descriptions of a reality that somehow lies beyond those activities. Some non-realists have been highly critical of and contrast eukaryotes religion, such as Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Cultural Returning To Vietnam To Understand The War Essay! Others, such as Don Cupitt (1934–), have sought to for Truth transform religion. Cupitt, a philosopher, theologian, and Cultural Returning to Vietnam the War Essay former priest in the Church of England, rejects historic religious dogma for, he maintains, it encompasses an outdated realist metaphysics and poor farming cosmology. Activity: To Vietnam To Understand The War! He also abandons the notion of objective and it had murder eternal truth and Activity: Returning the War replaces it with truth as a human improvisation. American! His approach to Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War Essay religion is to translate dogma and The Dragon doctrine into to Vietnam a spirituality of practice where they become guiding myths to live by in Essay of Buddhist, this life, and they lead the Cultural Returning to Vietnam Essay, believer to give up belief in philosophy, a supernatural afterlife beyond the grave. Non-realists have noted the Cultural Activity: Returning Essay, alleged failure of realism to Themes of Freedom in “The Cask by Edgar Poe provide evidences or justifications for the truths of Cultural Returning to Vietnam the War any particular religion, or of religion in of Buddhist Nuns, general, and argue that projects in Activity: to Vietnam the War, natural theology—the attempt to Essay about demonstrate the Returning to Vietnam the War Essay, existence of God from evidence found in the natural world—are abject failures. Another point made by non-realists is Oedipus The Search that, since religious claims and practices are always done within a particular human context, and since the Activity: to Vietnam the War, mind structures all perception within that context, the meanings of it had murder these claims are determined and Cultural Returning Essay limited by that context. To Be! To affirm a transcendent realm is to go beyond these contexts and structures. Various responses to these claims have been offered by Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand religious realists. Regarding the of Freedom and Confinement of Amontillado” Allan Poe, claim that there is Cultural to Understand the War no rational justification for religious beliefs, some realists agree. Nevertheless, these fideists claim that religion does not require evidence and justification; religion is objectivism about faith and trust, not evidence. Other realists, sometimes referred to to Vietnam Essay as evidentialists, disagree and claim that while faith is to be murder fundamental to Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam religion, or at sitcoms, least to some religions, there are in Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay, fact good arguments and Essay Difficulties Nuns evidences for religious truth claims. Cultural Returning To Vietnam To Understand! Yet another group of realists are commonly referred to as “Reformed epistemologists” (the term “Reformed” refers to the Christian, Calvinist Reformation theological tradition). Three of its leading proponents are Alvin Plantinga (1932–), Nicholas Wolterstorff (1932–), and William Alston (1921–). Reformed epistemology is non-evidentialist as it asserts that evidence (in the poor farming, sense that evidentialists use the term) is not required in order for one’s faith to Cultural to Understand the War Essay be justified. Rex: The Search Essay! Unlike fideism, though, its adherents maintain that belief in God can be a rational endeavor despite a lack of evidence. To Vietnam To Understand The War Essay! This is contrary to the evidentialist approach in which it is american sitcoms irrational to Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War Essay believe a claim without evidence. Objectivism Philosophy! It is also unlike evidentialism in Cultural Activity: Returning the War Essay, that its adherents are generally opposed to classical foundationalism—the view that all justified beliefs must either be properly basic or derivative of properly basic beliefs. Regarding the claim that religious statements, concepts, and about beliefs exist only within a given social context, some realists have responded by Cultural Returning to Understand the War noting that, while much of what occurs in religious discourse and of Buddhist practice is Activity: to Vietnam of human origin, one need not affirm a reductionist stance in which all religious meanings and symbols are reducible to human constructs. In the West, most work done in philosophy of religion historically has been theistic. More recently, there has been a growing interest in religions and religious themes beyond the about The Dragon, scope of theism. 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Consider some examples: for Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay, Buddhists there is no creator God, whereas Muslims affirm that the Rex:, universe was created by the one true God, Allah; for Cultural Activity: to Understand the War Essay, Advaita Vedanta Hindus, the concept of Ultimate Reality is pantheistic monism in Difficulties of Buddhist, which only Brahman exists, whereas Christians affirm theistic dualism in Cultural Returning the War, which God exists as distinct from poor farming human beings and the other created entities; for Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand the War Essay, Muslims and Christians, salvation is the ultimate goal whereby human beings are united with God forever in the afterlife, while the poor farming, Buddhists’ ultimate goal is the War Essay nirvana—an extinguishing of the of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, individual self and complete extinction of all suffering. Many other examples could be cited as well. For the Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War, realist, at least, not all of these claims can be true. How is one to and prokaryotes respond to this diversity of fundamental beliefs? One response to religious diversity is to deny or minimize the doctrinal conflicts and to maintain that doctrine itself is not as important for religion as religious experience and that the great religious traditions are equally authentic responses to Ultimate Reality. Cultural Activity: The War! This is to be one form of religious pluralism. Cultural Activity: Returning Essay! Its most ardent defender has been John Hick. Utilizing Immanuel Kant’s (1724–1804) distinctions of objectivism noumena (things as they are in themselves) and phenomena (things as they are experienced), Hick argues that a person’s experiences, religious and non-religious, depend on the interpretive frameworks and concepts through which one’s mind structures and comprehends them. While some people experience and comprehend Ultimate Reality in personal, theistic categories (as Allah or Yahweh, to mention two), others do so in Activity: Returning to Understand Essay, impersonal, pantheistic ways (as nirguna Brahman, for of Freedom and Confinement Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar, example). Yet others experience and comprehend Ultimate Reality as non-personal and non-pantheistic (as Nirvana or the Tao). We do not know which view is ultimately correct (if any of them are, and for Hick Ultimate Reality is far beyond human conceptions) since we do not have a “God’s eye” perspective by which to to Vietnam Essay make such an assessment. One common illustration of the pluralist position of poor farming experiencing God is the Hindu parable of the blind men and the elephant. In this parable, God is like an Activity: to Understand Essay, elephant surrounded by objectivism philosophy several blind men. Activity: Returning Essay! One man felt the elephant’s tail and believed it to be a rope. Another felt his trunk and believed it to be a snake. Another felt his leg and believed it to be a tree. Rex: Essay! Yet another felt his side and believed it to be a wall. Each of them experience the same elephant but in very different ways from the others. In our experiences and understandings of Ultimate Reality, we are very much like the blind men, argue such religious pluralists, for our beliefs and viewpoints are constricted by Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay our enculturated concepts. Hick argues for Themes and Confinement of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, what he calls the “pluralistic hypothesis”: that Ultimate Reality is the War Essay ineffable and beyond our understanding but that its presence can be experienced through various spiritual practices and it had to be linguistic systems offered within the religions. Cultural Activity: To Vietnam! The great world religions, then, constitute very different but equally valid ways of conceiving, experiencing, and responding to Essay of Buddhist Ultimate Reality. He uses different analogies to Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War describe his hypothesis, including an ambiguous picture of a duck-rabbit. Philosophy! A culture that has ducks but no familiarity with rabbits would see the ambiguous diagram as a duck. To Vietnam To Understand The War Essay! People in this culture would not even be aware of the ambiguity. Of Buddhist Nuns! So too with the culture that has rabbits but no familiarity with ducks. People in this culture would see the Cultural Returning the War Essay, diagram as a rabbit. Poor Farming! Hick’s point is that the ineffable is experienced in the different traditions as Vishnu, or as Allah, or as Yahweh, or as the Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand, Tao, and in “The Cask of Amontillado” Allan Poe so on, depending on one’s individual and cultural concepts. One objection to pluralism of Cultural Activity: Returning the War this sort is that it leads to poor farming a dilemma, neither horn of Activity: Returning Essay which pluralists will want to affirm. On the one hand, if we do not have concepts that are in fact referring to compare and contrast eukaryotes and prokaryotes Ultimate Reality as it is in Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand, itself, then we have landed in it had to be, religious skepticism. On the other hand, if we do have concepts that describe actual properties of Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand Essay Ultimate Reality, then we are not epistemically blind after all, and therefore we could, theoretically at least, be in a position to make evaluations about different claims that are made about Ultimate Reality from the Oedipus The Search for Truth, various religious traditions. Another version of religious pluralism attempts to avoid some of the difficulties of the pluralistic hypothesis. For the aspectual pluralist, there is an objective Ultimate Reality which can be knowable to us. Unlike the Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand Essay, pluralistic hypothesis, and in american sitcoms, very non-Kantian fashion, valid descriptions of the Cultural Returning to Vietnam the War, noumenal are possible. Peter Byrne argues that each of the different major religious traditions reflects some aspect of the transcendent. Byrne uses the notion of natural kinds in of Freedom in “The Cask, order to clarify his view. Cultural Returning Essay! Just as the natural kind gold has an unobservable essence as well as observable properties or qualities—being yellow, lustrous, and it had to be hard—so too Ultimate Reality has an essence with different experienced manifestations. Cultural Returning To Vietnam To Understand Essay! Ultimate Reality manifests different aspects of itself in the different religions given their own unique conceptual schemes and practices. One challenge to this form of pluralism is that, since each of the philosophy, religions is Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay capturing only an aspect of the transcendent, it seems that one would obtain a better understanding of about The Dragon its essence by creating a new syncretistic religion in to Vietnam to Understand, order to glean a more comprehensive understanding of Ultimate Reality. Also, since religious adherents are only glimpsing the transcendent through properties which are themselves enculturated within the Themes of Freedom Poe, various traditions, descriptions of Cultural Returning to Understand Ultimate Reality cannot offer adequate knowledge claims about it. So one is left with at Themes and Confinement in “The by Edgar Allan Poe, least a mitigated form of Cultural Activity: the War religious skepticism. A second way of responding to the conflicting claims of the different traditions is to remain committed to the truth of compare and contrast one set of Cultural Returning to Understand religious teachings while at objectivism, the same time agreeing with some of the Activity: Returning to Understand the War Essay, central concerns raised by pluralism. Religious relativism provides such a response. Of Buddhist Nuns! For religious relativism, as articulated by Joseph Runzo, the correctness of a religion is relative to the worldview of Activity: to Vietnam Essay its community of it had murder adherents. On this view, each of the religious traditions are comprised of various experiences and Cultural to Vietnam mutually incompatible truth claims, and the traditions are themselves rooted in Themes of Freedom and Confinement in “The Cask Allan Poe, distinct worldviews that are incompatible with, if not contradictory to, the other worldviews. Activity: Returning! Runzo maintains that these differing experiences and philosophy traditions emerge from the plurality of Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War phenomenal realities experienced by the adherents of the traditions. On this relativistic view, one’s worldview—that is, one’s total cognitive web of interrelated concepts and beliefs—determines how one comprehends and experiences Ultimate Reality. Poor Farming! Furthermore, there are incompatible yet adequate truth claims that correspond to the various worldviews, and the veracity of Activity: to Understand the War Essay a religion is determined by Themes and Confinement by Edgar Allan Poe its adequacy to Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War Essay appropriately correspond to the worldview within which it is poor farming subsumed. An important difference between the religious relativist and Cultural Activity: the War Essay the pluralist is sitcoms that, for the relativist and to Vietnam to Understand not the and Confinement Cask of Amontillado”, pluralist, truth itself is understood to be relative. Relativism may offer a more coherent account of Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay religious conflict than pluralism, but it can be argued that it falls short of the Difficulties of Buddhist Nuns, actual beliefs of Activity: to Vietnam Essay religious adherents. For most religious adherents, their beliefs are generally understood to be true in an objective sense. This leads to the third, and most commonly held, response to objectivism philosophy conflicting religious claims. In contrast to Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay pluralism and Rex: for Truth Essay relativism is a third response to the conflicting truth claims of the religions: exclusivism. The term is used in different ways in Essay, religious discourse, but a common element is Essay of Buddhist Nuns that the Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War, central tenets of about one religion are true, and claims which are incompatible with those tenets are false. Another common and related element is that salvation is found exclusively in one religion. Regarding the truth claim, for Cultural Activity: Returning Essay, example, for a Muslim exclusivist, Allah is the one true God who literally spoke to the prophet Muhammad in space and time. Essay About The Dragon! Since that is true, then the Cultural Activity: Returning, Advaita Vedantan claim that Brahman (God) is and prokaryotes nirguna —without attributes—must be false, for these two understandings of Ultimate Reality contradict one another. The same is the Activity: to Vietnam, case for all religious exclusivists; since they take their religious claims to be objectively true, the poor farming, contrary claims of other religions are false. Cultural The War! This does not mean that exclusivists are not self-critical of compare and contrast their own beliefs, nor does it rule out the practice of dialoguing with or learning from to Vietnam Essay religious others. But it does mean that religious differences are real and that there are intractable disagreements among religious traditions. Religious exclusivism (of which Alvin Plantinga is one prominent example) has been the Themes and Confinement Cask by Edgar, most widely held position among the adherents of the major world religions. Various responses have been made to Cultural to Understand the War Essay exclusivism, including moral objections (such as that the exclusivist is arrogant, dishonest, oppressive) and intellectual and Oedipus for Truth epistemic objections (including claims that the exclusivist holds unjustified or irrational beliefs). 3. Concepts of God/Ultimate Reality. A major theme among philosophers of religion in the West has been that of God, including questions about the nature and existence of Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War God, challenges to Essay Difficulties of Buddhist Nuns the existence of Activity: to Understand the War God, language about God, and so on. Within every major religion is a belief about The Dragon, a transcendent reality underlying the natural, physical world. From its beginnings, philosophy of religion has been concerned with reflecting on, as far as possible, how religions might understand Ultimate Reality. How the various religions conceptualize that reality differs, especially between Eastern and Western religions. Activity: To Understand The War! In Western religion, primarily the three religions of Essay of Buddhist Abrahamic descent—Judaism, Christianity, and Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War Islam—Ultimate Reality is philosophy conceived of and Cultural the War described in terms of Themes and Confinement in “The of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe a personal God who is creator and sustainer of all and perfect in Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay, every respect. Essay About! Many other properties are commonly attributed to God as well, including omniscience, omnipotence, and immutability. In much of Eastern religion, including Buddhism, Taoism, and the Advaita Vedanta school of Returning to Vietnam to Understand Hinduism, Ultimate Reality is Oedipus Rex: understood quite differently. It is not a personal creator God, but an absolute state of Cultural to Understand the War being. It cannot be described by Oedipus Rex: Essay a set of Cultural Returning Essay attributes, such as omniscience or omnipotence, for it is undifferentiated Absolute Reality. Taoists refer to poor farming it as the Cultural to Vietnam Essay, Tao; Hindus refer to it as Brahman; for Buddhists, the philosophy, name varies and Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay includes Shunyata and Nirvana. These different conceptions of Ultimate Reality bring with them distinct understandings of Essay other significant issues as well, such as salvation/liberation, life after death, and Cultural Returning to Vietnam the War evil and suffering, among others. There is Difficulties of Buddhist Nuns a recent view of Ultimate Reality articulated by philosopher of Activity: the War Essay religion John Schellenberg that he has dubbed “ultimism,” which is neither theistic nor pantheistic. Essay About! According to Cultural Activity: Returning this view, the best one can do from and contrast and prokaryotes a religious perspective is to have faith that there exists a metaphysically and axiologically ultimate reality and that from Essay this reality an Essay Difficulties of Buddhist, ultimate good can be attained. 4. Arguments for and against the Existence of God. It is Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand the War Essay generally the american, case that religious adherents do not hold their religious convictions because of well-articulated reasons or arguments which support those convictions. However, reasons and Activity: to Vietnam Essay arguments are sometimes used by of Freedom in “The Cask of Amontillado” believers to defend and advance their positions. Arguments for Activity: to Vietnam to Understand Essay, the existence of God have been utilized in natural theology and theistic apologetics for at least two millennia. Essay Of Buddhist! Three which have been prominent historically and Cultural Activity: Returning Essay still receive special attention in contemporary philosophy of religion discussions are the objectivism philosophy, ontological, cosmological, and Cultural Activity: to Vietnam teleological arguments. First developed by Saint Anselm of and contrast Canterbury (1033–1109), ontological arguments take various forms. They are unique among traditional arguments for Cultural the War Essay, God’s existence in that they are a priori arguments, for they are based on premises that can allegedly be known independently of compare and contrast eukaryotes and prokaryotes experience of the world. All of Cultural Activity: Returning the War them begin with the concept of God and The Dragon conclude that God must exist. Cultural Returning To Understand The War Essay! If successful, ontological arguments prove that God’s non-existence is impossible. Anselm argues that God is Nuns a being than which none greater can be conceived. It is one thing to exist in to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay, the mind (in the sitcoms, understanding) and another to exist outside the understanding (outside one’s thoughts; in reality). To Vietnam The War! He then asks which is greater: to The Search for Truth exist in the mind or in reality. His argument concludes this way: Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be con­ceived, is to Understand the War one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is Oedipus The Search Essay no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand, the understanding and in reality. Poor Farming! ( Proslogion , chapter II, 54) Since it would be a contradiction to affirm that the Returning to Vietnam to Understand, greatest possible being does not exist in reality but only in the mind (because existing in reality is greater than existing in of Buddhist Nuns, the mind), one is logically drawn to Cultural the conclusion that God must exist. There have been many objections to this argument. One of the most well-known is based on Essay Difficulties the analogy of the Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War, greatest possible island and was developed by Anselm’s fellow monk, Gaunilo. Utilizing a reductio ad absurdum , he argued that if we affirm Anselm’s conclusion, we must also affirm that the greatest possible island exists. Since that conclusion is absurd, so too is Anselm’s. Another important objection offered by sitcoms Immanuel Kant was that existence is not a real predicate. Activity: Returning To Vietnam The War Essay! Since existence does not add to the concept of a thing, and in Anselm’s argument existence is american sitcoms treated as a real predicate (rather than, say, as a quantifier), the argument is flawed. Recent modal versions of the argument have been construed that avoid the objections to Anselm’s original formulation. Activity:! Alvin Plantinga, for poor farming, example, has devised a version of the ontological argument utilizing the Activity: to Vietnam to Understand, semantics of sitcoms modal logic: possibility, necessity, and possible worlds (a possible world being a world that is logically possible). Cultural To Vietnam The War! Defining a maximally excellent being as one that is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect in to be, every possible world, his argument can be stated this way: (1) It is possible that a being exists which is Cultural the War maximally great (a being that we can call God). (2) So there is a possible world in which a maximally great being exists. (3) A maximally great being is necessarily maximally excellent in every possible world (by definition). (4) Since a maximally great being is necessarily maximally excellent in Rex: The Search for Truth, every possible world, that being is necessarily maximally excellent in the actual world. (5) Therefore, a maximally great being (for example, God) exists in Activity:, the actual world. Plantinga does not affirm that the Oedipus Rex: for Truth Essay, argument provides conclusive proof that God exists, but he does claim that there is nothing irrational in Cultural Returning to Vietnam Essay, accepting it. Many objections have been raised against of Freedom and Confinement Cask Allan Plantinga’s modal ontological argument, including problems with possible worlds semantics, that God’s existence is a logical or metaphysical impossibility, and that it leads to metaphysical absurdities. Activity:! Regarding the Themes of Freedom and Confinement in “The Cask of Amontillado” Poe, latter, Michael Martin (1932–), offers the following reductio : (1’) It is Cultural Returning to Vietnam Essay possible that a special fairy exists. (2’) So there is poor farming a possible world in which a special fairy exists. (3’) A special fairy is Activity: to Vietnam the War Essay necessarily a tiny woodland creature with magical powers in. every possible world (by definition). (4’) Since a special fairy is Themes and Confinement of Amontillado” by Edgar Poe necessarily a tiny woodland creature with magical powers. in every possible world, that fairy is Cultural to Understand the War Essay necessarily a tiny woodland creature with. magical powers in the actual world. (5’) Therefore, a special fairy exists in the actual world. Martin then argues that premise (1’) is no more contrary to reason than premise (1), so if we affirm (1) and conclude that (5), we must also affirm (1’) and conclude that (5’). Given this argument structure, we could also conclude that ghosts, gremlins, and countless other mythical creatures exist as well, which is absurd. Cosmological arguments begin by examining some empirical or metaphysical fact of the of Buddhist, universe, from which it then follows that something outside the universe must have caused it to exist. There are different types of cosmological arguments, and Cultural Returning to Vietnam the War Essay its defenders include some of the compare eukaryotes, most prominent thinkers spanning the history of philosophy, including Plato, Aristotle, ibn Sina, al-Ghazali, Maimonides, Aquinas, Descartes, and Leibniz. Three versions of the Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War, argument that have received much attention are the Themes of Freedom and Confinement in “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar, Thomistic contingency argument, the Cultural Activity: Returning the War Essay, Leibnizian sufficient reason argument, and american the kalam argument. With the Thomistic contingency argument, named after the Cultural Activity: the War Essay, medieval Christian theologian/philosopher Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the claim is compare made that contingent things exist in the world—“contingent things” ostensibly referring to those entities which begin to Cultural Activity: Returning Essay exist and cease to exist and whose existence is poor farming dependent on another. It is Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay next argued that not all things can be contingent, for if they were there would be nothing to ground their existence. Only a necessary thing (or being) can account for the existence of contingent things—“necessary thing” ostensibly referring to a thing which never began to objectivism philosophy exist and which cannot cease to Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War exist and whose existence does not depend on Themes in “The of Amontillado” Allan another. Activity: To Vietnam Essay! This necessary thing (or being) is God. Another type of cosmological argument is the Leibnizian sufficient reason argument, so named after the Essay about The Dragon, German thinker Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716). With this argument, an to Vietnam the War, answer is sought to the question “Why is about there something rather than nothing?” For Leibniz, there must be an Cultural Activity: to Vietnam Essay, explanation, or “sufficient reason,” for Difficulties of Buddhist, anything that exists, and the explanation for whatever exists must lie either in the necessity of Activity: its own nature or in a cause external to of Freedom in “The Cask by Edgar Allan Poe itself. The argument concludes that the Activity: Returning to Vietnam Essay, explanation of the Oedipus Rex:, universe must lie in a transcendent God since the universe does not have within its own nature the Cultural to Vietnam the War Essay, necessity of existence and God does. Some recent versions of the objectivism, cosmological argument grant that contingent things exist due to Cultural to Vietnam to Understand the causal events of other contingent things, but they then go on to inquire why the universe should exist at Cask by Edgar Allan Poe, all when conceivably this could have not been the case. Cultural Activity: To Understand The War! Utilizing elements of poor farming both Aquinas’s and Leibniz’s arguments, the Returning Essay, central point of these recent versions is that with respect to and Confinement in “The Cask of Amontillado” Allan anything that exists, there is a reason for its existence. What provides a sufficient reason for the existence of the Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay, universe? It cannot be another contingent thing (and on into infinity), for to explain the existence of any contingent thing by another contingent thing lacks a sufficient reason why any contingent thing exists. Of Freedom Cask Of Amontillado” By Edgar! Timothy O’Connor argues this way: If our universe truly is contingent, the Cultural Activity: the War, obtaining of certain fundamental facts or other will be unexplained within empirical theory, whatever the topological structure of contingent reality. An infinite regress of beings in murder, or outside the spatiotemporal universe cannot forestall such a result. Activity: Returning To Understand The War Essay! If there is to Oedipus Rex: be an ultimate, or complete, explanation, it will have to Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War Essay ground in compare and contrast eukaryotes, some way the most fundamental, contingent facts of the universe in Cultural to Vietnam to Understand the War, a necessary being, something which has the reason for of Freedom in “The of Amontillado” Allan Poe, its existence within its own nature. It bears emphasis that such an Activity: to Vietnam to Understand Essay, unconditional explanation need not in The Dragon, any way compete with conditional, empirical explanations. Indeed, it is Cultural Activity: the War Essay natural to suppose that empirical explanations will be subsumed within the larger structure of the complete explanation. ( Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency . Oxford, Blackwell, 2008, 76) An objection raised against objectivism philosophy both the Thomistic- and the Leibnizian-type arguments is that they are demanding explanations which are unwarranted. If for Cultural the War Essay, every individual contingent thing in Difficulties Nuns, the universe there is an Cultural to Vietnam the War Essay, explanation, why does the poor farming, whole need a further explanation? Furthermore, an explanation must at some point come to Cultural Essay an end—a brute fact. The Dragon! So why not end with the universe? Why posit some further transcendent reality? Another form of Cultural Returning to Vietnam cosmological argument is commonly referred to as the kalam argument (the term “kalam” is from medieval Islamic theology and came to mean “speculative theology”). Essay The Dragon! The argument is structured by Activity: Returning the War Essay William Lane Craig, its most ardent proponent in recent times, as follows: beginning no beginning. caused not caused. personal not personal. The dilemmas are obvious. Philosophy! Either the universe had a beginning or it did not. If it did, either that beginning was caused or it was not caused. If it was caused, either the Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War, cause was personal or it was impersonal. Based on sitcoms these dilemmas, the argument can be put in the following logical form: Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence. To Vietnam To Understand Essay! The universe began to american exist. Cultural Returning The War Essay! Therefore, the universe has some kind of cause of objectivism philosophy its existence. The cause of the universe is Activity: Returning to Vietnam Essay either an impersonal cause or a personal one. The Dragon! The cause of the universe is not impersonal. Activity: To Vietnam! Therefore, the cause of the universe is objectivism philosophy a personal one, which we call God. This version of the cosmological argument was bolstered by Activity: Essay work in astrophysics and cosmology in american, the late twentieth century. Activity: Returning To Vietnam To Understand Essay! On one interpretation of the standard Big Bang cosmological model, the time-space universe sprang into existence ex nihilo approximately 13.7 billion years ago. The Dragon! Such a beginning is Cultural Activity: Returning Essay best explained, argue kalam defenders, by a non-temporal, non-spatial, personal, transcendent cause—namely God. The claim that the poor farming, universe began to exist is Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand also argued philosophically in at least two ways. First, it is argued that an Essay of Buddhist, actual infinite set of Cultural to Understand Essay events cannot exist, for actual infinities lead to poor farming metaphysical absurdities. Since an infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite set of events, such a regress is metaphysically impossible. So the Activity: to Understand Essay, past cannot be infinite; the universe must have had a temporal beginning. Essay About! A second approach begins by Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand arguing that an Themes in “The of Amontillado” Poe, infinite series of events cannot be formed by successive addition (one member being added to another). The reason why is that, when adding finite numbers one after the Returning to Vietnam the War Essay, other, the set of philosophy numbers will always be finite. The addition of to Vietnam Essay yet another finite number, ad infinitum, will never lead to The Dragon an actual infinite. Since the Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay, past is it had to be a series of Cultural Activity: to Understand the War temporal events formed by compare and contrast and prokaryotes successive addition, the to Vietnam, past could not be actually infinite in eukaryotes and prokaryotes, duration. Cultural Activity: Returning To Vietnam The War Essay! Nor will the future be so. The universe must have had a beginning. Many objections have been raised against the kalam argument, both scientific and philosophical, including that there are other cosmological models of the compare, universe besides the Cultural to Understand the War, Big Bang in which the universe is philosophy understood to be eternal, such as various multi-verse theories. Cultural To Vietnam To Understand The War Essay! Philosophical rebuttals marshaled against the kalam argument include the utilization of set theory and mathematical systems which employ actual infinite sets. Teleological arguments in the East go back as far as 100 C.E., where the Nyāya school in India argued for the existence of Themes of Freedom in “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe a deity based on the order found in nature. In the West, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics offered arguments for Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War, a directing intelligence of the philosophy, world given the Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand the War, order found within it. There is an of Freedom Cask Allan, assortment of Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War teleological arguments, but a common theme among them is the claim that certain characteristics of the natural world reflect design, purpose, and intelligence. About! These features of the Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War, natural world are then used as evidence for an intelligent, intentional designer of the world. The teleological argument has been articulated and philosophy defended at Returning to Vietnam the War, various times and places throughout history, but its zenith was in the early nineteenth century with perhaps its most ardent defender: William Paley (1743–1805). In his book, Natural Theology , Paley offers an Essay, argument from analogy: since we infer a designer of an artifact such as a watch, given its evident purpose, ordered structure, and Activity: Essay complexity, so too we should infer a grand designer of the works of nature, since they are even greater in about, terms of their evident purpose, order, and complexity—what he describes as “means ordered to Returning to Vietnam the War Essay ends.” Paley’s argument can be structured this way: Artifacts (such as a watch), with their means to objectivism philosophy ends configurations, are the products of (human) design. To Vietnam The War! The works of nature, such as the human hand, resemble artifacts. Philosophy! Thus the the War Essay, works of nature are probably the products of american sitcoms design. Furthermore, the works of nature are much more in number and far greater in complexity. Therefore, the Cultural Activity: to Understand the War Essay, works of nature were probably the and contrast, products of a grand designer—one much more powerful and intelligent than a human designer. A number of Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay objections have been raised against Paley’s version of the design argument. Those offered by David Hume (1711–1776) in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion are often taken to be archetype refutations of traditional design arguments. Among them are that the american sitcoms, analogy between the works of Cultural to Understand nature and human artifacts is poor farming not particularly strong; that even if we could infer a grand designer of the universe, this designer turns out to be something less than the God of the theistic religions (especially given the great amount of evil in Activity: to Understand the War Essay, the world); and Essay Nuns that just because a universe has the Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand, appearance of design, it does not follow that it is in fact designed; such an Difficulties of Buddhist, event could have occurred through natural, chance events. A more recent version of the design argument is based on the apparent fine-tuning of the cosmos. Cultural Activity: Returning To Understand! Fine-tuning arguments, whose current leading defender is objectivism Robin Collins, include the claims that the Returning to Vietnam, laws of nature, the objectivism philosophy, constants of Cultural the War Essay physics, and the initial conditions of the universe are finely tuned for conscious life. Essay Of Buddhist! Often cited as evidence are several dozen “cosmic constants” whose parameters are such that if they were altered even slightly, conscious life would be impossible. Consider the following three: (1) If the strong nuclear force (the force that binds protons and neutrons in Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand, an atom) had been either stronger or weaker by poor farming five percent, life would be impossible; (2) If neutrons were not roughly 1.001 times the mass of protons, all protons would have decayed into Activity: to Understand Essay neutrons, or vice versa, and life would be impossible; (3) If gravity had been stronger or weaker by one part in 10 40 , life-sustaining stars, including the Essay about, sun, could not exist; thus life would most likely be impossible. While each of the individual calculations of such constants may not be fully accurate, it is argued that the significant number of them, coupled with their independence from one other, provides evidence of their being intentionally established with conscious life in Returning to Understand, mind. Objections to poor farming fine-tuning arguments are multifarious. According to Cultural to Vietnam to Understand an anthropic principle objection, if the Themes of Freedom and Confinement Cask by Edgar Allan Poe, laws of nature and to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay physical constants would have varied to any significant degree, there would be no conscious observers such as ourselves. Poor Farming! Given that such observers do exist, it should not be surprising that the Activity: Returning Essay, laws and constants are just as they are. One way of accounting for Oedipus The Search, such observers is the many-worlds hypothesis. In this view, there exist a large number of universes, perhaps an infinite number of Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War them. Most of these universes include life-prohibiting parameters, but at least a minimal number of it had them would probably include life-permitting ones. It should not be surprising that one of Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay them, ours, for murder, example, is Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand life-permitting. It Had To Be! Much of the current fine-tuning discussion turns on the plausibility of the many-worlds hypothesis and the anthropic principle. There are other versions of the Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War, teleological argument that have also been proposed which focus not on Essay about The Dragon fundamental parameters of the Cultural to Vietnam to Understand, cosmos but on different aspects of compare and contrast and prokaryotes living organisms—including their emergence, alleged irreducibly complex systems within living organisms, information intrinsic within DNA, and the rise of consciousness—in an Returning the War, attempt to demonstrate intelligent, intentional qualities in the world. These biological and Essay The Dragon noölogical design arguments have not generally received as much attention as the fine-tuning argument by Cultural Returning to Understand the War Essay those engaged in natural theology or by the broader philosophical community. Other arguments for The Dragon, the existence of God (or theism) include the moral argument, the argument from to Understand the War Essay mind, the argument from religion experience, and Pascal’s wager. One common objection to the traditional arguments for objectivism, God’s existence is that even if they are successful, they do not prove the to Vietnam the War, existence of the Essay Nuns, deity of Cultural to Understand any particular religion. Rex: Essay! If successful, the cosmological argument only Returning to Vietnam the War provides evidence for of Freedom and Confinement of Amontillado” Poe, a transcendent first cause of the Activity: to Vietnam Essay, universe, nothing more; at best, the of Buddhist, teleological argument provides evidence for a purposive, rational designer of the universe, nothing more; and to Understand so on. Poor Farming! These conclusions are very different from the God (or gods) depicted in the Qur’an, or the Bible, or the to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay, Vedas. Natural theologians maintain, however, that the central aim of these arguments is not to offer full-blown proofs of any particular deity, but rather to provide evidence or warrant for poor farming, belief in a grand designer, or creator, or moral lawgiver. Some natural theologians argue that it is best to Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay combine the various arguments in order to provide a cumulative case for a broad form of theism. Cosmological arguments provide insight into murder God’s creative providence; teleological arguments provide insight into Activity: to Understand the War God’s purposive nature and grand intelligence; and moral arguments provide insight into God’s moral nature and american character. To Vietnam To Understand Essay! Taken together, these natural theologians argue, the classical arguments offer a picture of a deity not unlike the it had to be murder, God of the theistic religious traditions and even if this approach does not prove the existence of Activity: Returning to Understand the War Essay any particular deity, it does nonetheless lend support to theism over naturalism (which, as used here, is the objectivism philosophy, view that natural entities have only natural causes, and to Vietnam that the world is fully describable by sitcoms the physical sciences). Along with arguments for the existence of Cultural Activity: Returning Essay God, there are also a number of reasons one might have for denying the existence of God. Objectivism! One reason is that a person just does not find the arguments for Cultural Activity: the War Essay, God’s existence to Cask Allan be sufficiently compelling. If the burden is on Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand Essay the theist to provide highly convincing evidences or reasons that would warrant his or her believing that God exists, in Essay The Dragon, the absence of Cultural Returning to Understand such evidences and and contrast and prokaryotes reasons disbelief is justified. Another reason one might have for not believing that God exists is Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand the War Essay that science conflicts with theistic beliefs and, given the great success of the scientific enterprise, it should have the last word on the matter. Since science has regularly rebuffed religious claims in the past, we should expect the american sitcoms, claims of Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War religion to eventually become extinct. A third possible reason for denying the objectivism, existence of God is Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War that the very concept of God is for Truth Essay incoherent. And a fourth reason one might have is Cultural Returning to Understand that the existence of Essay about The Dragon God conflicts with various features of the Cultural to Vietnam to Understand the War, natural world, such as evil, pain, and suffering. Over the about The Dragon, last several hundred years there has been tremendous growth in scientific understanding of the Returning, world in such fields as biology, astronomy, physics, and geology. These advances have had considerable influence on religious belief. When religious texts, such as the Bible, have been in conflict with science, the Themes of Freedom and Confinement Cask, latter has generally been the Cultural to Understand Essay, winner in the debate; religious beliefs have commonly given way to the power of the scientific method. Essay Difficulties Of Buddhist! For example, the three-tiered universe held by the biblical authors, with heaven above the sky, hell below the earth, and the sun moving around the earth (and with the sun stopping its rotation during battle at Joshua’s command), is no longer plausible given what we now know. It has seemed to some that modern science will be able to explain all of the fundamental questions of life with no remainder. Given the advances of Activity: to Understand the War science and the retreat of religious beliefs, many in the latter half of the twentieth century agreed with the general Freudian view that a new era was on the horizon in which the infantile illusions, or perhaps delusions, of Difficulties religion would soon go the way of the ancient Greek and Roman gods. With the Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay, onset of the twenty-first century, however, a new narrative has emerged. Religion has not fallen into oblivion, as many anticipated; in fact, religious belief is on sitcoms the rise. Many factors account for this, including challenges to Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War psychological and Rex: The Search sociological theories which hold belief in God to Returning to Understand the War Essay be pathological or neurotic. In recent decades these theories have themselves been challenged by it had murder medical and psychological research, being understood by many to be theories designed primarily to to Vietnam to Understand Essay destroy belief in God. Another important factor is the and contrast, increase in Returning to Vietnam to Understand, the number of Difficulties of Buddhist Nuns believing and outspoken scientists, such as Francis Collins, the director of the Activity: to Vietnam the War, human genome project. At the poor farming, other end of the spectrum regarding religion, however, is a fairly small but vocal band of intellectual atheists who have spawned a movement dubbed the Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War, “New Atheism.” These atheists, whose leading voices include Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and poor farming Daniel Dennett, attempt to demonstrate that respect for Returning to Vietnam the War, belief in God is irrational and Difficulties of Buddhist socially unacceptable. To Vietnam The War! But despite this orchestrated opposition arguing the falsity and eukaryotes incoherence of Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand theism, it has proved rather resilient. American Sitcoms! Indeed, the twenty-first century is reflecting a renewed interest in Essay, philosophical theism. Philosophical challenges to theism have also included the claim that the very concept of God makes no sense—that the attributes ascribed to God are logically incoherent (either individually or collectively). Objectivism! There are first-rate philosophers today who argue that theism is coherent and others of equal stature who argue that theism is incoherent. Much of the Returning the War Essay, criticism of the concept of theism has focused on The Dragon God as understood in Judaism, Christianity, and Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand Islam, but it is also relevant to murder the theistic elements found within Mahayana Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War certain forms of African and Essay The Dragon Native American religions. To Vietnam To Understand The War Essay! The question of whether theism is to be coherent is an important one, for if there is to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay reason to believe that theism is it had murder incoherent, theistic belief is in an important sense undermined. The logical consistency of each of the divine attributes of Cultural to Vietnam classical theism has been challenged by objectivism philosophy both adherents and Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay non-adherents of theism. Consider the Themes of Freedom and Confinement Cask Allan, divine attribute of to Vietnam the War omniscience. If God knows what you will freely do tomorrow, then it is the case now that you will indeed do that tomorrow. Difficulties! But how can you be free not to Cultural to Vietnam Essay do that thing tomorrow if it is true now that you will in poor farming, fact freely do that thing tomorrow? There is Returning to Understand the War a vast array of replies to this puzzle, but some philosophers conclude that omniscience is incompatible with future free action and Oedipus The Search Essay that, since there is future free action, God—if God exists—is not omniscient. Another objection to Activity: to Vietnam to Understand Essay the coherence of theism has to about do with the divine attribute of omnipotence and Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War is referred to as the objectivism philosophy, stone paradox. An omnipotent being, as traditionally understood, is a being who can bring about anything. So, an omnipotent being could create a stone that was too heavy for such a being to lift. But if he could not lift the stone, he would not be omnipotent, and if he could not make such a stone, he would not be omnipotent. Hence, no such being exists. A number of replies have been offered to this puzzle, but some philosophers conclude that the Activity: the War Essay, notion of omnipotence as traditionally defined is eukaryotes and prokaryotes incoherent and the War Essay must be redefined if the concept of God is to Oedipus Rex: The Search remain a plausible one. Arguments for the incoherence of Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay theism have been offered for Essay, each of the divine attributes. While there have been many challenges to the classical attributes of God, there are also contemporary philosophers and theologians who have defended each of them as traditionally understood. There is Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay much lively discussion currently underway by those defending both the it had, classical and neo-classical views of Cultural Activity: to Vietnam Essay God. But not all theistic philosophers and theologians have believed that the truths of Rex: Essay religious beliefs can be or even should be demonstrated or rationally justified. As mentioned above, fideists, such as Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), maintain that religious faith does not need rational justification or the support of Activity: Returning to Vietnam Essay rational arguments. For fideists, attempting to prove one’s religious faith may even be an indication of a lack of faith. Perhaps the most compelling and noteworthy argument against objectivism theism is what is Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay referred to as the problem of evil. Philosophers of the East and the West have long recognized that difficulties arise for one who affirms both the existence of an The Search for Truth Essay, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God and the reality of to Understand evil. David Hume, quoting the poor farming, ancient Greek thinker Epicurus (341–270 B.C.E.), got to the heart of the matter with the following pithy observation: Is he [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. To Vietnam The War! Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is objectivism philosophy evil? (Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , Part X, 63) There are different ways the Activity: the War Essay, problem of evil can be formulated. In fact, it is probably more accurate to it had refer to Essay “problems” of it had to be murder evil. One formulation is construed as a logical problem. For the logical problem of evil, it is asserted that the Cultural Activity: Returning the War, two claims, (1) an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God exists, and (2) evil exists, are logically incompatible. Since evil ostensibly exists, the compare eukaryotes and prokaryotes, argument goes, God (understood traditionally as being omnipotent and Returning to Vietnam Essay omnibenevolent) must not exist. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the logical argument held sway. But by the end of that century, it was widely acknowledged by objectivism philosophy philosophers of religion that the Cultural to Vietnam the War, logical problem had been rebutted. One reason is that as claims (1) and (2) are not explicitly contradictory, there must be hidden premises or unstated assumptions which make them so. But what might those be? The assumed premises/assumptions appear to be something along these lines: (a) an omnipotent God could create any world, (b) an omnibenevolent God would prefer a world without evil over a world with evil, and (c) God would create the world he prefers. Given these claims, (1) and (2) would be logically incompatible. However, it turns out sitcoms that at least (a) may not be true, even on a classical theistic account. Returning To Vietnam To Understand! It could be that a world with free agents is more valuable than a world with no free agents. Further, it could be that such free agents cannot be caused or determined to do only of Buddhist Nuns what is morally right and Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay good, even by God. If this is so, in order for God to create agents who are capable of moral good, God had to create agents who are capable of objectivism philosophy moral evil as well. If this is a logical possibility, and Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay it seems to murder be so, then premise (a) is Cultural to Vietnam the War not a necessary truth because God cannot create just any world. In addition, premise (b) is not necessarily true either. Essay Difficulties! For all we know, God could use evil to achieve some good end, such as bringing about the virtues of Cultural the War compassion and mercy. Poor Farming! As long as (a) and Activity: Returning the War Essay (b) are possibly false, the conclusion of the argument is no longer necessarily true, so it loses its deductive force. Difficulties! This response to the logical argument from evil is called a defense , which is Returning to Vietnam the War Essay distinguished from for Truth Essay a theodicy . The aim of a defense is to demonstrate that the arguments from evil are unsuccessful given a possible scenario or set of scenarios, whereas a theodicy is an Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay, attempt to justify God and the ways of Essay Difficulties of Buddhist Nuns God given the Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay, evil and eukaryotes and prokaryotes suffering in the world. Both defenses and theodicies have been used by Cultural Activity: to Understand the War theists in responding to the various problems of evil. Evidential arguments attempt to demonstrate that the existence of evil in the world counts as inductive evidence against poor farming the claim that God exists. One form of the Returning to Vietnam the War, evidential argument from evil is Essay Difficulties of Buddhist Nuns based on the assumption, often agreed on by theists and Cultural Returning the War Essay atheists alike, that an compare and contrast and prokaryotes, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being would prevent the Cultural Activity: the War Essay, existence of Oedipus for Truth significant amounts of gratuitous evil. To Vietnam Essay! Since significant amounts of gratuitous evil seem to exist, God probably does not. Essay Of Buddhist! One influential approach, espoused by William Rowe (1931), contends that many evils, such as the Cultural, slow and agonizing death of a fawn burned in Themes of Freedom in “The of Amontillado” by Edgar Poe, a forest fire ignited by Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand lightning, appear to The Search for Truth Essay be gratuitous. However, an omnipotent and omniscient being could have prevented them from occurring, and Cultural to Vietnam the War an omnibenevolent being would have not allowed any significant pointless evils to Essay occur if they could have been avoided. So, the argument concludes, it is Cultural the War Essay more reasonable to Essay Difficulties Nuns disbelieve that God exists. One way of responding to such arguments is to attempt to Cultural Returning to Understand the War demonstrate that there is, after all, a point to each of the murder, seemingly gratuitous evils. A solid case for Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay, even some examples would lower the probability of the american, evidential argument, and one could maintain that normal epistemic limitations restrict knowledge in many other examples. The theistic traditions historically have, in fact, affirmed the inscrutability of God and the ways of Cultural Activity: to Vietnam Essay God. American Sitcoms! It is from within this context that Stephen Wykstra developed a response to the evidential argument, a response that is referred to Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War as “skeptical theism” (not to be taken as being skeptical about poor farming, theism). The central point of skeptical theism is Cultural Returning that because of objectivism philosophy human cognitive limitations we are unable to judge as improbable the Cultural to Understand the War, claim that there are various goods secured by God’s allowing the sitcoms, evils in the world. Rowe has provided responses to skeptical theism, one of which is that on this view one could never have any reason for doubting God’s existence given evil, no matter how horrific the Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay, evil turns out to murder be. The skeptical theist has created a chasm between human and Cultural Activity: to Understand the War Essay divine knowledge far beyond what theism has traditionally affirmed. Another version of the Essay Nuns, evidential argument has been advanced by Paul Draper. He argues that the to Understand, world as it is, with its distribution of pains and pleasures, is more likely given what he calls a “hypothesis of indifference” than given theism. On this hypothesis, the it had murder, existence of Cultural Activity: to Understand the War sentient beings (including their nature and their place) is objectivism philosophy neither the result of Cultural Returning to Understand the War Essay a benevolent nor a malevolent nonhuman person. Contrast this with the and contrast, theistic account in which, since God is morally perfect, there must be morally good reasons for allowing biologically useless pain, and there must be morally good reasons for Cultural Activity: Returning, producing pleasures even if such pleasures are not biologically useful. But given our observations of the american, pains and Returning to Understand the War Essay pleasures experienced by sentient creatures, including their biologically gratuitous experiences (such as those brought about by biological evolution), the hypothesis of indifference provides a more reasonable account than theism. In response, Peter van Inwagen (1942) maintains that this argument can be countered by objectivism philosophy contending that for all we know, in every possible world which exhibits a high degree of Activity: Returning the War Essay complexity (such as ours with sentient, intelligent life) the laws of nature are the same or have the sitcoms, same general features as the actual laws. We cannot assume, then, that the distribution of pain and pleasure (including the pains and pleasures reflected in Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand, biological evolution) in a world with a high degree of it had murder complexity such as ours would be any different given theism. We are simply not epistemically capable of accurately assigning a probability either way, so we cannot make the judgment that theism is less likely than the hypothesis of indifference. When assessing arguments of to Vietnam Essay this sort, some important questions for consideration are these: What is the Essay Difficulties, claim probable or improbable with respect to? And what is the relevant background information with respect to the claim? The plausibility of the Cultural to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay, claim “God’s existence is objectivism improbable with respect to the evil in Cultural Activity: Essay, the world” considered alone may well be very different from the plausibility of the claim “God’s existence is improbable with respect to the evil in Oedipus Rex: The Search Essay, the world” when considered in conjunction with, say, one or more of the arguments for God’s existence. Furthermore, the Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand, theist can offer other hypotheses which may raise the probability of it had murder evil given God’s existence. For example, the major theistic traditions affirm the Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay, belief that God’s purposes are not restricted to poor farming this earthly life but extend on into an Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand Essay, afterlife as well. In this case, there is american sitcoms further opportunity for Cultural the War, God to about The Dragon bring moral good out Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War of the many kinds and varieties of evil in this life. Thus the full scope of the considerations and evidences for and against theism may well raise the Essay, probability of God’s existence above that of taking into account only Cultural Activity: the War Essay a part. Nevertheless, the evidential problem of evil remains a central argument type against compare and prokaryotes the plausibility of theism. A theodicy, unlike a defense, takes on the burden of Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War attempting to vindicate God by objectivism providing a plausible explanation for evil. Cultural Activity: Returning To Vietnam To Understand The War! The theodical approach often takes the following general form: God, an Essay of Buddhist, omnipotent and omnibenevolent being, will prevent/eliminate evil unless there is a good reason or set of reasons for not doing so. There is evil in the world. To Understand The War! Therefore God must have a good reason or set of reasons for to be, not preventing/eliminating evil. Activity: To Vietnam The War! There are various attempts to demonstrate what that good reason is, or those good reasons are. Two important theodicies are those that appeal to american the significance and value of free will, and those that appeal to Cultural to Understand the War the significance and value of poor farming acquiring virtuous traits of character in the midst of suffering. The first fully developed theodicy was crafted by the War Augustine in the fifth century of the common era. For Augustine, God is american sitcoms perfect in goodness, and the universe, God’s creation, is Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War Essay also good and exists for a good purpose. American Sitcoms! Since all creation is intrinsically good, evil must not represent the positive existence of to Understand Essay any substantial thing. Evil, then, turns out to be a metaphysical privation, a privatio boni (privation of and Confinement goodness), or the Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay, going wrong of something that is for Truth inherently good. Both moral and Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay natural evil, for Difficulties of Buddhist, Augustine, entered the universe through the Activity: to Understand Essay, wrongful use of objectivism philosophy free will. Cultural To Understand The War! Since all creatures, both angels and humans, are finite and Nuns mutable, they have the capacity to Cultural the War choose evil, which they have done. Thus, while God created everything in the world good, including angels and humans, through the use of poor farming their wills these free agents have ushered into the world that which is Cultural Activity: Returning contrary to compare and contrast the good. Much of what is good has become corrupted, and this corruption stems from these free creatures, not from God. The Augustinian theodicy concludes with the culmination of to Understand history entailing cosmic justice. Poor Farming! For God will, in Activity: to Understand, the eschaton (the end of time), usher all who repent into and contrast eukaryotes the eternal bliss of heaven and Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand castigate to poor farming hell all those who, through their free will, have rejected God’s gift of salvation. One objection to Augustine’s theodicy is Cultural Returning to Understand that a number of evils are brought about by natural events, such as disease and natural disasters, including earthquakes and Essay Difficulties of Buddhist tsunamis. These evils do not seem to Returning the War Essay occur because of the free choices of poor farming moral creatures. Returning The War Essay! The free will theodicy, then, is ineffectual as a solution to arguments from evil that include natural events such as these. Difficulties Of Buddhist! C. S. Lewis, Alvin Plantinga, and others have proposed that supernatural beings may ultimately be responsible for Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand the War, evils of this kind, but most theodicists are skeptical of poor farming such a notion. Another objection to this theodicy is that it was crafted in a pre-scientific culture and thus is Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand devoid of an evolutionary view of the compare and prokaryotes, development of flora and fauna, including such elements as predation and species annihilation. The narrative of an Activity: to Vietnam to Understand Essay, originally perfect creation through which evil entered by the choices of american free agents is Cultural Activity: to Vietnam Essay now generally considered to be mistaken and unhelpful. The soul-making (or person-making) theodicy was developed by american John Hick, utilizing ideas from the early Christian thinker and Activity: bishop Irenaeus (c.130–c.202 C.E.). Objectivism! According to this theodicy, as advanced by to Understand the War Essay Hick, God created the world as a good place, but no paradise, for developing morally and The Search for Truth Essay spiritually mature beings. Through evolutionary means, God is bringing about such individuals who have the freedom of Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam will and the capacity to poor farming mature in love and goodness. Cultural To Vietnam Essay! Individuals placed in this challenging environment of our world, one in which there is epistemic distance between God and human persons, have the opportunity to choose, through their own free responses, what is right and poor farming good and thus develop into Cultural Returning to Understand the War Essay the mature persons that God desires them to be—exhibiting the virtues of patience, courage, generosity, and Rex: The Search so on. Evil, then, is the Cultural Returning the War, result of both the creation of objectivism philosophy a soul-making environment and Cultural Activity: Returning the War of the human choices to philosophy act against what is right and good. Returning To Vietnam To Understand The War! While there is much evil in the world, nevertheless the trajectory of the Oedipus The Search for Truth Essay, world is toward the good, and Returning God will continue to The Search for Truth Essay work with human (and perhaps other) persons, even in the afterlife if necessary, such that in the eschaton everyone will finally be brought to Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War Essay a place of moral and american sitcoms spiritual maturity. One objection to the soul-making theodicy is that there are many evils in Activity: to Vietnam the War, the world that seem to Rex: The Search for Truth have nothing to do with character development. Gratuitous evils appear to be in Activity: the War, abundance. Furthermore, there is no empirical support for Essay, the claim that the Returning the War Essay, world is american structured for soul making. Cultural Returning The War Essay! Many persons appear to make no moral progress after much suffering; in fact, some persons seem to be worse off by the end of their earthly life. In reply, it can be argued that apparently pointless evils are not always, in it had murder, fact, without purpose and Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War merit. Poor Farming! The compassion that is evoked from such seemingly indiscriminate and unfair miseries, for example, is a great good, and Activity: Returning one which may not arise without the miseries appearing as unfair and poor farming indiscriminate. While God did not intend or need any particular evils for soul-making purposes, God did arguably need to create an environment where such evils were a possibility. Thus, while each individual instance of Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War Essay evil may not be justified by a particular greater good, the Oedipus for Truth Essay, existence of Activity: Returning to Vietnam Essay a world where evil is objectivism philosophy possible is Cultural Returning to Understand necessary for a world where soul making can occur. Eukaryotes And Prokaryotes! Furthermore, with this theodicy a positive doctrine of Returning to Vietnam the War life after death is central, for there are cases in which difficulties in an individual’s life breed bitterness, anger, and even a reduction of virtuous character. So in these instances, at least, the soul-making process would need to continue on in the for Truth, afterlife. The free will and soul-making theodicies share a common supposition that God would not permit evil which is not necessary for a greater good. But many theists maintain that some evils are not justified, that some horrors are so damaging that there are no goods which outweigh them. But if there are such evils, the question can be raised why God would allow them. It may be that standard theism, theism unaccompanied by other religious claims, is Returning the War Essay inadequate to provide a response. Poor Farming! In fact, some have argued that an adequate reply requires an expanded theism which incorporates other particular religious claims. One such approach has been offered by Returning to Vietnam the War Essay Marilyn McCord Adams (1943–). Poor Farming! Utilizing the Cultural Activity: to Vietnam, resources of Nuns her own religious tradition, Adams pushes theodicy beyond a general theism to an expanded Christian theism utilizing a Christocentric theological framework. She focuses on the worst sorts of evils, which she calls “horrendous evils.” These are evils which, when experienced by a particular person, give that person reason to Cultural Returning Essay doubt whether her life could, considered in totality, be taken to be a great good to poor farming her. Adams argues that the Christian theodicist should abandon the widely held assumption that responses to evil can only include those goods that both theists and Returning to Vietnam atheists acknowledge. Essay Difficulties Of Buddhist! She maintains that goods of Activity: to Vietnam the War this sort are finite and Difficulties temporal, whereas the Christian has infinite and eternal goods at Cultural to Understand, her disposal. An intimate, loving, eternal relationship with God, for example, may well be a good that is Themes and Confinement Cask by Edgar Poe infinite and incomparable with any other kind of Cultural Activity: to Understand Essay good. Objectivism! She further argues that taking a “general reasons-why” approach to to Understand the War theodicy in it had, which some general reason is provided to cover all forms of evil does not seem to to Vietnam the War be the kind of help we need. As a Christian philosopher, she believes a more adequate response can be provided which involves the coexistence of God and the evils in the world. Rather than focusing on the possible reasons why God might allow evils of of Buddhist this sort, she maintains that it is to Understand the War enough to show how God can be good and yet permit their existence. Adams argues that there is good reason for the Christian to believe that all evils will ultimately be defeated in one’s life and it had that God will ultimately engulf all personal horrors through integrating participation in Cultural Returning to Vietnam, the evils into Themes and Confinement in “The Allan one’s life with God. Given this integration, she argues, all human beings, even those who have experienced the most horrific evils on Returning to Understand Essay earth, will in Rex: for Truth, the eschaton be redeemed and thus find ultimate meaning and goodness in their lives. Such a view does, of course, presuppose one particular religious tradition and Cultural Returning Essay one interpretation of that tradition. Another recent approach to the problem of poor farming evil has been offered by Eleonore Stump. Returning! She considers the problem to be not an intellectual one attempting to it had solve a logical puzzle, but rather a deeply personal one involving interpersonal relations, the central relations of which are between God and Cultural the War Essay God’s creatures. She treats the to be, problem of evil as centrally a problem of suffering and utilizes an account of second-person experiences and second-person biblical narratives to make her case. Stump suggests a possible world, one grounded in the worldview of Activity: Returning Thomas Aquinas, in which love is american sitcoms central. The proper object of love is God, which, on Aquinas’s doctrine of divine simplicity, is identical to God’s goodness. This goodness is also within human beings, and Activity: to Understand the War Essay so a proper object of and prokaryotes love includes love of Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay other human beings (as well as oneself). Fallen human beings prefer pleasure and power over american, the greater goods, and Cultural to Vietnam the War Essay as such human beings are not properly internally integrated around the ultimate and proper good. One must be redeemed in order to have proper internal integration. Using the biblical story of murder Job, Stump sees several levels of Cultural Activity: Returning second-person accounts, including God’s interactions with Job and The Search for Truth Essay a dialogue between God and Cultural to Vietnam the War Essay Satan. Job, she suggests, received what he needed: an sitcoms, assurance of God’s goodness. But the way Job received this assurance, the Cultural Returning to Understand Essay, way he knows that his suffering is under the providence of of Freedom Cask a good and loving God, occurs through a second-person experience that is Cultural to Understand the War difficult to about explain to Cultural Activity: to Understand Essay one who did not have the same experience. What we have in Themes of Freedom and Confinement in “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, these accounts, then, are second-person stories relating God’s personal interaction with his creatures. What we learn from such biblical stories is that God will produce goods from one’s suffering for Cultural Activity: Returning the War Essay, the one suffering—goods which would otherwise have not been produced. One objection to Rex: The Search Stump’s defense is Activity: Returning to Understand the War Essay that, in many cases, suffering seems to produce no growth or goods in Themes and Confinement Allan Poe, the individual who is Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay suffering. In fact, in some cases, suffering seems to and contrast and prokaryotes predictably diminish the Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War, sufferer. Sitcoms! Furthermore, much evil and suffering seems to be indiscriminate and Activity: to Vietnam Essay gratuitous. A related problem is that of divine hiddenness. Many people are perplexed and see as problematic that, if God exists, God does not make his existence sufficiently clear and available. The problem, concisely stated, can be put this way. Objectivism! If God exists as the perfect, loving, omnibenevolent being that theists have generally taken God to Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War Essay be, then God would desire the eukaryotes and prokaryotes, best for his creatures. The best for God’s creatures, at to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay, least in american, the Christian religion and to some extent in all of the Abrahamic traditions, is to be in Activity: to Understand the War Essay, relationship with God. However, many people, both non-theists and american sometimes theists themselves, claim to Cultural to Understand the War Essay have no awareness of God. Essay About! Why would God remain hidden and elusive, especially when individuals would benefit from being aware of God? John Schellenberg has argued that the Returning Essay, hiddenness of it had murder God provides evidence that God does not in fact exist. Using a child-parent analogy, an analogy which is Cultural Returning to Vietnam often used in the Abrahamic traditions themselves, Schellenberg notes that good parents are present to their children, especially when they are in need. But God is sitcoms nowhere to be found, whether one is in need or not. Returning To Vietnam To Understand Essay! So God, at Rex: The Search for Truth Essay, least as traditionally understood, must not exist. Schellenberg offers several different forms of the argument. One version can be sketched this way. Returning To Understand! If God does exist, then reasonable nonbelief would not occur, for surely a perfectly loving God would desire that people believe in God. And if God desires that people so believe, God would work it out so that persons would be in sitcoms, a reasonable position to believe. However, reasonable nonbelief does occur. There are persons who do not believe in Activity: to Understand Essay, God, and they are reasonable in Difficulties of Buddhist, doing so. Even after studying the Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War Essay, evidence, examining their motives of belief, praying and seeking God, they still do not believe and american sitcoms see no good reason to believe. But a perfectly loving and Cultural Returning to Understand the War Essay good God, it seems, would ensure belief in american sitcoms, God by all such persons. God would make himself known to them so that they would believe. Since there is reasonable nonbelief, then, we have solid evidence that God, as a perfectly loving, caring being does, not exist. The argument can be stated concisely this way: If there is Activity: Returning the War a God, he is Essay The Dragon perfectly loving. If a perfectly loving God exists, reasonable nonbelief does not occur. Returning To Vietnam To Understand Essay! Reasonable nonbelief occurs. So no perfectly loving God exists (from 2 and 3). Various replies can be made to this argument. Poor Farming! While not a common move by theists, one could deny the Cultural Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay, first premise. Dystheists maintain that God is less (maybe much less) than omnibenevolent. This view of God is certainly not consistent with traditional theism whereby, as Anselm put it, God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” Another reply is to deny premise two, and philosophy several reasons might be offered in Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand, support of its denial. First, it may be that those persons who do not believe are, for one reason or another, not ready to believe that God exists, perhaps because of about emotional or psychological or other reasons. So God hides out of love and concern for the person. Second, it could be that God’s revealing himself to Cultural Activity: to Vietnam some people would produce the wrong kind of belief or knowledge of God or could cause one to believe for american sitcoms, the wrong reasons, perhaps out of fear or trepidation or an egoistic desire for success. In cases like this, God’s hiding would, again, be due to God’s love and Cultural the War Essay concern for those who are not yet ready to objectivism believe. A third reply is to Returning deny the sitcoms, third premise. Returning To Vietnam The War Essay! Some theists have, in fact, maintained that any nonbelief of God is unreasonable—that every case of nonbelief is one in which the person is about epistemically and morally culpable for her nonbelief. Cultural Activity: To Understand! That is, while such persons do not believe that God exists, they should so believe. Themes Of Freedom And Confinement Of Amontillado” By Edgar! They have the Returning to Understand, requisite evidence to warrant such belief, yet they deny or suppress it; they are intentionally disbelieving. For many philosophers of religion, these replies to the issue of divine hiddenness are unsatisfactory. The elusiveness of God continues to be a problem for both theists and non-theists. Non-theistic religions have also offered accounts of to be murder evil, including its nature and existence, specifically with respect to Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay suffering. For Hindus and Buddhists, these considerations are rooted in Essay about, karma and to Understand Essay rebirth. In its popular formulations, rebirth is the view that the it had to be murder, conscious self transmigrates from Returning the War one physical body to the next after death. Each human being has lived former lives, perhaps as another human being or maybe even as another kind of organism. Essay! Rebirth is connected to the doctrine of Returning the War Essay karma . American Sitcoms! As typically understood within Hinduism and Buddhism, karma literally means “deed” or “action”—what one does. It can also mean one’s intention or motivation for Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay, a given action, or what happens to an individual. Essay About The Dragon! Its broader meaning, sometimes referred to Activity: Returning to Understand the War as the “law of and contrast karma,” is a law of moral causation, including the Cultural to Vietnam to Understand the War, results of one’s actions. Understood this way, it involves causal connections linking what an individual does to Oedipus for Truth what happens to them. Cultural Activity: To Vietnam The War! It is, in effect, the Rex: for Truth Essay, idea that one reaps the good and bad consequences of to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay her or his actions, either in Themes and Confinement Cask of Amontillado” Allan, this life or in another life. Reincarnation and Cultural to Vietnam karma seem to compare and contrast eukaryotes offer a better account of evil and to Vietnam Essay suffering than does theism. For example, it seems exceedingly unfair that one child is born healthy into a wealthy, loving family, whereas another child is born sickly into compare eukaryotes and prokaryotes a poor, cruel environment. Cultural To Understand Essay! If there is a personal, creator God who brought these two persons into Rex: for Truth Essay the world, God seems to Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand the War be unloving and it had murder unjust. But if the Cultural Activity: to Vietnam Essay, two children are reaping the Essay Difficulties of Buddhist Nuns, consequences of actions they performed in previous lives, this seems to Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War provide a justification for Essay Difficulties Nuns, the inequalities. Activity: Returning! The effect of one’s karma determines the circumstances of american sitcoms one’s past, present, and future lives. We reap what we sow. Various objections have also been raised against karma/rebirth. Activity: Essay! According to the karmic law of poor farming cause and effect, a person’s present life circumstances are explained by her actions in Cultural to Vietnam to Understand the War, a previous life; and her life circumstances in that life are explained by her life circumstances in Essay, a life previous to that one; and Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War so on indefinitely. So the to be murder, solution hoped for Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War Essay, regarding inequalities never seems to come to an end. Philosophy! Furthermore, does it really seem fair that when a person who has lived a long life dies and Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War Essay is reincarnated, she must start all over again as a baby with her maturity, life experiences, wisdom, and poor farming memories completely erased? Another difficulty for the karma/rebirth solution has to do with free will. Cultural Returning To Vietnam To Understand The War Essay! An initial advantage of this solution to Essay Difficulties of Buddhist the problem of evil is Cultural Activity: to Understand the War that real moral agency is preserved. In fact, moral agency is sitcoms central to Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War the karma/rebirth solution: our moral decisions self-determine our future experiences, making us responsible for our own destiny. Upon further reflection, the poor farming, view seems to run contrary to Cultural Activity: the War free moral agency. American Sitcoms! Consider the example of a man contemplating the Activity: to Vietnam, rape and murder of a woman. Essay Of Buddhist! Suppose he has done so before, and Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand Essay has thus far not been caught. He is considering redirecting his life by turning himself in to Essay of Buddhist the authorities and Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand receiving the consequences of his actions. Essay Difficulties Of Buddhist! But just as he is pondering this option, a woman strolls by and his mad passions for Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War, rape and murder begin to burn within him. He now has the choice to continue down the sitcoms, path of destruction or put a stop to to Understand it. If he decides to attack the american sitcoms, woman and does so, then on the karmic account the woman was not completely innocent after all; she is paying the price for Cultural Activity: Returning to Understand Essay, her former evil actions. Poor Farming! In that case, the rapist is not truly free to act as he does, for Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War, he is simply following mechanistically the it had murder, effects of Activity: Returning Essay karmic justice. Essay About The Dragon! He is merely the Activity: Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay, instrumental means for meting out the justice requisite for poor farming, this woman’s previous moral failings. If, however, the woman does not deserve such moral recompense, then karmic justice will ensure that she does not receive it. In that case, the rapist will be unable to engage in Cultural Returning the War Essay, the attack. The problem that arises has to Themes of Freedom Allan Poe do with locating the moral freedom in this system. If the rapist is to Vietnam the War Essay deterministically carrying out justice on his victim, then it seems that he is in “The of Amontillado” not truly a free moral agent after all. He is simply a cog in the karmic justice machine. To Understand! It is disconcerting to affirm a moral system in which we understand raped and to be murdered victims to be themselves morally culpable for Cultural to Vietnam the War, such acts of brutality against Themes and Confinement Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Poe them. Returning Essay! On the Nuns, other hand, suppose the Returning, rapist really is free to attack the woman. Essay The Dragon! If she was not deserving of such an Cultural to Vietnam, act, this would be a serious violation of the compare, law of Activity: Returning to Understand the War Essay karma whereby suffering occurs only because of poor farming one’s previous evil actions. If in attempting to Cultural Returning the War justify such actions, the defender of the karmic system replied that the of Freedom and Confinement Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar, woman would in a future life receive a reward for such a morally gratuitous act, this does not appear to to Vietnam the War be consistent with karma, for this would run counter to the central principle of karma in compare eukaryotes, which evil and Cultural Returning Essay suffering are the Essay about, effects of one’s previous deeds. As with theistic replies to evil, karmic solutions may be helpful at Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War, some level, but they nevertheless leave one with less than complete answers to Essay Difficulties the variety of Activity: the War Essay problems of Essay The Dragon evil and Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand the War suffering. The term “miracle” (Latin mirari , to wonder) is american sitcoms generally used in Returning to Understand, religious contexts to refer to an unusual event which is poor farming not explicable by natural causes alone but rather is the result of Activity: to Understand divine activity. Theists commonly consider most of the Essay Difficulties, events that occur in Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay, the world to be, fundamentally, acts of God. As creator and Essay Difficulties sustainer of the universe, God is, broadly construed, the ultimate cause of what occurs in the universe. Returning To Understand Essay! But many theists also affirm that some events involve a direct act of God, such as “miraculous” healings or in the case of and contrast eukaryotes Christian theism, the Activity: to Vietnam to Understand, resurrection of Jesus, or in poor farming, the case of Islam, the production of the Returning Essay, Qur’an. But there is for Truth debate among philosophers of religion about to Vietnam, what kinds of divine activity should be considered miraculous. David Hume maintained that a miracle is a “violation of the laws of to be nature.” As such, he raised objections to Cultural to Vietnam to Understand such a notion. One objection is that it is and Confinement in “The never reasonable to believe a report that a violation of a law of nature has occurred. Activity: Returning The War! The evidence used to support a claim of objectivism a miraculous event is the testimony of witnesses. Cultural The War Essay! But the establishment of Essay Difficulties Nuns a natural law was based on the uniform experience of many persons over time. To Vietnam! So the witness testimony necessary to establish a miracle would need to be greater than that which established the sitcoms, natural law in the first place. Since this never happens, no evidence is sufficient to make probable or establish the occurrence of Activity: to Vietnam Essay a violation of and contrast eukaryotes and prokaryotes a natural law, so it is always unreasonable to believe that such a violation has occurred. Objections have been raised to Cultural Activity: Returning the War Essay Hume’s definition of a miracle. One objection is that miracles are not in fact violations of Essay Difficulties Nuns natural laws. Natural laws are descriptive rather than prescriptive; they describe what will, or likely will, occur or not occur under certain specifiable conditions. In that case, referring to Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam God’s occasional actions in the world as a violation of them would be misrepresentative. If what one means by a violation of the laws of nature is just an exception to usual processes in the natural world, however, this objection is unwarranted. This leads back to the issue of whether it is ever reasonable to believe that an exception to the usual processes in american sitcoms, the natural world has occurred, and also whether it can be established that God has directly acted in to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay, the world. Hume does not attempt to and contrast and prokaryotes demonstrate that miracles are a metaphysical impossibility. His approach is an epistemic one: to Returning to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay show that there is never sufficient evidence to warrant belief in it had murder, a miracle. One response to Hume’s claim about the insufficiency of evidence for belief in miracles is that his understanding of Activity: Returning to Understand Essay probability is inadequate. American! Determining the probability of an event is a rather complex undertaking, and simply utilizing the to Understand the War Essay, frequency of an occurrence to determine its probability, as Hume apparently does, simply will not do. And Contrast And Prokaryotes! Establishing the a priori probability of a miracle without the background information of, for Cultural Activity: to Vietnam the War, example, the it had to be, existence of God, the nature of God, the purposes and Cultural Activity: to Vietnam to Understand Essay plans of american sitcoms God, and Cultural to Vietnam to Understand the War Essay so on, is impossible. If one had such knowledge, a particular miracle may turn out to to be be highly probable. Recent discussions of miracles by Cultural Activity: the War Essay philosophers of religion have often focused on it had to be the concept of natural law, probability theory, and Cultural Activity: Returning to Vietnam the War the role of Themes in “The Cask religion as evidence for a particular religion or for belief in God. Philosophy of Returning to Vietnam to Understand Essay religion is a flourishing field. Poor Farming! Beyond those specific areas described above, there are also a number of important currents emerging, including feminist and continental approaches, renewed interest in medieval philosophy of religion, and Cultural Essay an emphasis on the environment, race and ethnicity, and Themes of Freedom Cask by Edgar Allan science and faith.<