The Ontological argument is the argument that intrigued me the most. It made the notion of denying god absurd. I found the argument to be thought provoking and very easy to follow. Although it was extremely long, it was laid out in a manor that made it easy to follow along and comprehend.
The cosmological argument was a great article that asked some great basic questions. The main question trying to be answered was the basic question of why the universe exists. I think the article was a bit repetitive in explaining its points going back and forth between arguments, theories and arguments against the arguments. I would have like a summary to better understand the article and break down he sections into more understandable reading.
The design argument was fairly easy to understand with some background research. I read the article and also looked up some background information on the internet and found some helpful resources and pictures that broke the article into charts and pictures to better comprehend. I liked the basic idea behind the article that god designed the world with a designer label. The universe is so intricate and works so well just like an expensive designer watch, intricate with lots of moving parts yet it works just fine.
Here’s a link to the final exam. I also emailed it to everyone. You have until noon tomorrow to complete it.
I wanted to talk about agnosticism again today. I feel like all I did yesterday was complain. From what I gathered from the reading, I think that agnosticism is very undetermined. It seemed that that it was trying to provide proof for being a middle of the road theory. I seemed as though it made attempts to show the existence of God and also suggesting that God doesn’t exist. What I like I’m trying to say is it doesn’t make a definitive claim and argue completely for it. Its like the theory/argument is unsure of what its all about. Let me know what you think.
What do we do the Daily 50 on today, if there is no reading?
I think the general consensus is that this reading was very confusing and entirely too long. Someone pointed out that, although he presents only six reasons, each reason was broken down into multiple sub-parts, and that by the time I got into the meat of the sub-part I had completely forgotten what I was reading about. Regardless, Agnosticism is an interesting concept, I myself at one point considered myself an Agnostic – until I took more philosophy classes. However, in my opinion, Agnosticism is kind of a cop out; suspending judgement about whether or not God exists looks, too me, like the easy way out.
Again I found myself having trouble fully understanding a chapter. I know that the author says that he only applied six theories into the explanation of this argument, but I feel as though each of these theories had a million parts to them. I found I kept confusing ideas from one argument to the next. All I can say is I don’t believe I will be using any of the arguments from this chapter in my final paper hahaha!
I enjoyed the witty tone of this article. It was also easier to understand when references were made to what a critic may say and with the organization explained right at the beginning. I was still slightly confused towards the end of the essay, however, where I think the application aspect came into play (even through multiple readings). Perhaps I need more background on the issue. Another part that I was confused on was what Howard-Snyder meant by choosing goods for a sample population from a total population and the relation he made between the two that actually exists in our world. Did anyone else understand this?
Daily 50: Religious Experience Justify Belief in God
The Religious Experience Justifies Belief in God article was again another article that I enjoyed reading because the layout of the article was easy to follow along with. It gave solid background info that led into the case and the objections. The article gave many different perspectives and views on the subject of experiences justifying belief and it certainly got me thinking about the qualifications for a religious experience, what exactly does qualify a religious experience a valid experience? How does that experience get turned into a belief?