In a recent survey, the results found that a lot of philosophy of religion is being done in seminaries. The takeaway? Seminaries inevitably 'view' philosophy of religion as apologetical in nature, which is not shocking. That's not philosophy: that's theology. Even philosophical theology is theology. Now, I'm not here to give my opinion on the …
Author: Philosophy of Religion blog (Does God Exist?)
This blog presupposes the importance of having some knowledge in philosophy, particularly philosophy of religion; although, this is not absolutely necessary to read my posts. In addition, when speaking of "God", I use that term to describe the Being of traditional theism/classical theism. Traditional theism is the belief in a Being who is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnibenevolent.
Philosophy of religion examines subjects like the following: the existence of God, miracles, the rationality of religious belief, science vs. religion, faith vs. reason, etc. On this blog, I mainly focus on the arguments for/against the existence of God and the rationality of religious belief.
About Me:
My name is Jonathan Garner. I went to the University of Tennessee for my undergraduate work where I studied Philosophy. I recently finished graduate school in Philosophy with a focus in Philosophy of Religion.
How Darwin Made The Problem Of Evil So Much Worse For Theism
Predictions don't get many more bonus points-or any bonus points- if what's being predicted is something we already knew anyways (i.e. something that is already part of our background knowledge). For example, we already know that gravity exists so that hardly confirms (or more strongly confirms) a newly proposed hypothesis. One of the reasons evolution …
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Applying The Hiddenness Argument to Animals
This is a creative/clever post I wrote a couple of years ago…while I was high on caffeine :p
In terms of non-human animals, nothing has been said about them with regards to the problem of divine hiddenness. At least, nobody has formed formulated the hiddenness argument in terms to include animals. Here, I want to show that the problem of divine hiddenness includes animals.
Non-human animals in our actual world aren’t resistant to God. In fact, it’s hard to see how they could be. The main reason is because animals are moral patients and not moral agents. It’s not like they have the ability to be resistant to God. And even if they could (which they can’t) it wouldn’t be their fault because it would just be pure instinct.
But what about belief? Do animals in our actual world believe that there is a God? Well, first it needs to be said that in the most basic sense some animals can have beliefs. They are conscious creatures so…
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Crank Ethicists
Academic Philosophy can be a breeding ground for people with nonsense ideas. Hell, where else are they going go? If you know of other departments that produce as much nonsense in terms of quality and quantity, let me know! With that being said, let's get into a branch of philosophy known as ethics. One idea …
A Cumulative Case For The Existence of Evil God
Evil god is an entity of which none worse can be conceived. If you could imagine an entity worse than evil god, then that being would be evil god. By definition, a maximally evil entity would be maximally hateful, maximally cruel, and maximally selfish. (1) Evil isn’t a privation of good; rather, evil is identical …
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Non-Physicalist Views Of The Mind: Meet The New Vitalism, Same As The Old One
By, 'non-physicalist', I mean the rejection of the physicalist view (of the mind). Obviously, this includes a lot of views in the philosophy of mind. The most well-known rival of physicalism, when it comes to the mind, is probably dualism about the mind. Dualism itself includes positions like substance dualism and property dualism. Substance dualism …
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The Implications of Prayer Experiments
Experimental studies have been done on intercessory prayer. The results are tantamount to prayer being a failed hypothesis. Implications If we expect certain gods to answer prayers, these experiments are clear evidence against their existence. If we expect the God of classical monotheism to answer prayers-as theists insist-then failed prayer is strong evidence against the …
