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Materialism - Reality is ultimately made up of matter (things you can perceive with your senses, no soul nothing beyond materialism) - Everything is matter and motion - Small atoms or subatomic materials - Said to exist is matter and all things are composed of material and...

Materialism - Reality is ultimately made up of matter (things you can perceive with your senses, no soul nothing beyond materialism) - Everything is matter and motion - Small atoms or subatomic materials - Said to exist is matter and all things are composed of material and phenomena are the result of material interactions - Our body is a machine and our mind is apart of that machine - Only one reliable source of knowledge = sense perception - Material is reality Democritus - Believed everything consisted of matter - The smallest bit of materials he called atoms Thomas Hobbes - Believed in the idea of materialism, mostly that the material world is all that is certain to exist - Spirit and soul are meaningless concepts and nothing exists but matter and energy - Consciousness thought is a product of the brain’s machinery - All reality can be explained in terms of motions of bodies in space - Reductionism: that one may be able to explain certain notions of reality by means of another reality (break down of bigger ideas into smaller concepts) - Sensations are motions that travel through our nerves to our brain - This view however was rejected by Hobbes because of it’s logical flaws and it can’t explain the mind’s capacity - How can you discover what’s beyond the flesh while being stuck in a fleshly vessel Eastern Materialism - Deductive reasoning is unrelaible. This uses general statements to reach logical conclusions - What we perceive with our sense is physical and materials - all we know is what we perceive with our senses - Inductive generalizations are unreliable. Ex-smoke = fire Objections to materialism - How do we explain human consciousness (mental activities). Thinking, wishing, dreaming, loving, hating - Brain states can be seen or touched, but how about conscious experiences - Modern science has made discoveries that go against traditional materialist explanation of matter Change in materialism - While matter was once thought of as being constructed of a solid, indivisible particle, - It came to be understood to be made up of subatomic particles displaying properties much like waves of energy and probability Idealism - Subjective Idealism and Objective Idealism - Reality is composed of minds and ideas rather than matter (against materialism) - All the particles in the universe rely on the mind - Our minds and perceptions are what make up reality - Reality is ultimately nonmaterial - “To be is to be perceived” Our perceptions through our senses make up reality Anthropomorphism: the process of describing something in human terms, that is in fact not human (like fairytales explaining why animals can talk) Subjective Idealism - is mind-dependency which is viewed as being dependent on your own mind. The view that the ideas that make up the world are mine. Objections - Rules out the idea that what we perceive may be mistaken - What if there something out there that you can’t perceive (is there a difference between my perception of a thing and the thing i perceive) Objective Idealism - is viewed as being dependent on others' minds and claims that the ideas that make up the world are God's ideas. Objections - Because our minds are intelligible does that means God is as well - How can we know God’s mind with human perception - What is you don’t believe in God (is there another force which we are dependent on) Advantages - This view accounts for the fact that we do not have full control over our experiences, although it allows the world to be viewed as an untimely intelligible system that is the product of the mind. George Berkley - Founder of modern idealism - The world consists of nothing but these sensations and perceptions and the minds that experience them - He rejects the idea that our perceptions and sensations are representative of external object - The ideas of the world are simply based on your perceptions ONLY however he does  bring in God later on - The perceptions that enter our mind must come from a supreme force and God keeps the world in existence when we are not perceiving it Eastern Idealism (Vasubadhu’s) - we do not directly perceive objects in the world around us, but rather, our perception is an experience of sensations within our minds - Since we only perceive what our mind can we have no proof to presume that external objects are the causes to these sensations - Our perception of the world is a construct of our own minds, and not a reflection of independent objects - Everything we experience is all in our minds Objections - If all events that we perceive are just sensations in our minds, then why do they all seem to occur in a spatial and temporary world around us? - If we know our dreams aren’t real that why can’t we tell that the material world around us isn’t real if it’s just perceptions - His response was our perceptions are things that affect us and the unreality of the world cannot stop this - Explains what happens in our dreams Pragmatism - Believed that materialism and idealism don’t have practical consequences - Reaction to traditional means of philosophy (like materialism and idealism) and their endless debated on the truth of reality - Pragmatism counsels philosophical seekers to examine the consequences of their beliefs (beliefs about reality are meaningful only to the extent that they have important consequences) John Dewy - We should treat ideas as instruments for making sense of our experiences - Focus on ideas to improve humanity - Focus on effectiveness to solve problems - Philosophy is an instrument used by people who are struggling with social and personal problems William James - We determine whether something is real by its relation to our emotional and active like - We choose what’s real and our own reality (reality is whatever stimulates or interests us) - We choose the world that has the most meaning to us James Sub-Universes - The world of science, or physical things as the learned conceive them - The world of sense or physical things - The world of abstract truth or ideal relations - The world of idols of the tribe, illusions or prejudices common to race - The various supernatural worlds - The worlds of sheer madness - The various worlds of opinion, as numerous men are Objections - Can something be real apart from our desires - Can an independent reality exist outside of our minds - Why would humans pursue anything else but what interests them - There is no reality apart from the mind (and the different universes we choose from our own desires) Logical Positivism - Rejects all metaphysical attempts to understand reality - Focuses on language and meaning - Can something be verified empirically (observation or experience), or logically (truth comes from meaning/words) Ayer’s - Metaphysical statements are all nonsense - A statement is meaningful only if it is either “a relation of an idea” - truth by definition - A “matter of fact” - Metaphysical are neither making them nonsense and also untrue statements - Practical verifiability and verifiability in principle - While statements are easily verified others can only be verified in principle - However statements such as “only minds are real” cannot be verified either way - Religious and ethical statements are also meaningless - but how is this true when so many people believe them to be filled with alot of meaning Carnap - He suggests that religious and ethical statements are also meaningful but only in a non-literal sense (such statements can only express emotion) - Philosophers use words to express feelings no to represent actual facts about the world Objections - Just because they say these metaphysical statements are meaningless doesn’t mean they aren’t important to the vast majority of people - The problems do not go away even if you refuse tackle them - Dictionary of meaningful statements does not align with what logical positivists use - We cannot verify meaningful statements just by looking at the world around us Antirealism - Denies existence of objective reality - Reality is constructed not discovered from our interpretations based on our human perceptions - Different languages will describe reality differently - Focus on finding evidence of different realities being more true - Communication cannot occur if everyone has an individual reality Nelson Goodman - Humans construct and live in “many different realities” - created by different and overlapping languages Dale Spender - Argued that humans need classification systems, but at the same time those systems limit their view of reality (language creates reality) Postmodern Antirealism - Multiple different realities present at the same time (they may overlap and exist due to differences in language and thinking) Objections - Languages may describe reality differently but they don’t actually change or affect reality - Reality remains unchanged no matter what system we used to describe it - If every person's knowledge is limited to only their ideas, then discussions would be impossible - But since it is possible anti realism and realism must be wrong - Feminist that argued that if there are multiple equally valid realities based on language and thought, then isn’t the oppressive reality for women an equally valid reality as every other one? - Evil cannot exist objectively and can exist in our own individual world Realism - Real world exists independent of our thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, and language - Some realm of objects exist independently - despite our language, perceptions, thoughts, and beliefs - There is a objective reality - doesn’t matter if we can confirm this or not - Against anti realism Libertarianism vs Determinism Libertarianism - is the position that people have control over what they do and are free to choose to act other than the way they do - Focus on individual responsibility - who he or she is (commitment to actions) Soren Kierkegaard - Father of existentialism - Focus on how we should act instead of focusing on what we should talk about - Religious belief is about passions not an intellectual exercise - We have the ability to choose from an infinite - we can choose from an infinite amount amount of possibilities - who or what i should become - Finite - we are limited into the environment we are born into As Humans we can lose ourselves in the finite = lost to conform to the environment we live in We can also lose ourselves in the infinite = constantly trying new things, trying to reinvent ourselves. Never committing to anything. (to find oneself we must balance these two tensions) Sartre - People have control over what they do and are free to make choices other than the ones they make - Freedom of consciousness - Our ability to conceive of what is not allows us to form plans that are not determined by the past or the present - Once we realize this freedom we usually feel anguish - We act in bad faith in order to deceive ourselves De beauvoir - She focused on bringing about this freedom to women - Social influences were robbing women of the freedom they posses Determinism - human actions are completely determine by prior events - Human actions are not free - Everything is determine by previous conditions and events, and the physical, biological, and psychological laws that govern reality - We do not have the ability to choose anything other than what we actually choose - Our wants come from the laws of nature, therefore we do not act freely - Our freedom is the result of our ignorance of the laws that govern us - We are each personally responsible for our actions Compatibilism - a person is free if her or she is not stopped by external restraints or confinements - As long as you are not forced to act a certain way you are free - Reject determinism - save freedom by redefining: To say that a person is free is to say that the person is not impeded by external restraints or confinements - A person's desire and interests are molded by her hereditary, upbringing, and other antecedent causes (accepting determinism) - People act freely and are morally responsible for their own actions - All their actions are based on previous conditions and the laws of nature Kant - View ourselves as part of the natural world - From this perspective determinism is true - We can also view ourselves belonging to the world understanding - where we see ourselves as conscious agents - From this perspective we are free and responsible for our actions Steven Pinker - We have to think of ourselves as free when speaking about morality and think of ourselves as deterministic machines when discussing science Human Nature - Refers to what it means to be a member of our species, what makes us different from anything else on this planet - Do humans have a spiritual aspect or are purely material - Are humans self-interested and aggressive or cooperative and benevolent Psychological Egoism Human beings are made so they can only act out of self-interest, and for their own self-fulfillment - Is the true motivation for helping someone true altruism or self-interest, such as the desire to feel good or avoid guilt - Are humans moved by self gratification and pain avoidance or are they truly capable of unselfish actions - Some psychologist think human nature is solely motivated by self-interest - Other say how cruel and aggressive human being are - In the end how we view human nature affects how we understand people’s actions and reasons, making us questions if true kindness even exists or if everyone is just selfish Thomas Hobbes - Hobbes was a materialist, he believed that human beings were made to act purely out of self-interest - Humans are material bodies, there actions can be explained like a biological machine - Desire for power is motivating for human beings until their death Sigmund Freud - Human nature is aggressive and cruel - “Men are not gently friendly creatures, … - Believed that all humans were aggressive and cruel beings and many philosophers believed that Mark Mercer - Humans act for self-regarding ends - benefits one ownself - Includes being happy, avoiding pain, being loved, etc - We cannot truly understand the reason behind when someone does something until we know their motive - Human beings are aggressive, selfish, and cruel Human Motivation - What truly motivates human beings - is it desire, or self interest - Some philosophers believe that human beings act purely out of self-interest only caring for themselves, other believe humans seek out self-gratification (to avoid guilt, and feel better about themselves) Implication - These views on human nature suggest that people are inherently selfish and motivated by their own benefit. Traditional Western View - Plato, Aristotle  - Our most important features as human is our ability to reason (the rationalist view) - All humans have the same nature Plato - Believed that humans can control their appetites and aggressive impulses by using their reason - Appetite = desires like thrust, hunger, sexual - Aggressive = spirit - Reason = ability to think, reason, draw conclusions - These three parts make up the human soul - Soul was immortal and immaterial object - Humans being were able to think of perfection, even though it doesn’t exist in our world telling us the soul is much bigger than we imagined - Body and soul are two separate things Aristotle - Soul was just another part of our body - Rational self lives on after we die, focus on being the rational humans we were meant to be - For our souls to be able to ascend to a higher place we must fulfill our purpose which is to be and think rationally - Reason holds knowledge - reason is what sets us apart from every other being on this planet - Reason is the most important feature of human nature Judeo-Christian Version - St. Augustine & Aquinas - Humans are made in the image of God - Every individual possess inherent dignity and worth, reflection divine characteristics such as reason, creativity, and capacity to love - Humans are created to actively engage in loving relationships - Aligns with the rationalistic view Greek Rationalism - Plato believed in the duality of the soul and body - soul is immortal and exists independently of the body - After death soul is able to ascend to a higher realm - This influenced christian thinkers St. Augustine - Souls that rise to heaven truly know and love God - This shows that humans created in God’s image, possess the capacity to aspire to these ideal based on their choices and actions - Rational self should govern desires and emotions - We have free will - Will is the mind’s ability to choose from Good or Evil - Humans are not fundamentally self-interested - They have the ability to reason - The self or soul is rational, immaterial and immortal Aquinas - Ultimate purpose of humans is to know God - Rejected Plato’s theory and says the soul and body are unified - forming a single human being - Adopted aristotle’s view about humans nature - Soul and body will rise to heaven Darwinian Challenge, Response to Darwin - Darwin argued that humans evolved from earlier animal species through random variations and a natural selection that is the result of a struggle for existence - How well suited is that organism for its environment - Human nature has no purpose and is not unique - He proposed three key ideas - Humans are not made in the image of God but instead in the image of primates that had come before them 1) That animals and plants are born with features that are different from their parents, but they can pass it on to their offspring - Called variations 2) Animals are constantly competing to stay alive and they are in a great struggle for existence - If a species make more offspring there is greater struggle for survival -because less resources to survive 3) Survival of the fittest - Some variations give creatures an advantage from others species in the struggle for existence - Struggle for existence chooses organisms with these advantages to survive Objections Stepehen Jay said there were 2 inconsistent ideas with Darwin’s theories - Species exhibit no clear change during their time on earth, when fossilized they look the same as when they were alive - Species does not arise randomly by the steady formation of its ancestors, it appears all at once fully formed Primary Traditional View - Even though we are animals we are different because we have the power to reason and to think Secondary Traditional View - States that humans are designed for a purpose - the purpose being to reason - Darwin however believes that the evolution of species is based on blind natural selection not purposeful design The Existentialist Challenge - Jean-Paul Sartre - There is no such thing as human nature because humans are whatever they make themselves - No human nature in the traditional sense, individuals create their own through free choices and actions. - No human nature - humans create their own nature based on their choices and actions - Nothing is forcing us to make these decisions - Existentialism asserts that although there is no fixed human nature, there is still a self that is a freely choosing, self-creating, active agent - We must accept responsibility for our lives = make the best of it now!! - Humans are defined by their actions - we choose our own path to follow (freewill) - Human existence is prior to essence, that is you are born, do things, then you exist - Existence precedes essence - Humans are not born with a set purpose or identity - Quality or nature of something - To be human is to create your own nature through the choices you make - Humans aren’t born with a specific purpose - you begin to feel this purpose as you grow and make your own decisions - Humans are responsible for their actions and bad faith, humans are responsible what they become - including their happiness and despair Objections - This idea of radical freedom is unrealistic because we are shaped by things beyond our control, like our upbringing or social circumstances - Others believe this puts to much pressure on humans for being responsible for everything in their lived Feminist View - Feminists have argued that our concepts of reason, appetites, emotions, mind, and body are all biased in favor of men and against women, yet the rationalist and  Judeo-Christian view is framed in terms of these sexist concepts - Rationality and mind are seen as superior traits that males have, females having these inferior qualities of emotion and bodily appetites - this is sexist - Even if they do think of women as capable of reason it can still be sexist because it is coming from a male perspective - which was superior - “Women should be content in the role in society” - even if traits of feelings and emotions are as valuable as male traits, still can be sexist because male traits have always been valued - Fights for the ongoing struggle of gender equality in society - Men viewed women in traditional roles such as housewives or caregivers, and many men saw gender equality a threat to their role in society Plato - Shares a view that there is no difference between men and women for there to be only one ruling class - Both are capable of sharing the same traits as the opposite gender - Women are as capable of men when referring to intelligence - Gender doesn’t affect a person ability to think or lead, the soul is more important than your physical body Aristotle - Pure soul is supposed to rule over the impure body - Men are superior to women - women were biologically and morally second class - their first role was to support the male gaze - Reason is supposed to rule over the desires and pleasures of the body - Women are not fully rational well men are Mind Body Problem - Unlike the body the features of the mind seem to have no observable color, size or shape - It makes no sense for example to say that our mind’s beliefs, desires, sensations, emotions, or ideas are colored - The properties of the mind seem to lack the properties that all physical bodies have - Human mind also has consciousness - being aware of who you are and the things and people surrounding you (feeling, thinking, your own perceptions) - Consciousness is always the consciousness of something and it is present in that person only so long as the person experiences it - Consciousness is said to have “first-person” nature - something only you are directly aware of from the inside - It also lacks the physical properties as it has no weight, color, taste, mass, etc  - The mind is not the same kind of physical object like you body - but how can they be so different from each other - Some have rejected the idea the the mind is something completely different from its physical body - Nothing exists beyond the physical - Consist of a physical body and non physical or immaterial mind - but those who accept this view will have a major problem on their hands Dualist View - Rene Descartes - Humans are immaterial minds with material bodies - The material body - shape, weights, color, size and the mind - has no observable color, size, but it has a consciousness - Unclear how immaterial entities can interact with material ones - Thinking is the essence - the defining characteristics of what make a thing what it is - “I think, therefore I am, since I am thinking I must exist” - Immaterial mind is distinct from body Materialist - Thomas Hobbes - Said that the spirit, or soul is a meaningless concept and nothing exists but matter and energy - Operations of the mind are operations of the body - Conscious thought is a product of the brains machinery - All the “choices” we make are actually physically processes of the body - Our body is a machine and our mind is apart of the machine Objection - How do we explain human consciousness - thinking, wishing, dreaming - Brain states can be seen or touched but what about consciousness experiences - They are areas or waves that have a greater or lesser chance to pop into existence when observed - (Waves of probabilities) - Things depend on our mind to exist Mind/Brain Theory (identity theory) - Identity that holds that consciousness states are identical with the body’s brain states - Scientists have tried to define the mind as a products of the “brains activity” - The brain is the physical substance and the mind is the conscious product of those firing neurons  - HOWEVER, evidence shows the mind goes beyond the physical workings of the brain - Mental state is identical with state of brain - The material brain is working when we have mental experiences like an ache or pain - Mental states are not special “psychical” - cannot be explained by natural laws - Science reduces everything to physical processes Behaviorist View - Says that conscious mental states are bodily behaviors or dispositions - We should only study what we can observe which is the external behavior - Words like “mind”, “thought”, “consciousness” are just labels for certain behaviors Functionalist View - Grew out of the behaviorist concept from the idea that computers could provide a useful model of the mind through processing inputs, and providing outputs - Mental states have the function of causing, not being caused by other senses - For example pain is a mental state caused by bodily injury, but also causes feelings of distress - Conscious mental states is a shorthand term for connections the body makes between sensory inputs and behavioral outputs. - Inputs being what we see, hear, taste, and smell and outputs being the external behaviors a results of the inputs - The mind consists of all these complex connections that our brain makes between it’s sensory inputs, its mental states, and its behavior Objection - Leaves out inner consciousness states that we are fully aware of - People have different experiences and perceptions of the same thing or idea Alan Turning - Made something called the “Turning Test” a room with two keyboards and two printers, each printer is with a computer and human outside of a room where you are and do not know who has which - You can type questions to either of which and the goal is to try and figure out whether it is a computer giving you the answers or a human writing them out - If the computer is so powerful that you can’t tell the difference than the computer has a mind - equivalent to a human mind - The mind is something non physical, yet the workings of a physical thing John Searle’s Contradiction - Humans have something a computer lacks which is a consciousness  - For example if the Turing Test was in chinese, which the computer automatically knows as someone that doesn’t know chinese we can’t understand the test like the computer can is one sec - Humans are physical creatures were physical, chemical, and biological processes occur - mental state is not physical but our actions based on them are The Ontological Argument for God’s existence - Is an argument that deduces the existence of God from the mere idea we have of God - Since we understand this idea of God, this “idea” exists in our minds Anselm - concluded that if God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” than God must exist - If we could conceive of something greater: a real God that exists in the real world - the real thing is greater than the mere idea of that thing - God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived, that than which nothing greater can be conceived must exist in reality and no in our minds, therefore God exists in reality - The word “greater” be used to understand in terms of this notion of reality - more potent or more powerful - Anselm assumes that is something were to exist in reality it has more power than if it only existed in our mind - Since we understand this “idea” of God it therefore exists in our mind, but we can conceive something greater than a God that is greater than one which exists in our minds - God which exists in reality - A God that exists in reality has greater power than a God which only exists in our mind - We must conceive God as existing in reality and not just in our minds, therefore we can agree that God exists in reality Objections - Kant says “existence is not a real predicate” - WHAT a thing is , is different from WHETHER a thing with those qualities exist - Existence is not one of the qualities or predicates that define a thing, so assuming that existence can be a quality os predicate of God is wrong - Gaunilo argued that if we was right you could prove that anything excised but defining it as “the x than which nothing greater can be conceived” - Anself claim that his argument only works with an infinitely perfect being (God) - Falsely assumed that existence in reality is greater than existence in the mind The Cosmological Argument for God’s existence - Thing is the universe “are moving” Aquinas - There must of been a first mover (something that cannot be moved itself) and to this Aquinas answers is God - Any object in our universe is moving it must have been moved by something else which was also moving - There needs to be a “first mover” that is a being in whom all the motions in our universe have originated from. - They have the power to initiate movement without itself being moved - His second idea says that some things are caused to exist by others - What is caused to exist must be caused by another thing and so on - The series of causes cannot extend back infinitely - because then there would be no beginning to the existence - So there is a first cause of existence which is God Objections - Disapproved by scientific laws of Newton as motion - that a object is moving until an external force stops it to move - God is not needed to explain why the objects we see all around us are moving as they are - Aquinas responds to this by saying that his argument should be interpreted as applying to the initiation of motions or acceleration - Because for an object to start moving it must be acted on by an outside force - Critics say if everything has a cause, then God should have a cause so Aquinas starting premise is in conflict with his conclusion - In conclusion God is not needed to explain motion - Defenders have responded to this objection by saying this his arguments should be interpreted as applying to the initiation of motions or more simply to acceleration - A second objections focuses on that there cannot be an infinite regress of movers or causes - A first cause is still necessary to Aquinas - while it’s true that each individual link in an infinite regress of moving things or causes would be accounted for by previous link, the existence of the entire chain itself would still need to be explained - David Hume challenged this that one should expect an explanation of the whole beyond the sum of its linked parts  - The explanation of every part of this chain is good enough to explain the whole - no need to go back further - Does not prove a loving and personal God exists Big Bang - Many philosophers have asserted that the Big Bang is exactly the kind of starting point of the universe - Critics question whether the big bang theory proves that there is a God in this universe - The big bang is the starting point that the cosmological argument points towards - If it is create than the universe has not existed forever John Hick argues that the cosmological arguments sets a choice before us We can choose to see the universe around us as an ultimately intelligible home that makes sense and can be explained in a rational way that choice is the to accept the basic rightness of the cosmological argument Or we can see the universe as something that is just an unexplainable, unintelligible, ultimately “absurd” place into which we have been cast for no reason at all : to make that choice is to reject the cosmological argument Argument - motion 1) Things in the universe are moving 2) If any object in the universe is moving it must have been moved by something else that was also moving 3) Chain of moving objects depend on motions of earlier objects, leads back to original motion 4) This motion cannot go back forever = must be a first mover 5) 1st mover must be able to initiate or start the move - cannot be part of this movement this mover being God Argument - cause 1) Things are caused 2) Nothing can cause itself to exist 3) Existence of anything must be caused by something 4) Chain of causation cannot go on forever because there would be no beginning to the existence of thing so nothing would exist 5) This chain must start with a being whose existence is uncaused 6) God’s existence does not depend on anything The Design Argument for God’s existence - States that the order and purpose manifest in the works of nature indicate that they were designed by an intelligent Being - The battleground between both science vs religion - the relation of both and how science has been used to support religion and discredit it - Shows only that there is some powerful force that is the source of all the motions and causes we see operating in the cosmos - Aquinas acknowledges this shortcoming, and thus proposes another type of argument which is the design argument The “Divine Watchmaker” - Comparing natural organisms to the mechanism of a watch - William Paley argued that just as the design found in natural organisms implies the existence of an intelligent “divine agency” - If we find an artifact like a watch that is designed to achieve a purpose we can conclude it was made by an intelligent being - Things we find in nature especially living are designed to achieve their purpose - This “Intelligent Being” they were made by is God - The most important example was an eye that is natural but obviously had to be made by an intelligent being - the eye had the perfect shape and features to carry out it’s designated purpose - Argument by analogy (inductive) claims that since two things are alike in certain respects, they are probably alike in another related respect Objections - David Hume has already pointed out a problem - although we know how artifacts like watches are made, we have no knowledge of how nature and living thing are made - For all we know they are produced by a non-intelligent mechanism - Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin - argued that the non intelligent mechanism of evolution through natural selection, working over millions of years, can produce living things who are here with a purpose - evolutionary processes should be interpreted not as signs of an intelligent creator but as the complex products of random, blind, unconscious forces - The defenders however say that even if evolution is a fact it is still the means by which God produces living things and their parts Dembski  - Claims that the genes that direct how every living organism if formed and how it operated provides evidence of intelligent design - Their arrangements exhibits complexity, it's not random but one that can achieve a certain purpose - Cannot be produced by chance, nor natural law, but requires intelligence - something that complex can’t happen just by chance - Protein sequences cannot be produced by natural law - have to be brought together in a specific sequence that can achieve a specific goal - No physical laws that bring them together - Third he argued the complexity of the gene itself is also an example of intelligence - All of our cells, genes, and proteins were made up of a certain intelligence not just non-intelligent forces The “Fine Tuning” Argument - If the features of the universe that make human life possible were slightly altered we would cease to exist - It is so improbable that a universe would have these features out of infinite range of other possible features it could have - it had to be selected by an intelligent being - The planet we live on everything is “perfect” for human existence to occur it couldn't of just happened by chance - If any of these numeral properties of atomic particles were changed life could never develop in our universe n - Davies point out that all these laws could have any of an infinite range of different values - The physical laws and numerical constants that govern the material universe are finely tuned to produce the highly improbable conditions that enable us to live and flourish - There are critics of this new argument that for all we know some physical process, not God selected the important features that make life possible - Others suggest that an infinite number of universes exist and in this “multiverse” one universe would have these features to make life possible Saint Augustine’s and John Hick’s response to The Problem of Evil Atheism - Denies the existence of a self consistent omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), righteous (morally right), and benevolent (kind hearted) being who is distinct from and independent of what has been created - Most share common beliefs of  1) sense observation and public verification are instrumental truth - scientific method is the best approach 2) reality is made up of matter 3) we ought to focus on moral and social concerns in the world - There are good reasons to believe that God doesn't exist - one being the problem of evil Problem of Evil - Everyday we run into example of suffering, caused by humans but by nature - If God is all-good wouldn’t he want to prevent suffering ? - If God is all-powerful wouldn’t He be able to prevent suffering he wants to prevent ? - If God is all-knowing wouldn’t he be aware of how to prevent this suffering ? - Philo is saying that even if were convinced that the world were the product of a finite God on would expect it to be filled with much less suffering - Hume’s point can fashioned into either Logical Problem of Evil 1) If a benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God exists, then there could be no evil in our world 2) But there is evil in our world 3) Therefore, a benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God does not exist. - Is a deductive argument that expresses the idea that it is impossible for both number one ( If a benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God exists ) and two (there is evil in our world) to be true together The Evidential Problem of Evil - Inductive 1) There is evil in our world 2) The best explanation of the evil in our world that there is no benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God 3) Therefore, there probably is no benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient God - Is a probabilistic argument based on the premise that the best explanation for evil is that an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent God does not exist - God probably does not exist - probably because there might be a better explanation out there still William L. Rowe - That it may be possible for the theist to explain a lot of the evil we see by the theory that a all-knowing, all-powerful, and morally right God exist - Only believers will say God permits suffering because that is the only way to permit a greater evil - But Rowe claims not all evil is like this - For example the suffering of a innocent child or animal cannot be needed to achieve a greater good or prevent a greater evil - Rowe concluded, cannot be explained by the theory that a benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient God exists Theistic Response - Evil is the absence of something good - There is a significant good, free will, that justifies evil - Without evil, human being would be unable to fully develop as responsible agents - According to Augstine, evil (sickness, negative things, etc) is the absence of something good, such as bodily integrity - Only god is perfectly and completely good, so anything that is not God must lack both good and evil - God only produces what is good - does not produce the part of the world where goodness is absent (not responsible for evil didn’t produce it) Objection to Augstine - Many claim that his argument seems to dodge the issue - People experience pain and suffering which they commonly regard as evil - The most common attempt to escape the problem of evil is to claim that God has to allow evil in order to achieve an important good - Human freedom is the cause of evil - we are free to do evil as well as good - It would be contradictory for a God to make us free in all other respects but not free to do evil Critics of the “Free Will Defense” - It fails to distinguish between natural and moral evil - Natural being evils produced by natural process and do not requires intention human actions - Moral being intentionally produced by a human being John Hick - That evil in a paradise without pain, harms, injuries, needs, suffering would be meaningless and people could not develop into virtuous beings - Thus evil is the consequence of living in a world that allows for the development of responsible agency Video - Such a bad natural disaster - earthquake led to a tsunami that got so many people to question about why God would cause all this suffering - Such a God would permit such a terrible disaster from occurring - not the personal God of the Bible - Two easy options people think is the reason for these disasters: - Divine Retribution - this is God expressing his anger - Atheists - all this disaster and suffering prove that there is no God to begin with - However, God can be never be construed as the cause of evil, because God is love so He can’t will something evil and God is described as being therefore God can’t cause  the non-being which is evil (evil is just the lack of good) - God instead permits certain evils in his creation to bring about a greater good - God wants the great good of free will - allow for the abuse of free will - God wants his creation to have it’s integrity, lets it unfold to be its own - God has allowed the world to have its own rhythms and processes even if they are both good and bad (like the earthquake and tsunami) - Allows evil to bring about the greater good