Non-existence of God and critiques of religious belief

Non-existence of God and critiques of religious belief

1. ATHEISM

   • FRANCIS COLLINS of the HUMAN GENOME PROJECT: "atheism requires the greatest faith as it demands [that our knowledge] is sufficient [enough] to exclude the possibility of God"
   • ATHEISM literary means 'without/no God'. THEISM is a belief in a personal loving God.
     • Many reasons why people hold an atheist position so it should not be assumed that all atheist have reaches that position via the same journey.
       • WEAK ATHEISM is the absense of belief in the exsistence of God. STRONG ATHEISM is the stongly helf belief that God does not exsist.
         • In WESTERN CULTURES, although atheist are assumed to have no religious or spiritual beliefs, there are some religious and spiritual beliefs that DENY A CREATOR GOD (e.g: forms of Buddhism).
           • Those who describe themselves as atheists in the modern world tend towards secular ideologies such as humanism, rationalism and naturalism. However, there is no single ideology that all atheist adhere to, anymore than theists do.
           • ANDREW FLEW in GOD, FREEDOM AND MORALITY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS (1984), consideres the meaning of the word 'atheist': "...in English, is 'someone who asserts there is no such being as God'...[using the rules of the ] original Greek prefix 'a'...an atheist becomes: someone who is simply not a theist"
   • WHY ATHEISTS ADOPT THEIR POSITION
     • 1) There can be no such being to whom the description 'God' can be given. LOGICAL POSITIVISM held that since 'God' was a METAPHYSICAL TERM, it is MEANINGLESS to even ask questions about the exsistence of God, let alone believe in it.
       • 2) All so called experiences of God can be explained in other ways. SAMUEL BUTLER in THE PAN DICTIONARY OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS (1991) claimed that the fight between theists and atheists is "whether God shall be called God or have some other name". For instance, atheists may explain mystical experiences as a result of hallucionating whereas the theist claims they're a direct experience of the divine.
         • 3) Evil and suffering count decisively against the existence of God. ARMAND SALACROU in THE PAN DICTIONARY OF RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS (1991) argues that "the exsistence of a world without a God seems less absurd than the presence of a God, existing in all his perfections, creating an imperfect man to make him run the risk of Hell"
           • 4) Believers in God are deluded.
             • 5) Dislike and distrust of organised religions. Religious systems can be explained in terms of social, psycological or political factors.
               • 6) Loss of faith, unanswered prayers, false teachers and bad experiences of religion

2. AGNOSTICISM

3. POPULARIST CRITIQUES

   • RICHARD DAWKINS (1941-date)

4. PSYCHOLOGICAL CRITIQUES

   • SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1939)
   • CARL JUNG (1875-1961)

5. SOCIOLOGICAL CRITIGUES

   • KARL MARX (1818-1885)
   • EMILE DURKHEIM (1858-1917)