In the book god is not Great, the late Christopher Hitchens examines the dogma of the major religions in the world and makes a case for why a more secular approach to life would be beneficial to society. He attacks all forms of theistic beliefs, providing a myriad of examples how this has led to violence, ignorance, and repression of “natural” behavior in his attempt to show that a secular view of life based on science and reason is the best life.
Hitchens uses a rather unique strategy in his attempt to attack and undermine what so many hold so dear. He begins the book providing some general contrasts between that of a theist/secular humanist perspective, and of someone who has “faith” in their religious beliefs. For Hitchens, an atheist stands
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Hitchens has many problems in making his case for the position of a secular view of life, but there are two that undermine his entire argument for why that position is superior to other worldviews, including Christianity. Hitchens titles chapter 5 of his book, “The Metaphysical Claims of Religion” but the chapter ends up being the shortest chapter of the book and he offers virtually nothing to disprove the Christian view of metaphysics. The chapter largely involves discussing astronomical discoveries made in recent years that are irrelevant to advancing a secular view of the metaphysical. He then makes a longwinded mockery of how church leaders continue to hold to their antiquated views based on church dogma and tradition. He spends nearly 600 words making a mockery of them but does nothing to disprove their beliefs or further his own. While the views of church elders may be old in terms of how long they have been around, they are still the most scientifically realistic way to look at metaphysics. Christopher Hitchens doesn’t make a defense of his views of metaphysics or provide evidence for why Christians views of metaphysics are false because he can’t. There is not an intellectually superior way for Hitchens to argue against the ontological, teleological, or the …show more content…
In his book, Hitchens states that, “The new testament exceeds the evil of the Old one.” He spends chapter 8 discussing this in depth, an entire 15 pages. If Hitchens could make a good argument for why this is, he might be able to be trusted for the rest of the book. Shockingly, in this chapter alone he has fifteen factual errors. It also contains sixteen statements that show a substantial misunderstanding or distortion of the evidence. While there isn’t room to examine all 15 factual errors, there are some that stand out more prominently than others. Hitchens writes, “This [year 2000 hysteria] was no better than primitive numerology: in fact, it was slightly worse in that 2000 was only a number of Christian calendars and even the stoutest defenders of the Bible story now admit that if Jesus were ever born it wasn’t until at least AD 4.” (pp 59-60) Nobody dates the birth of Jesus to AD 4. Every scholar puts his birth earlier than 4 BC (the date of King Herod’s death). The most likely date for Jesus’s birth is around 6 BC. The reason for such a blatant error is because Hitchens needs the approximant date of Jesus’s birth to fit in with the rest of his argument for disproving the Gospels. The next error we will examine is when Hitchens
First, I will demonstrate Stephen Jay Gould’s argument against the overlapping between science and religion, which is as follows:
“The Hitchhiker,” by Lucille Fletcher, narrates the unusual happenings Ronald Adams, the protagonist, experiences, while driving along the deserted and densely populated roads of the United States. Adams continually observes a hitchhiker, whom he first saw, having almost hit him, on the Brooklyn Bridge, and apprehends traveling on the highways, for fear this phantasmal man shall reappear. Struggling to grasp reality once receiving news of his mother’s breakdown after the death of her son, Ronald Adams, he reverts his attention to the hitchhiker, the realization of never having been who he thought he was, and being alone without protection from the traveler, both wrench his mind in two. Lucille Fletcher uses suspense to build the plot of, “The
In his paper Mackie not only lays out his own case for atheism but he also rebuts any argument that might be contrary to his own.
The occurrence and prominence of secularization has become a prevalent feature of contemporary Western society. Steve Bruce’s Book titled ‘God is Dead’, as it may be controversial outlines the debate of surrounding secularization and its occurrence. His argument is put forward in an academically stimulating and compelling way in his exploration of secularization; by building on the work of key sociological thinkers mainly Durkheim, Marx and Weber to looking at contemporary sociological thinkers such as David Martin, Abercrombie and Turner. By examining their explanations and theories of secularization and also exploring his own views I feel
In today’s culture, the idea of there is perfect and divine designer that made the earth and everything that entails with it, really pushes people away. Not only has this idea been conflicted about in today’s culture. It has been especially trivial in past decades, an example of this is seen by H.J. McCloskey. McCloskey wrote an article about it called “On Being an Atheist”, which attempts to defeat the notion that there is a God. McCloskey first addresses the reader of the article and says these arguments he is about to address are only “proofs”, which should not be trusted by any theist. He then goes and unpacks the two arguments that he believes can actually be addressed, the cosmological and teleological argument. McCloskey also addresses the problem of evil, free will, and why atheism is more comforting than theism.
Author During the 1770s, Thomas Paine was a political philosopher and writer. He encouraged people to fight for American independence from Britain. He is one of the more creative figures of his time. Paine talked about American revolutionary ideas with his 1776 writing, Common Sense.
One’s worldview is usually dependant on how the particular individual interprets life and its occurrences. Additionally, if one believes something to be so, it will be so to them. It’s all a matter of perception. However, which perspective is truly accurate: Agnosticism, Theism, or Deism? These three worldviews have been the subject of countless debates throughout history and that have yet to be concluded. The purpose of this philosophical essay is to suggest that theism is likely to be considered the correct worldview.
Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007. Print.
...ws because of the challenges that it brings forth with theories of truth. (Tweed) Tweed’s perspective could be understood as “pragmatic or nonrepresentational realism or to use the philosopher Hilary Putnam’s phrase, “realism with a small r-as opposed to metaphysical Realism,” which champions a view from nowhere and aspires to link concepts with mind-independent realities.” (Tweed) He also views “theories as embodied travels” and sightings which he believes are “positioned representations of a changing terrain by an itinerant cartographer.” (Tweed) In a sense Tweed writes for people who he believes have a one sided view point on religion for example the “philosophers of science, and natural scientists work in the laboratory or the field that decide whether the deductive-nomological view (with its concerns for laws, hypothesis, explanations, control and prediction)
Religion is considered as a pervasive force in this world. It shapes people as to how they behave and interact with almost everything present in the society. Influencing behavior, character formations, ideals, policies, standards are just among the dimensions and societal perspectives affected and impacted by religion. Because of these applications and implications in human lives and existence, religion should be understood deeply, particularly, on how it affects the world. Looking at the American perspective of the term "religion," it could be simply
Traditionally, metaphysics was viewed as consisting of three distinct but related components: cosmology, ontology and theology. Cosmology dealt with the being of the natural world conceived as a universe whereas ontology dealt with the being of the particular thing in the cosmos qua its own being. Theology was the investigation of the being of God naturaliter, that is, without exclusively appealing to the truths of Revelation. In his masterful work, God Without Being, Jean-Luc Marion launches a profound challenge to the tradition of metaphysics in general, and more specifically, to the related field of metaphysical theology. Marion claims that God must no longer be thought of in terms of the traditional category "Being", for that reduces God to an all too human concept which he calls "Dieu". In a sense, a violence is done to God and our understanding of God, for we seriously delimit that which by nature is indeterminable. Drawing upon an Heideggerian-inspired notion of the phenomenological Destruktion, Marion maintains that God must be thought outside the ontological difference and outside the very question of Being itself. In so doing, we free ourselves from an idolatry wherein we reduce God to our own all too narrow conceptual schemes. Marion urges us to think God in light of St. John’s pronouncement that "God is love" (1 Jn 4,8). He believes that love has not been thought through in the metaphysical tradition. Thinking ‘love’ through will lead the philosopher to a more accurate understanding of God as unlimited giver/gift.
Carl Sagan is known as one of the most famous scientists of all time. He revolutionized how the world looked at space and the search for intelligent life beyond our planet. The author of many books, he is most known for Contact (which was adapted into a movie) and for the PBS documentary Cosmos. As one of America's most famous astronomers and science-fiction writers, Carl Sagan turned a life of science into one of the most critically successful scientific careers of the 20th century.
Charles Taylor, in his “subtraction story,” says people now have secular minds because of “science and objective reason.” A secular way of life gives a person everything they need without having to deal with the morals of religion. In Taylor’s “A Secular Age” he disagrees by saying secular ways of life are no different than the religious beliefs; the secular people have just come up with different ways of thinking about how life should be lived and the views they should have. He says people with a secular view “are subject to their own array of serious problems and objections.”
The sociological approach looks at religious belief and practice in relation to the society. Sociologists are interested in two themes, the centrality of religion in society and the diversity of forms it inhabits (Hamilton 1995/2001:1). It regards religion as a social fact subject to empirical observation, which produces empirical evidence (Dillon 2003:7). The sociology of religion is a product of the enlightenment, from which it inherited a tendency to dismiss religion as incompatible with rationality (Dillon 2003:6). This dismissal has had significant impact on the attitude towards religion and it is the basis for the most influential paradigm in the history of the field; secularisation. The secularisation theory claims that religion is or will be on the decrease in society. So profound was its impact that modern sociology often aims to account for the continued presence of religion in society and has generally held a rather negative view of religion as being an unworthy subject of study(Davies 2007:2).
Modern society and its people have the ability to make a vast range of choice when it comes to anything in their lives. People to today have the ability and free will to choose their partners, their careers, their aspirations in life and their own religion. In the opinion of Peter L. Berger, written in his 1979 book ‘The Heretical Imperative’, modern times provide three fundamental options in relation to religion; the first being ‘The deductive option’, which reaffirms a certain religious tradition in spit of counter claims against it (e.g. Islamic fundamentalism); the second is the reductive option, which modernizes a religious tradition in term which make it sensible or understandable in todays most important modes of though. The final option is called the ‘inductive option’, which turns external forms of authority to individual experience (e.g. William James and the varieties of religious experience). By looking at these options deeper and look at opposing views to Berger’s theory and personal religious preference will give the reader a clearer view of Berger’s ‘The Heretical Imperative’.