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The nature of free will
The question of free will
The nature of free will
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In the article,"An Atheist Manifesto," by Sam Harris he discusses how God does not exisit because if he did exist there would not be any evil in this world. As I was reading this article I found it very intresting how Harris is so negative and believes that everything that happens is God's fault. "....at this very moment that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family. Are they right to believe this? Is it good that they believe this?No,.." stated Harris. He should understand that God gave us a gift called "free will," and with that gift it comes with a price that we should live with the consequeces by the descisions we make as human beings. I liked this article because it showed me the other side of the coin
of how some atheists feel about God and his so-called "mistakes."
Religion, by far, is one of the most dominant forces the human race has ever seen. It has influenced and continues to influence billions of people all over the world. It has driven some of the most beneficial cooperative humanitarian efforts and some of the most heinous acts of violence anybody can perpetuate on another human being. In his book, When Religion Becomes Evil, Dr. Charles Kimball explores the causes and slippery slopes that lead to these kinds of atrocious behaviors. Many of his points were incredibly well thought out and valid, but one repetitive phrase that Dr. Kimball used caught my attention: “authentic religion.” This one phrase contains so many troublesome presuppositions that it is impossible not to question.
There is a lot of evil in the world, and much of it happens unexplainably. In the history of life on Earth bad things have happened and evil has caused problems. In relation to some world wide events, 6 million people died in the holocaust, 65 million people died in the war, 800 thousand died in the Rwanda genocide and 230 thousand people died in the 2004 boxing day tsunami. There is a lot of human suffering in the world, but there is also suffering of animals too. A lot of suffering in humans is due to other humans, however some of it can be caused by non-human causes, such as natural disasters etc. Under religious beliefs god was the creator of life on Earth, so if he was all good, powerful and knowing then he would be capable of at least preventing natural disasters from erupting as they cause life to undergo suffering. Likewise, capable of preventing human suffering from natural disasters, i.e. saving people from hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes etc…
Does God exist? That is the question that so many scholars, peasants, governments, and individuals have been trying to answer from the beginning of human civilization to the present and beyond. Every group in the history of mankind, from Taiwan to Jamaica, from the top of Russia to the bottom of Chile, has said yes to a form of divinity. Their religions have ranged from one God to one million Gods to no God and these religions have defined culture, tradition, lifestyle, and the society of the place; they have ruled nations and defined nations, inspired nations and controlled nations. Not every person has been a believer but every culture has had a belief. Yet somehow, despite this vast evidence that there must be something or else everyone in the history of mankind is delusional, atheism has taken rise in the west. “Science” is the new salvation and human’s greatest belief in something grater is simply a mistake. Great atheists have arisen: Dawkins, Nagel, Harris, Hitchens, and Dennett, just to name a few, have taken hold of America. No longer is religion the way; now religion, specifically Christianity, is the bane of mankind. So we shall take a look at their convincing ideas and twisted words, through the work of Scott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker in Answering the New Atheism, to examine the question: Does God exist?
In conclusion, McCloskey attempted to defeat the cosmological and teleological argument and tried to persuade the readers to embrace the view of atheism. That there is no God and that this life is the only one a person can have. He tried influencing people by asking why a perfect God make an imperfect world. Or why did God not make humans to choose the right decision automatically, so that they can avoid suffering? However, in the end, although his arguments are sound and he made very reasonable points. The facts remain that there must be something out there that made the universe and that has created us complex beings. This same being must have be able to give man the choice to make his own decision, even if it were the wrong one. There is only one possible being that could do that and that is none other than God.
Adam and Eve were expected to stay innocent but once Eve took a bite of the apple on the forbidden tree, we were seen as sinners and by default our children had to carry that with them. This self-inflicted pain was not manipulated by him but rather recognized and accepted as part of life once we chose to neglect his expectations. Many times we see that pain affects our lives in a negative manner and the atheist would assume that God should alleviate if not eliminate the pain since he is all powerful, good and knowing. Yet by intruding our lives in such a manner, He would be violating the birth given right of free-will. We will no longer have the ability to choose our pathway or learn from our mistakes because God has predestined our
As a result of our global society being manipulated by ancient doctrines Sam Harris argues in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason the ultimate thesis: religion is the basis for all of human conflict. Because faith bypasses all evidence, Harris feels “we are building a civilization of ignorance” and another direction should be taken lest we desire to meet our doom. It is incredible the amount of detail Harris delves into. Each reference to religion, he notes their various foibles and incorporates well-reasoned arguments, including others, that support his view. Though there are flaws, The End of Faith is a worthy read that explores the idiosyncrasies of all facets of religion.
Many people say that God does exist even know there is unnecessary evil in the world. There are many reasons to why people believe God is real, for starters, they believe that without the bad, there is no good. In other words, if bad things didn’t happen in the world then we wouldn’t know that good things existed. Another way people justify evil in the world is by stating that if there was no evil and God prevented all bad things, there would be no virtues. In “Why doesn’t God intervene to prevent evil?” the author points out the fact that “without the suffering there would be no occasion for the production of such virtues as courage, sympathy, and the like” (Johnson 122). Take for example an alcoholic parent who throws their 5 year old child out on the street to fend for itself and the child ends up getting hit by a car. Some people would say that God didn’t help the child because he wanted someone to gain courage from the situatio...
At the beginning of the article, and then again at the end, McCloskey speaks to the idea that atheism is comforting and that a belief in a God who allows suffering is more or less wrought with anguish. In this atheistic view, McCloskey not only points to the evil in the world, but in a way that almost contradicts his disbelief in any deity, McCloskey seems to be accusing God as being the source of evil in the world. However, for the sake of consistency, it would be better to simply view McCloskey as acknowledging evil as rampant, resulting as chance. And so, in viewing evil in this way, it would be easy to understand where McCloskey would find a world that has no God as comforting – because, as an atheist, it would be easier to accept suffering, pain, starvation, disease, danger and crime as a matter of chance and not as something that could have possible been treated, conditioned, or altered by a deity. But for the theist, there is great comfort in believing that there is a God who is greater than all of the hurts of this world. And if the theist is wrong, if there is no God, if their hope is false, who did it hurt? The theist had comfort in their trial, even if it wasn’t true, and felt immense comfort in what they believed. And in that way, both the theist and the atheist find peace in what they believe – even if, as Craig says, without God “both man and the universe are inevitably doomed to death.” (2008, pg. 71). But,
In the article “On Being an Atheist” by H. J McCloskey, he tried to reason why atheism is a much more comfortable belief then Christianity. It would seem as if McCloskey grounds for his belief has little to no proof. McCloskey argues that his indisputable view given by the cosmological proof, that talks about God being perfect and powerful cannot help being solved the problem about the existence of God. Although he believes that the proofs do not provide a valid proof for the existence of God, but there is a need to provide the causes of all the existence things in the world. Mr. McCloskey reasoned against three theistic proofs, the cosmological argument, theological argument and the argument from design. These three arguments that he
The author of this book, Lee Strobel, struggled for almost two years, sometimes jumping from one issue or topic to another and then back again, investigating the facts of Jesus for himself. He traces his journey from skepticism to faith.
As an atheist, there is no sadness and hurt that the all-powerful, loving God of the universe did nothing to prevent the hurt and suffering they now face. However, without a belief in a higher power, an atheist struggles to find their purpose and value in life. Instead of having to fight to find purpose in earthly things that will only dissatisfy, an atheist can find comfort in finding a peace that lacks all understand and a purpose in life when they find God (Craig, 2008). In times of trials and suffering, believers have faith that God will never leave them and has a greater plan. However, non-believers have only themselves to give them comfort in times of pain and suffering. A true atheist will eventually find no purpose or comfort in life because they believe they are their own “gods.” What a lonely and hopeless belief system to have in times of confusion and
Christopher Hitchens, an author, columnist, essayist, orator, religious and literary critic, social critic, and journalist, said “Religion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.” If we were to really examine this, we would see that this is very true. Religion is a staple in modern day society, whether people like it or not. It affects our decisions, dictates social norms, and does many other things. Religion is pivotal in society, and naturally should have an effect
Christopher Hitchens’s argued that religion is not at all moral and individuals have the ability to be good without the influence of religious backing. Hitchens believes that all religion allows for the ignorance of the observable truth in favor for the indulgent of wishful thinking. That people are allowed to do immoral actions while being forgiven through the sacrifice on another human scapegoat and that anyone who was born after the event must bear partial responsibility for a sacrifice that they would not have agreed to. Hitchens also believe that people have the capability to be good without religion due to how divine permission leads man to actions unheard of. Circumcision and war are widely accepted as morally wrong, and yet due to rights
In this situation, one cannot be without the other. Evil cannot exist without good, dark cannot exist without light, and destruction cannot exist without creation. This proposal is the one that justifies the argument that an omnipotent and good God goes hand in hand with the existence of evil. The idea of free will is assimilated into this example where people follow their morality in order to justify their actions. God then comes into the picture when one decides what to do; he praises those that make the morally correct decisions, but also punishes those who do not follow their moral instincts. When creating human beings, God integrated beings with human freedom: the freedom to choose what to do and what not to do. God’s intentions are good, He wants people to be good, but he sets barriers so that as humans, we can find the good in ourselves and overcome the evil that is brought upon us.
God provides a person the free will to make up their mind to act the way that they want. It is explained logically in the excerpt by God, “Free will is a great good, a necessary ingredient in the best of all possible worlds. And it would be contradictory for me to give people free will and, at the same time, guarantee that they never use that freedom to cause suffering” (Davis 137). God’s explanation is right about freewill because a person will decide to do good or do evil and God has no control of the choices. Suffering will happen when someone is affected by evil, but the only way to stop suffering is to remove free will. If one takes away free will, then life is predictable, boring, and meaningless. Free will contains evil always because it lets a person prefer to cause people suffer or accomplish great phenomena with free will. Free will limits the amount of suffering by letting people select their own path in life, but suffering from some type will still be there. Free will understanding will bring up talk about happiness because of