Mccloskey Arguments Against Atheism

Thanks Romanii, this has been an entertaining debate. Final rebuttal: Con interprets the part my argument that “Under God” was added in response to communism to presume originalism. Rather, I was only providing historical context. Demonstrating that the justification used for adding the phrase is no longer a current concern. This was purely to provide context.

Louise M. Antony argues an important ethical concern in her article, “Good minus God”. Can a person do good deeds without God? Arguing from an atheistic point of view, Antony believes that a person does not need to depend on God in order to complete good deeds. I agree, whether Christian or Atheist, all can perform good deeds, but who ultimately defines good versus evil? Antony subjectively defines morality and uses nature as her source.

In particular Chris Mccandless should be supported for he had things happen to him that led up to the point where he wanted to go into the wild to get away from his old life and created a new one for himself to have more opportunities. Others may think he shouldn’t be supported just because he some bad flaws he had and also that he just left his sister who he actually got along with, but here are some reasons that are logical and reasonable to why Chris Mccandless should be supported. One of the reasons why readers should support Chris McCandless is because he is generous, he gave people inspiration, or felt inspired by others, and like in the book Krakauer tells us “Chris’s Father suggested the boy had probably been inspired. ”(94),his way of living inspired everyone that you can live anyway you want.

In the novel, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Cellarmans argues that Chris McCandless has been “bright and ignorant” (Callarman). I disagree with Cellarmans’ argument, because Chris McCandless wasn't bright and ignorant, he just wanted to be free in Alaska without his family. McCandless family where judgmental and ignorant towards him, although he did not let that get towards him as well as affecting him as much. It is often to say that McCandless wrote quotes every day because he wanted to say at the time what he felt.

The notion of God’s existence isn’t held as highly as it once was. John Irving presents this secular view by creating various characters with a disparity of beliefs. He sets Owen to believe that he is God’s instrument; however Owen juxtaposition is John Wheelwright who is cynical about God’s impact of the natural world. John Wheelwright’s story illustrates that in a secular, closed immanent world, Christians have to “struggle to recover a sense of what the Incarnation can mean” (John Irving, pg 753). Which means that God has this whole world in the palm of his hands and he basically can do his own bidding with it.

The author central argument is the belief human beings are not completely fulfilled with the creator’s likeliness. Humans must endure life and its ups and downs in order to become a finished product worthy of God’s kingdom. (Hick, pg.85) In addition, the author objects to the antitheist argument that God is limited or weak in his power. After reading Swinburne “Is there a God” I believe the strongest objection is to his first objection to freewill.

William Rowe addresses the problem of evil through an examination of the relationship between the existence of evil with an omnibenevolent, omniscient creator. His argument stems from the notion that because human and animal suffering is so intense, an atheist is rational in their belief and that the co-existence of evil and God is unlikely.

IV. The Problem of Evil So far, we have examined only arguments for the existence of God. But for each argument, we have also discussed some objections. Some theists may accept all these objections and yet maintain a belief in the existence of God.

And since it is obvious there are clearly horrible things happening in the world, God does not exist. And the possibility that the evil occurs for a higher purpose of achieving a greater good is

God is the Supreme Being. He is the Creator and the Sustainer of everything. He created everything out of nothing. He is the Necessary Being. Someone who has always existed, will always exist, and cannot not exist.

You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness” (Huxley 237). The people in the Brave New World do not place any value on God. They do not think it is important to have a moral compass in life. In our civilization, the idea of religion is not completely extinct, but its popularity is declining.

McCloskey argues, “No being who was perfect could have created a world in which there was unavoidable suffering or in which his creatures would (and in fact could have been created so as not to) engage in morally evil acts, acts which very often result in injury to innocent persons.” (McCloskey, 56). The argument is based on the assumption, that for God to exist and be omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent there should be no evil since He would have the power to eliminate it. “It does not seem to be true…that a good being always eliminates evil as far as it can. What is true, perhaps, is that a good being always eliminates evil as far as it can without the loss of a greater good or the allowance of a worse evil,” (Evans ad Manis, p. 160).

McCloskey claimed that the cosmological argument “does not entitle us to postulate an all-powerful, all-perfect, uncaused cause.” At first glance of this statement I am understanding the statement as that something doesn’t allow us to come up with a belief or solution, which is silly. In the same thinking one could say that based on his arguments he is not allowed to assume there is no God. Nevertheless, based on the existence of a contingent being it points toward the existence of a necessary being because they require an ultimate cause. Beyond this, the cosmological argument may be limited.

This is such a twisted thought to me that has never crossed my mind before. Even though the tough momemnts in my life of doubting a God, and even hating Him, I never felt comfort in the idea of no God. McCloskey’s last argument addresses the unxpected what he calls “acts of God.” Since this tragity happened, GOd must be resonible. My heart truley does break for that bold statement that McCloskey makes, for he truley does not fully understand a life without God.

The use of God as a shield works on believers, but not on nonbelievers. The question “why bad things happening to good people” still cannot be answered for the nonbelievers, a common critique of religion itself. Regardless of the problem of theodicy, however, religion has worked really well to create and maintain the reality. Berger explains that it is because religion legitimates effectively. “Religion has been the historically most widespread and effective instrumentality of legitimation….