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Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact. It can also mean an apathy towards such religious belief and refer to personal limitations rather than a worldview. Another definition is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist."
Richard Dawkins is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene popularised the gene-centred view of evolution, as well as coining the term meme. Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards.
The teleological argument also known as physico-theological argument, argument from design, or intelligent design argument, is an argument for the existence of God or, more generally, that complex functionality in the natural world, which looks designed, is evidence of an intelligent creator.
Susan Jane Blackmore is a British writer, lecturer, sceptic, broadcaster, and a visiting professor at the University of Plymouth. Her fields of research include memetics, parapsychology, consciousness, and she is best known for her book The Meme Machine. She has written or contributed to over 40 books and 60 scholarly articles and is a contributor to The Guardian newspaper.
"God of the gaps" is a theological concept that emerged in the 19th century and revolves around the idea that gaps in scientific understanding are regarded as indications of the existence of God. This perspective has its origins in the observation that some individuals, often with religious inclinations, point to areas where science falls short in explaining natural phenomena as opportunities to insert the presence of a divine creator. The term itself was coined in response to this tendency. This theological view suggests that God fills in the gaps left by scientific knowledge, and that these gaps represent moments of divine intervention or influence.
The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument, an argument for the existence of God. In broad terms, the watchmaker analogy states that just as it is readily observed that a watch did not come to be accidentally or on its own but rather through the intentional handiwork of a skilled watchmaker, it is also readily observed that nature did not come to be accidentally or on its own but through the intentional handiwork of an intelligent designer. The watchmaker analogy originated in natural theology and is often used to argue for the pseudoscientific concept of intelligent design. The analogy states that a design implies a designer, by an intelligent designer, i.e. a creator deity. The watchmaker analogy was given by William Paley in his 1802 book Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity. The original analogy played a prominent role in natural theology and the "argument from design," where it was used to support arguments for the existence of God of the universe, in both Christianity and Deism. Prior to Paley, however, Sir Isaac Newton, René Descartes, and others from the time of the Scientific Revolution had each believed "that the physical laws he [each] had uncovered revealed the mechanical perfection of the workings of the universe to be akin to a watch, wherein the watchmaker is God."
The Root of All Evil?, later retitled The God Delusion, is a television documentary written and presented by Richard Dawkins in which he argues that humanity would be better off without religion or belief in God.
The Quinque viæ are five logical arguments for the existence of God summarized by the 13th-century Catholic philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas in his book Summa Theologica. They are:
- the argument from "first mover";
- the argument from universal causation;
- the argument from contingency;
- the argument from degree;
- the argument from final cause or ends.
Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, as opposed to shifting the burden of disproof to others.
The God Delusion is a 2006 book by British evolutionary biologist and ethologist Richard Dawkins. In The God Delusion, Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator, God, almost certainly does not exist, and that belief in a personal god qualifies as a delusion, which he defines as a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence. He is sympathetic to Robert Pirsig's statement in Lila (1991) that "when one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion." In the book, Dawkins explores the relationship between religion and morality, providing examples that discuss the possibility of morality existing independently of religion and suggesting alternative explanations for the origins of both religion and morality.
The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit is a counter-argument to modern versions of the argument from design for the existence of God. It was introduced by Richard Dawkins in chapter 4 of his 2006 book The God Delusion, "Why there almost certainly is no God".
The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is a division of Center for Inquiry (CFI) founded by British biologist Richard Dawkins in 2006 to promote scientific literacy and secularism.
The argument from beauty is an argument for the existence of a realm of immaterial ideas or, most commonly, for the existence of God, that roughly states that the evident beauty in nature, art and music and even in more abstract areas like the elegance of the laws of physics or the elegant laws of mathematics is evidence of a creator deity who has arranged these things to be beautiful and not ugly.
The argument from love is an argument for the existence of God that suggests the depth, complexity, and universality of love point to a transcendent source or purpose.
Growing Up in the Universe was a series of televised public lectures given by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins as part of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, in which he discussed the evolution of life in the universe. The lectures were first broadcast on the BBC in 1991, in the form of five one-hour episodes.
Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design is a 2006 book by Michael Shermer, an author, publisher, and historian of science. Shermer examines the theory of evolution and the arguments presented against it. He demonstrates that the theory is very robust and is based on a convergence of evidence from a number of different branches of science. The attacks against it are, for the most part, very simplistic and easily demolished. He discusses how evolution and other branches of science can coexist with religious beliefs. He describes how he and Darwin both started out as creationists and how their thinking changed over time. He examines current attitudes towards evolution and science in general. He finds that in many cases the problem people have is not with the facts about evolution but with their ideas of what it implies.
Non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA) is the view, advocated by paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, that science and religion each represent different areas of inquiry, fact vs. values, so there is a difference between the "nets" over which they have "a legitimate magisterium, or domain of teaching authority", and the two domains do not overlap. He suggests, with examples, that "NOMA enjoys strong and fully explicit support, even from the primary cultural stereotypes of hard-line traditionalism" and that it is "a sound position of general consensus, established by long struggle among people of goodwill in both magisteria." Some have criticized the idea or suggested limitations to it, and there continues to be disagreement over where the boundaries between the two magisteria should be.
The term New Atheism describes the positions of some atheist academics, writers, scientists, and philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries. New Atheism advocates the view that superstition, religion, and irrationalism should not simply be tolerated. Instead, they advocate the antitheist view that the various forms of theism should be criticised, countered, examined, and challenged by rational argument, especially when they exert strong influence on the broader society, such as in government, education, and politics. Critics have characterised New Atheism as "secular fundamentalism" or "fundamentalist atheism". Major figures of New Atheism include Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett, collectively referred to as the "Four Horsemen" of the movement, as well as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, until her conversion to Christianity in 2023.
The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True is a 2011 book by the British biologist Richard Dawkins, with illustrations by Dave McKean. The book was released on 15 September 2011 in the United Kingdom, and on 4 October 2011 in the United States.
In philosophy, the problem of the creator of God is the controversy regarding the hypothetical cause responsible for the existence of God, on the assumption God exists. It contests the proposition that the universe cannot exist without a creator by asserting that the creator of the Universe must have the same restrictions. This, in turn, may lead to a problem of infinite regress wherein each new presumed creator of a creator is itself presumed to have its own creator. A common challenge to theistic propositions of a creator deity as a necessary first-cause explanation for the universe is the question: "Who created God?" Some faith traditions have such an element as part of their doctrine. Jainism posits that the universe is eternal and has always existed. Isma'ilism rejects the idea of God as the first cause, due to the doctrine of God's incomparability and source of any existence including abstract objects.
References
- ↑ Strange science in the middle world; MJ Stone; McGill Reporter; October 26, 2006
- ↑ The universe is queerer than we can suppose: Richard Dawkins on TED.com; TED Global, Oxford UK; July 2005
- ↑ Why the Universe Seems So Strange; TED Global - 2005
- ↑ The God Delusion; Richard Dawkins; Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January 16, 2008
