A Probability Of God
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Submitted by freefortermpapers on 06/24/2008 03:00 PM
- Category: Social Issues
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A Probability Of God
It is said by mathematicians that those who play the lottery are statistically impaired. If one thinks about this statement, it is true in the sense that a lottery participant has a one in twenty million chance to win. However, there is that one chance that makes it a possibility to win. The same concept can apply to the philosophy of religion, more specifically to the question of the existence of God.
There is a plethora of evidence that supports the argument for naturalism, but there still is that one chance, that one possibility that God does exist and that He created the universe. In this paper, arguments from the theism and naturalism perspectives will be discussed in order to conclude with a reasonable answer to this controversial topic.
Before we examine the situation at hand, it is imperative to understand what we are dealing with. To start off, let us find the definition for naturalism. For the purposes of a neutral party, the Webster's dictionary version of the term defines naturalism as the doctrine that all religious truths are derived from nature and natural causes and not from revelation. In other words, all religious truths did not derive from an all-powerful, holy, and supernatural being, but from the actions and desires of the human condition. And as for theism, Webster's dictionary defines the term as the doctrine or belief in the existence of a God or gods. Now that the two terms have been set, we are ready to explore the contemporary arguments both sides have to offer.
The first argument for naturalism is from Sigmund Freud and his work in The Future of an Illusion. In this text, Freud argues that religious truths are "illusions" in the following:
"Illusions, fulfillments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind. The secret of their strength lies in the strength of those wishesÂ…we call a belief an illusion when a wish-fulfillment is a prominent factor in its motivation, and in doing so...
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