According to Clifford, we should only hold beliefs that we have found sufficient evidence for by conducting an honest and patient investigation. He explains that beliefs are not something private we only hold to ourselves, instead our beliefs influence other people. For example, Clifford tells the story of a ship owner whose ship is going to take immigrants to another country, but his ship is old, so he's worried if it's seaworthy. He thinks he should get it checked, but then he thinks about the repair costs and pushes the doubts aside. The ship owner convinces himself that the ship has made many trips without any troubles, so it's fit for the journey.…
Ryan Jones story King James Believe The Hype. It's a story about the NBA superstar LeBron James life and all the struggles he went through before his NBA career and during his career. One lesson that is taught is “Perseverance”, and not to quit when you fail or times get tough. From the beginning, the description and details in the story about LeBron's perseverance. When he first started to play basketball, he was really good and he always said: “I want to be an NBA player”.…
The book “The Messiah: Revealed, Rejected, Received” by William Varner explains to us what a messiah is and why we even need a messiah.. The book shows that when the Jews wanted God to send them down someone they were not satisfied with what God had in store for them. Lastly we see who the messiah God sent is, and how that after most people walked away from the Lord, some were still choosing to follow. As this book goes into great detail addressing all those topics I just mentioned, the overall theme is showing us what a messiah is and what the importance of one is from the point of view of a believer, while still being aware of the Jews believed.…
In “Reasonable Religious Disagreements,” Richard Feldman posits that two reasonable peers cannot come to a reasonable disagreement. The premise of a “reasonable disagreement” has various conditions, in short being that the peers must be epistemic, and they must have shared all of their evidence pertaining to the argument. By this criteria, it is not plausible for two epistemic peers with access to the same body of evidence to ever reach reasonably different conclusions. However, a problem arises with the previously stated criteria when examining the point regarding full disclosure of evidence. When examining Feldman’s article from this perspective, it is possible that it may not be considered fully viable.…
Clifford and James are two philosophers who have contradicting opinions on whether having sufficient evidence is always necessary to believe in something. Where Clifford believes you cannot believe in anything without sufficient evidence, James believes that if the evidence doesn’t point in one way or another, it is justified to believe something based on our will. I will be arguing that James’ side is indeed correct. In James’ paper, he provides concrete evidence as to why his opinion is correct.…
Defense, Critique and Integration of the 4 Apologetic Methods Defense of Fideism To approach apologetics is to seek to fulfill the command of Scripture “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” In light of this, the believer ought to approach apologetics as the overflow of their relationship with Jesus. Approaching apologetics from the fideist perspective is to embrace the mystery and paradox of knowing God in faith, rather than through an extended philosophically rooted line of reasoning. Instead of using human means to explain the reality which is far above human understanding, fideist seek to share their encounter with Jesus, the ultimate reality, rather than attempting to…
Standing alone in a case in the middle of an upper level gallery room, one will find a humbly sized diptych, which vibrantly grabs the attention of anyone who passes it. To a knowing viewer, it becomes almost immediately evident that this is the work of none other than Jan van Eyck himself. This piece juxtaposes two biblical scenes commonly depicted by Renaissance artists, but with a Netherlandish attention to detail, as well as other formal elements endemic to van Eyck’s style. These components include an emphasis on highly saturated colors, a strong use of spatial elements, and highly realistic physical renderings of the subjects depicted.…
Thus I lean more towards believing in Clifford’s rationalization that we should never fully believe something until we have sufficient evidence. The idea of Epistemology…
In Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief,” Clifford argues the immorality of believing without sufficient evidence. In most situations, Clifford’s point of view would be practical; if we wish to be true seekers of the truth, it would be unethical to ever believe in something without sufficient evidence. This is a valid statement, but there are exceptions to this idea which are dependent on the situation. When it comes to the type of evidence presented, a belief can be justified or found to be wrong. Clifford sets two questions we are to ask ourselves when it comes to believing things that aren’t proven with physical evidence, rather shown by testimony.…
In ‘The Subjectivity of Values’, J L Mackie examines error theory and objective morality vs non-cognitivism. Mackie’s report represents moral scepticism using moral error theory. By taking an error theory approach, Mackie confronts morality similarly to the manner in which an atheist confronts religion. Moral error theory could be broken down to a version of the Justified True Belief outline as follows: Moral claims are universally false There is reason to believe that moral claims are universally false There is no justification for believing any deniable claim…
Values of early colonists didn’t approve of recreational or pleasurable events. For example, in early New England, recreational activities as well as sports were banned. One puritan principle that explains the banning was that they didn’t have time to partake in these activities due to their continued growth of improving their morals through spiritual espionage. Furthermore, Learning and working were placed in much higher regard than anything involving pleasure. There was no time in early Pennsylvania for such recreational activities.…
The edits and revisions of Ayn Rand’s novella, Anthem, strengthen the message that collectivism is oppressive and objectivism is necessary for an individual to function. Rand’s edits of diction and sentence structure assist in developing the meaning of the novella. Ayn Rand, author of the novella Anthem, utilizes diction and sentence structure in order to develop the villainy of collectivism and the virtue of objectivism. Rand’s choice of diction in the edited novella complicates and confuses the meaning. In the original manuscript, Rand omits the word “reason,” on two separate occasions, the original statement was “I need no reason ……
James and Pascal’s defences of faith in some of their most famous arguments, specifically Pascal’s, devalue faith by making faith selfish, providing an obvious out to faith, and making the decision of faith into a gamble, oddly, his devaluation of faith does not hurt his argument, it makes it easier to convince the skeptics. To prove that Pascal’s argument devalues faith and to understand why it doesn’t negatively affect his argument, it’s necessary to understand the whole argument. His argument can be split into quite a few premises. He starts with the possibility of God, which is the main idea of his argument. Basically, it’s possible that God does exists, and it’s also possible that God does not exist, something nearly everyone agrees on.…
James establishes himself as a man of logic when first addressing these sides as he says “I myself think it our bounden duty to believe in such international rationality as possible. But, as things stand, I see how desperately hard it is to bring the…
The Black Cat This short story by Edgar Allan Poe tells the story of a man that, having been condemned to be hanged due to the murder of his wife, tries to explain on the night before his execution his side of the story about the circumstances that led him to his terrible destiny. “For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence.…