Argument form

God’s existence has been a key topic of debate over the past couple of centuries. People argue either way very strongly, and many are not open to hearing the other side. When this topic is argued, there are two main arguments, the cosmological and teleological argument. In this article, “On Being an Atheist”, H.J. McCloskey argues against each of these views. He believes that without sure “proof” of God, we need to totally pitch the idea that God exists. If this were the case, many…

relationships with outside interests which he feels started in the 1970s and when exacerbated by the rise of Reagan in the 1980s and continued by Clinton in the 1990s, all these events lead to the current situation we are in. Sachs tin chapter 12 makes his argument for correcting the ills of our government system. He calls this chapter “The Seven Habits of an Effective Government” where he lays out seven major reforms necessary to create an effective government which he feels will lead to more…

The poem “Death, Be Not Proud”, by John Donne, is a Petrarchan sonnet, which is divided to an octave (the first eight lines) and a sestet (the last six lines). In the octave we are exposed to the speaker who seems to be a simple man who does not like Death (maybe from a personal experience, but we cannot know for sure), and probably religious. We can assume he is religious by the belief of “soul’s delivery” (8) and eternal life after death, as stated in line 13. The speaker addresses Death, and…

what it is. The theory of form is essentially saying that there is an alternative world of ideas which the human mind uses to identify things in the current world. Say there is soccer ball, the soccer ball has the form of a circle. If a soccer ball became a pyramid it would no longer be a soccer ball. Therefore “roundness” is a form which makes up a soccer ball. This ties into Plato’s theory of…

In this form of government, the public can “express their preferences at elections, but public policy is actually made by the representatives that the citizenry selects” (Dalton, et al.). Populations choose a candidate that best fits their beliefs and values. The advantage of this form of government is that the chosen representatives have a political background, and are better prepared than the rest of the public when it comes to political decisions. The negative side of this form of government…

essay, I will defend for the existence of God. First I will present Anselm’s ontological argument for the existence of God on the claim that he is the greatest conceivable being, then I will present Gaunilo’s objection for the unsoundness of Anselm’s argument on the claim of which there are no set limitations for the characteristic of the greatness, which I think fails. I will show that Anselm’s ontological argument can withstand Gaunilo’s objection by emphasizing the maximal characteristics God…

Paley’s argument for the Existence of God Paley’s argument is termed the design argument which is solely based on an analogy of a watch. This is that the universe as a whole is complex and there must be an intelligent designer responsible for designing the universe. Just like the watch, the parts come together to fulfill a purpose, and if we have never seen a watch before the complexity or the way the watch was designed would make us conclude that it was made by an intelligent designer. This…

Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God Philosopher Samuel Clarke introduced a myriad of reasons that are now considered the “Cosmological Argument” that directly attribute reason to the existence of a supreme being we humans consider “God.” Throughout this essay, I will be discussing Clarke’s Cosmological Argument, but I will be using the formulation from Professor Kearns’ notes. Clarke’s Cosmological Argument is founded on four premises and a single conclusion. This essay will analyze…

Chad Dubin Many philosophers have used the ontological argument to try to prove the existence of God. Descartes and Anselm are two examples of philosophers who have done so. Both use the concept of having the idea of God to try to prove his existence. However, the ontological argument for the existence of God is unsuccessful in proving his existence. Descartes uses the idea of existence being a property and an aspect of perfection to try to prove God’s existence while Anselm uses the concept…

In the article “On Being an Atheist,” McCloskey delivers numerous opinions that seek to validate the non-existence of God. This argument is known as Atheism. He does this using quite a few claims made by theists. The claims are separated into numerous segments upon which he lays his contradicting opinions. In the beginning, he delivers a short summary of the arguments offered by theists. He refers to the theists as ‘proofs’ and claims that not a single one of the proofs make sufficient…