Dr. Stephen A. Ogden LIBS 7023 ATHEISM: A RELIGIOUS STUDY REMINDER Keep in mind that, God is not a necessary component of religion. Church (temple, mosque, etc.), priests (ministers, imams, etc.), written doctrines, services, and all
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Presentation Transcript
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Dr. Stephen A. Ogden
LIBS 7023 ATHEISM: A RELIGIOUS STUDY<br>
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REMINDER Keep in mind that,
‘God’ is not a necessary component of religion.
‘Church ‘ (temple, mosque, etc.), priests (ministers, imams, etc.), written doctrines, services, and all ecclesiastic form, are not a necessary component of religion.
Quakers (who congregate in meeting halls and wait for God to cause them to quake
House Church Protestantism (incl. China)
Nagasaki Roman Catholics (16th C. Japan)<br>
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Atheism A-Theism (Gr. θεός = God.)
By its name, Atheism defines itself:
antagonistically by what it is against , or
negatively, by what it denies.
in an irony, a historically-powerful line of theology exists called ‘negative theology’—a description of God by what He is not.
Leaves open, and questionable, what it is for<br>
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MONOTHEISM God is an independently existing Being with person (agency, feelings, cognition, justice): an active party in the life and affairs of the World (supernatural events) known by revelation.
Monotheistic Religions:
Islam
Judaism
Christianity Qualities:
Love
Justice
Creativity
Omnipotence
Omniscience
Omnipresence<br>
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DEISM God is an independently existing Being with person (agency, feelings, cognition, justice) who is not an active party in the life and affairs of the World (natural events.) Revelation is through Nature and Reason. Qualities:
Creativity
Distant
Passive
Philosophical
Knowable through Scientific study of nature & Reason
Knowable though conscience.
Deistic Religions:
Stoicism (Roman)
Freemasonry
Some lapsed Christians & Jews
Voltaire, Rousseau, American Founding Fathers (Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin), Spinoza
Several Philosophers & schools of Philosophy
Aristotle, Locke, Hobbes<br>
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POLYTHEISM There are many Gods, small and great; supernatural Beings who interact with human affairs, and may or may not respond to human appeals.
PANTHEISM God is everywhere and everything; all is God. God and Nature are indistinguishable, where God-Nature is animate and purposeful. ‘Mind’ is more real than ‘Matter’.
A-THEISM Dogmatic claim that no form of theos exists.
Atheism at present asserts that only matter exist.
Effectively, Occam’s razor is Atheism’s Prime Doctrine:
William of Ockham (England, 13th C.): “do not multiply theories beyond necessity.”
In modern Atheism, ‘the simpler theory is the more correct.’
Example: Baron d'Holbach (1772) "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God." Qualities:
Science
Reason
Materialism
Phenomena
Ontological Minimalism
Humanist
Atheist Religions:
Pre-Socratic Greeks
Protagoras, Democritus,
Positivism (e.g. Fr. Auguste Comte)
Confucianism
Jainism
Western (explicit) Atheism post-19th C.<br>
