Should religious beliefs be a matter of faith?
The bullet points below the topic are intended entirely as springboards to help write about the topics: you do not have to address all of the points, but they should help if you feel lost or are having trouble getting started. In contrast to papers that you may have written in other classes, philosophy papers are mostly concerned with the Why? rather than the What? In other words, Im looking for ability to think critically about the information in your paper and explain and defend your papers argument.
TOPIC: A popular idea suggests that religious beliefs, unlike scientific beliefs, should be merely a matter of faith. However, in this class in this class weve seen several different approaches to religion, evidence, and reasons. In this paper, tell me what you think. Do you think that religious beliefs require evidence, or should they be matters of faith (c.f. Clifford and James)? Are there good, philosophical or scientific reasons to believe in God? In answering this question, you may want to consider:
William Cliffords argument in The Ethics of Belief regarding evidence and epistemic responsibility and William Jamess counterproposal in The Will to Believe
The three theological arguments and responses that weve looked at so far such as the cosmological argument, the design argument, or the ontological argument. Do any of these arguments give us good reasons to belief in god or accept religious beliefs?
Pragmatic reasons for belief such as Pascals Wager, the medical benefits of religious belief, or Jamess claims about religion. Do these offer good reasons to believe in God?