This chapter contains sections titled: Philosophical Prohibitions Religious Arguments A Defense of Altered States Cannabis in Particular.

In this paper, I intend to deny the morality and instrumentality of the behavior known as bestiality, or the use of non-human animals for sexual gratification by human beings. While to most modern peoples, this hardly even seems like it should be in question, it should be the nature of the human mind to occasionally question long-standing traditional moray in the hopes of finding solutions to problems and the disbanding of superstition. It has been proposed that the moral question, and (...) by extension the legal question, of bestiality is based on traditions long outlived and unnecessary. In an IceNews.is article written in 2008, Norwegian lawyers were growing concerned over the prevalence of animal brothels in Denmark and the precedent it set for Norway [http://www.icenews.is, 2008]. The article, when coupled with the 2001 article title “Heavy Petting” by prominent Utilitarian philosopher, Peter Singer, proves that the issue of bestiality is no longer the purview of jokes and psychological discussions. I will argue against bestiality as a socially acceptable practice based on five standard premises. The standard premises I will present will contain notes in regard to: instrumentality; consent; disease transmission; deviance; and morality. There is significant work available on the harm done to the beast, so aside from brief summary; the question of the good of the beast is not in the focus. I will also ignore any religious concerns, either surrounding morality or freedom of practice. Instead, these arguments are in support of the moral identity of the individual and of society as a whole. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of how (not what) we should think about human rights and religious arguments. Thinking about this relationship is today particularly important, because conflicts over human rights in practice often turn around their theoretical problems. Should religious arguments be used to justify human rights? Or do we want human rights to be free from any partisan endorsement so as to avoid divisive interpretations of universal principles? Underlying these hard questions is the issue (...) of justification in view of a plurality of cultural and religious traditions around the globe. If human rights can be transformed so as to defy the charge of Euro-centrism (of being parochially rooted in only one cultural and religious tradition), they need to creatively draw on, not pit themselves against, this plurality. This paper suggests a framework for such a positive and inclusive engagement with various cultures and religions that goes beyond the mainstream liberal model of “public reason”. (shrink)

In On Liberty, Mill says that ‘the same causes which make … [a person] a Churchman in London, would have made him a Buddhist or a Confucian in Pekin’. Despite Mill's not having drawn it out, there is an argument implicit in his comments that is germane to both externalist and internalist understandings of the epistemic justification of religious beliefs, even though some of these understandings would not wish to use the term ‘epistemic justification’ to refer to whatever it (...) is that they suggest must be added to true belief for it to count as knowledge. In this paper, we shall articulate this argument; examine how it challenges those religious believers who would wish to claim their religious beliefs as knowledge; and consider what they may do to meet this challenge. (shrink)

The efforts to prove God's existence in the history of thought have been one of the fundamental problems of philosophy and theology, and even the most important one. The evidences put furword to prove the existence of God constitute the center of philosophy of religion’s problems not only philosophy of religion, but also the disciplines such as theology-kalam and Islamic philosophy are also seriously concerned. When we look at the history of philosophy, it is clear that almost all philosophers are (...) interested in the evidence in favour of and against the existence of God. Especially in recent times, religious experience has often been regarded as evidence of the existence of God. Studies in the field of religious and mystical experience have put forward many arguments concerning the use of religious experience as evidence. However, this study has been limited to experience of sense and pure consciousness claims rather than examining all of these arguments. In this study firstly, the analogy between experience of sense and religious experience will be deal with, and then claims that conciousness can be emptied by a number of methods which are defended by mystics. In addition, it will be tried to defend the opinion that the mystical experiences which are the common point of the two approaches are valid. The main emphasis of the article will be that these arguments can be used as evidence for the existence of God.Summary: Religious experience - which has not been considered as one of the classical evidences regarding the existence of God before being popular by recent studies – is started to be called one of the arguments. The most important reason for not arguing religious experience among the evidences of God’s existence is that it is a personal experience and therefore contains subjective perspectives. However, many researchers, who refuse to accept the criticism raised against religious experience with restricting to subjectivity, emphasized the importance of religious experience by highlighting the objective aspects of such experiences. This emphasis was not only on its significance, but also on the fact that it had a cognitive feature and thus it could provide evidence for the existence of God. The argument of religious experience is generally defined as an effort for demonstrating to existence of God with reference to several feelings such as spiritual experiences of human in face of creator and sacred Being, encounter with God, uniting, and annihilating selfness in Him. The emergence of such efforts, especially after the XVIIIth century, indicates that the history of the evidence does not go back much earlier. However, even if notas evidence, it is possible to extend the traces of religious and mystical experience to the history of religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Considering a great amount of the previous literature focused on religious experience in the West, It is easily seen that such research is still new. The main purpose in addressing such a controversial issue is to make the argument on the religious experience more current and to show whether the religious experience would be able to use as evidence for the existence of God.First title of this study comprises many different claims such as Walter T. Stace’s The Argument from Unanimity Richard Swinburne’s The Principle of Credulity, William P. Alston’s Perceiving God, John Hick’s Experience-as. However, instead of briefly giving out very different claims, the study chooses to focus on two arguments which are less discussed and can be given in more detail. The first is the argument based on the analogy between the religious experience and the sense experience. The fundamental point of this argument is sense experience. With reference to the similarities between the sense experience and the religious experience, it can be argued that religious experience is also cognitive and may function as an evidence for the existence of God. In other words, being perceptual and noetic, namely cognitive, of sense experience is addressed as a similar side of religious experience. Whether it is imaginary or real, eventually, it is necessary for an experience to have an object and being experience of something. Therefore, the religious experience includes the perception of a Transcendent Being that is beyond and in excess of the individual who experiences. Perception of the sense experience will definitely be different from the perception of religious experience. Researchers who think that the five sense organs do not run the perception of Sacred Beings, identified broader and various meanings for the perception. Thereby, in this approach, where the semantic field of perception is expanded, it was contended that human beings were able to perceive the transcendent, eternal, and unlimited God, and this can be explained in the epistemological sense. In order to use religious experiences as an evidence for the existence of God, it is necessary to determine whether such experiences are caused by God rather than something else. This raises the issue of the validity of religious experience. The researchers in this area have propounded various criteria to identify whether religious experience is existed or not. Experiences, which do not meet the criteria, are not considered existed even if they claim to be religious experience.The second is the argument that discusses whether it is possible to suggest an evidence for the existence of God by utilizing pure consciousness events. In general, this argument claims that the consciousness gets clear, and thus, mystic or Sufi experiences the Divine One with pure consciousness by discharging consciousness from all sensual contents and removing it from secular desire and wishes. The argument, which claims the experience of Divine One is direct, therefore uninterpretable, and experienced by pure consciousness, believes clearing the consciousness of mystics from sensual qualities such as seeing, hearing, and tasting. It is stated that it is possible for mystics to empty their sensory images and get rid of them, and thus, their desires and wishes could be lost. Especially, the thinkers who are connected with the philosophy of perennialism and defend this approach, thought that people, who have distinct religion, culture, and beliefs in different parts of the world and in various time periods, had the same experience and considered such experiences were universal by suggesting that this similarity could be called as common essence.Even though the claim which offers that the events of pure consciousness are the same everywhere have been criticized in many respects, the advocates of this approach have argued that the experience has the common essence, but the interpretation is different. This relationship, which was tried to be established between experience and commentary, caused a lot of work for both the thinkers who put forward the claims of pure consciousness and the researchers who opposed it. However, examining the relationship between experience and interpretation requires serious studies in socio-psychological, cultural and religious fields. Therefore, in order not to exceed the limits of the article, the relationship between experience and interpretation is briefly mentioned.While discussing two arguments, the main claims of the arguments were addressed, and the criticisms directed to this argument were not discussed as much as possible. However, some fundamental criticisms have been mentioned shortly for a better understanding of the discussion. Since such western-oriented claims mostly were deployed in a western context, the study excluded the comparison of the claims across different cultures. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga’s religious epistemology has been used to respond to many debunking arguments against theistic belief. However, critics have claimed that Plantinga’s religious epistemology conflicts with skeptical theism, a view often used in response to the problem of evil. If they are correct, then a common way of responding to debunking arguments conflicts with a common way of responding to the problem of evil. In this paper, I examine the critics’ claims and argue that they (...) are right. I then present two revised versions of Plantinga’s argument for his religious epistemology. I call the first a 'religion-based argument' and the second an 'intention-based argument'. Both are compatible with skeptical theism, and both can be used to respond to debunking arguments. They apply only to theistic beliefs of actual persons who have what I call 'doxastically valuable relationships' with God – valuable relationships the goods of which entail the belief that God exists. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill’s famous “harm principle” has been popular in the limitation of freedoms within human rights jurisprudence. It has been used formally in court cases and also informally in legal argumentation and conversation. Shortly, it is described as a very simple principle that amounts to the notion that persons are at liberty to do what they want as long as their actions do not harm any other person or society in general. This article questions whether it is legitimate to (...) use the harm principle in cases concerning the limitation of religious freedom within education. For example, can the exemption of a learner from sex education be denied based on the argument that such an exemption will cause harm? In order to answer this question, the meaning, origin and use of the harm principle are investigated. This article also discusses four main criticisms against the use of this principle in general and in cases of religious freedom of learners in education. (shrink)

In “The evolutionary argument against naturalism: a Wittgensteinian response,” DeVito and McNabb (Int J Philos Relig 92(2):91–98, 2022, 10.1007/s11153-022-09832-3) propose a Wittgensteinian argument against Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism. In their paper, they seek to establish symmetry between a component of Plantinga’s premise and the premise of the radical skeptic. The first premise of Plantinga’s argument assumes the possibility of doubting the reliability of our cognitive abilities. The Radical skeptic doubts we have rational grounds to refute (...) being brains in vats. DeVito and McNaab use hinge epistemology and Pritchard’s strategy against the radical skeptic to undermine Plantinga’s premise. This paper offers an alternative argument based on hinge epistemology against Plantinga’s argument. Relying on the various types of certainties Wittgenstein discussed, I argue that some scientific facts are among our certainties and hinges. Evolution (i.e., the theory of evolution by natural selection) is a well-established scientific fact and a hinge. As a result, in Plantinga’s first premise, we have two hinges: evolution and the reliability of our cognitive abilities. I will argue that given that hinges cannot trump one another, we can have these two hinges in place, and therefore, by endorsing hinge epistemology, there is another argument that shows why Plantinga’s argument cannot undermine naturalism if one accepts evolution. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a defense of what I dub “religious rationality pluralism”—that is, that people of various religions can be rational in holding a variety of religious perspectives. I distinguish two arguments against this position: the Uniqueness argument and the Disagreement argument. The aims of this essay are to argue that the Uniqueness thesis is ambiguous between two readings, that while one version of the thesis is quite plausible, it cannot be successfully used to (...) argue against rationality pluralism, and the version of the thesis that would support the argument is false. (shrink)

In The Book on Adler and “Does a Human Being Have the Right to Let Himself Be Put to Death for the Truth,” Kierkegaard relies on logical reasoning and grammatical analysis in order to arrive at categorical normative conclusions against the use of religious belief and authority as a justification for ethical action. These arguments demonstrate that some types of moral knowledge can be arrived at through reason/logic, despite Kierkegaard’s efforts to separate the spheres of logic and (...) existence. Kierkegaard thereby offers a strong critique of both moral exceptionalism and an ethics of conviction, a critique which—as the paper argues—is not incompatible with his existential and Christian ethics. (shrink)

Critics of skeptical theism often claim that if it (skeptical theism) is true, then we are in the dark about whether (or for all we know) there is a morally justifying for God to radically deceive us. From here, it is argued that radical skepticism follows: if we are truly in the dark about whether there is a morally justifying reason for God to radically deceive us, then we cannot know anything. In this article, I show that skeptical theism does (...) not entail that we are in the dark about whether (or for all we know) there is a morally justifying reason for God to deceive us. And hence arguments against skeptical theism that make use of this assumption fail. (shrink)

Catholic ethicists faithful to the magisterium of the Church are currently divided on the permissibility of using methotrexate to treat ectopic pregnancies. This paper examines the defenses of Rev. Albert Moraczewski, OP, and Christopher Kaczor, who argue that its use is morally permissible, in an attempt to demonstrate that methotrexate constitutes a direct abortion by virtue of its object. Specifically, the paper challenges the claims that methotrexate is aimed at inhibiting pathological tissues, that the trophoblast is not an organ of (...) the embryo, and that direct removal of a nonviable fetus is not a direct abortion. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 14.4 : 625–635. (shrink)

A familiar criticism of religious belief starts from the claim that a typical religious believer holds the particular religious beliefs she does just because she happened to be raised in a certain cultural setting rather than some other. This claim is commonly thought to have damaging epistemological consequences for religious beliefs, and one can find statements of an argument in this vicinity in the writings of John Stuart Mill and more recently Philip Kitcher, although the argument (...) is seldom spelled out very precisely. This paper begins by offering a reconstruction of an argument against religious beliefs from cultural contingency, which proceeds by way of an initial argument to the unreliability of the processes by which religious beliefs are formed, whose conclusion is then used to derive two further conclusions, one which targets knowledge and the other, rationality. Drawing upon recent work in analytic epistemology, I explore a number of possible ways of spelling out the closely related notions of accidental truth, epistemic luck, and reliability upon which the argument turns. I try to show that the renderings of the argument that succeed in securing the sceptical conclusion against religious beliefs also threaten scepticism about various sorts of beliefs besides religious beliefs. (shrink)

This article challenges the widely-held belief, within and outside academia, that premodern Muslims did not make a distinction between the religious and secular. I explore the issue by examining several usages of the dīn – dunyā binary across diverse genres of medieval Islamic writings and assessing to what extent it accords with or diverges from the categories of the religious and secular as commonly used in the modern Western world. I situate my particular counter-claim vis-à-vis the argument (...) class='Hi'>against the relevance of the religious–secular distinction to Islam made by Shahab Ahmed in his, What is Islam? The Importance of Being Islamic. My findings show that contrary to Ahmed and the broader consensus, premodern Muslims did in fact view the world in terms of distinct spheres of religion and non-religion and that this distinction was used to understand phenomena as diverse and significant as politics and prophethood. Nevertheless, the two categories interacted in a way distinct from the common understanding of the two in the modern world insofar as, under the medieval Islamic conception, it was religion that regulated the secular. My article will make sense of these similarities and differences in an effort to present an indigenous account of the religious–secular dialectic in medieval Islam, one that problematizes the current standard account which holds that these categories were invented within the modern West. (shrink)

After some preliminaries ("I") I examine the merits of an argument which is sometimes used in an attempt to show that nuclear deterrence is morally unacceptable ("II-V"). This is the argument that deterrence is wrong because it involves a threat to do something which it is wrong to do. My conclusion is that there is something to this argument, that it is sufficient to establish a "prima facie" case against nuclear deterrence, but that it is not sufficient to establish (...) a conclusive case against nuclear deterrence. (shrink)

Debunking arguments are an important species of undermining argument, in which facts about the origins of a judgement are used to explain away that judgement. There is a long history of debunking arguments in the domains of moral judgement and religious belief, from the early Christian fathers to Sigmund Freud and beyond. Debunking arguments work by offering a truth-mooting genealogy of the judgement in question, where the truth of the judgement doesn’t play a role in generating (...) the judgement, nor does the genealogy probabilify the judgement. Since debunking arguments work against judgements, we can only use them in the domains of morality and religion if we assume cognitivism for those domains. There may be, however, analogous dialectic moves if we instead assume non-cognitivism. (shrink)

Due to the growing emphasis on the importance of the rights and entitlements of non-human animals, horseracing has come in for renewed and, in many instances, justifiable scrutiny. This has led to an ongoing public debate concerning the use of the padded whip in particular – a debate which has been reasonably open and well contested. However, the scientific/academic debate has been disappointingly one-sided and, to date, the views of anyone other than those opposed to the continued use of the (...) padded whip have not been given an airing. This paper seeks to redress the imbalance in the academic debate by revisiting some of the key arguments deployed by authors who express grave concerns over the use of the padded whip in racing, challenging what are taken to be significant weaknesses in many of them. For the sport to be able to make informed policy decisions on this important issue, a number of things are needed. First, a critical review of the studies available is needed. And, secondly, gaps in the literature and research need to be flagged. As things stand, the jury is still out from a scientific and philosophical point of view on the issue of whether the padded whip is painful, despite the claims of some of the more vocal critics of the practice. This paper will further look to identify the challenges ahead and the kind of research urgently needed. (shrink)

Recent calls for retraction of a large body of Chinese transplant research and of Dr Jiankui He’s gene editing research has led to renewed interest in the question of publication, retraction and use of unethical biomedical research. In Part 1 of this paper, we briefly review the now well-established consequentialist and deontological arguments for and against the use of unethical research. We argue that, while there are potentially compelling justifications for use under some circumstances, these justifications fail when (...) unethical practices are ongoing—as in the case of research involving transplantations in which organs have been procured unethically from executed prisoners. Use of such research displays a lack of respect and concern for the victims and undermines efforts to deter unethical practices. Such use also creates moral taint and renders those who use the research complicit in continuing harm. In Part 2, we distinguish three dimensions of ‘non-use’ of unethical research: non-use of published unethical research, non-publication, and retraction and argue that all three types of non-use should be upheld in the case of Chinese transplant research. Publishers have responsibilities to not publish contemporary unethical biomedical research, and where this has occurred, to retract publications. Failure to retract the papers implicitly condones the research, while uptake of the research through citations rewards researchers and ongoing circulation of the data in the literature facilitates subsequent use by researchers, policymakers and clinicians. (shrink)

What is the status of belief in God? Must a rational case be made or can such belief be properly basic? Is it possible to reconcile the concept of a good God with evil and suffering? In light of great differences among religions, can only one religion be true? The most comprehensive work of its kind, Reason and Religious Belief, now in its fourth edition, explores these and other perennial questions in the philosophy of religion. Drawing from the best (...) in both classical and contemporary discussions, the authors examine religious experience, faith and reason, the divine attributes, arguments for and against the existence of God, divine action (in various forms of theism), Reformed epistemology, religious language, religious diversity, religion and science, and much more. Retaining the engaging style and thorough coverage of previous editions, the fifth edition features revised treatments of omnipotence, miracles, and providence and updated suggestions for further reading. A sophisticated yet accessible introduction, Reason and Religious Belief, Third Edition, is ideally suited for use with the authors' companion anthology, Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, Fifth Edition (OUP, 2015). (shrink)

This contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Fuzzy Studies” argues, on the basis of recent research, that religious polemic is a phenomenon closely associated only with monotheist traditions. Focusing on religious polemics in medieval and early modern Islamic and Christian Spain, it analyzes polemical texts of diverse natures and from different centuries to see how their authors, by attacking both dogmatic and legal opinion, aimed to harden the amorphous boundaries between groups. On the Christian side, polemicists argued for (...) the restriction of the rights of Muslims and Jews in Christian territories, or for the outright expulsion or conversion of these groups. On the Islamic side, a number of Muslim authors voiced the claim that Muslims should emigrate from Christian territories. The article seeks to show how these polemical voices argued against known opponents but also against anonymous Christians, Muslims, and Jews who, untouched by such polemics, had lived close to one another and, without conflict, had accepted the undefined character of their daily life together. In support of this argument, the author makes use of hitherto unknown archival documents regarding how adherents of the three religions interacted in medieval Christian Spain. (shrink)

One of the more famous criticisms of ontological arguments is that provided by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, and two of the more frequent comments on it are essentially these: Kant points out that existence is no predicate; his criticism contains several puzzling elements which can just as well be neglected, since the first point is enough. It is the intent of this paper to substantiate a protest against such analyses of Kant’s anti–ontological–arguments argument and (...) to develop certain consequences from this for current attempts to rehabilitate ontological arguments. The protest is not that such analyses are simply wrong, but that they are dangerously misleading and represent Kant’s argument as weaker than it in fact is. The substantiation is provided by the examination of the three main elements of Kant’s criticism of ontological arguments: the distinction of real and logical predicates, the analysis of uses of ‘to be’, and the discussion of concepts of possible and of actual things. The consequences for current attempted rehabilitations of ontological arguments center upon the alleged distinction of ‘existence’ and ‘necessary existence’. On the basis of the foregoing substantiation it is shown that this distinction, despite its proponents’ claims, does not make Kant’s criticism inapplicable, that the sense of ‘necessity’ remains a problem, that Kant knew quite well what he was doing in criticizing ontological arguments, and that the necessary existence allegedly proved by ontological arguments is not that which is also alleged to be religiously required. (shrink)

While there exists considerable protest against the use of animals in experimentation, less protest is voiced against the use of knowledge gained from animal experimentation. Pulling from arguments against the use of Nazi data, I suggest that using knowledge gained from animal experimentation both disrespects animal victims and sustains the practice. It is thus pro tanto morally wrong.

The original, prescientific Western belief that the mantis is a pious, helpful creature became a widely held explanation for the mantid's unique resting posture, and for one of its cryptic displays. This belief was a characteristic part of a broader discourse about nature in which ancient authority, religious beliefs, and superstition, but few original observations, mixed freely. Gradually, the belief in mantid gentleness and piousness became a commonplace through the continual retelling of the myths and superstitions surrounding this fascinating (...) insect.By the seventeenth century, a growing interest in observation had begun to replace blind reliance on established wisdom and ancient authority. However, the various young sciences to which the period gave rise did not progress equally, and neither did the subdisciplines within each scientific field; biology, especially entomology, was particularly slow to free itself from past beliefs and contemporary superstitions. In the specific case of the praying mantis, the situation may have been at its worst.Early observers of nature found evidence that seemed, at first, to disconfirm the well-established belief that mantids are gentle creatures. These few observers, faced with startling firsthand information about mantid voraciousness, created a new characterization of mantids as merciless predators and then often juxtaposed the two images in their descriptions. However, it was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century that the two characterizations-gentleness versus cruelty— became reconciled.An amalgamation of these seemingly mutually exclusive characterizations was achieved by an interesting accommodation of each to the other. That is, while it could no longer be maintained that mantids are simply gentle insects, neither could it be accepted that they are all cruelty and viciousness. The melding of the two characterizations yielded a hybrid explanation which claimed that the praying mantis actually hastwo sides to its character! On the one hand, and like other creatures, mantids must nourish themselves, and do so quite reasonably by capturing small insects for food. However, even when “well nourished,” and without “the excuse of hunger,” their other, vicious side may surface; when this happens, the darkest of behaviours, cannibalism, is the result.To understand the remainder of the story one must pause to consider what had happened in the other sciences up to this point. In the mid-seventeenth century, professional scientific societies were established throughout Europe. The societies, and the various journals and periodicals that they produced or encouraged, represented an institutionalization of both science and its special, structured discourse. However, as we have stated, entomology lagged behind; and in the case of some insects, superstitions and anthropomorphisms did not fade from descriptions of their behavior for centuries to come.By the time the new scientific discourse was applied to mantids the creatures were already firmly shackled with a dual personality, and this assumption was never challenged. In fact, it was functionally impossible to disconfirm. Captures of small prey were considered part of the mantid's normal side; captures of large prey were considered part of the mantid's abnormal side. There was no alternative explanation.As luck would have it, by the time that the strictures of scientific discourse had tightened sufficiently to disallow the use of anthropomorphisms in the explanation of insect behavior, another acceptable explanation of mantid cannibalism became immediately available: cannibalism became part of mantid mating behavior. That is, the fundamental explanatory model remained unchanged; it was merely couched in more appropriate terms. The acceptance of this new explanation for cannibalism was virtually immediate and complete. For instance, no one ever asked the following questions: If the headless male remains able to mate as a putative precaution against female cannibalism, for what reason does the headless female remain able to fashion “a perfectly constructed ootheca”? Or: If female-on-male cannibalism plays a role in mating behavior, what role is played by genderindifferent cannibalism, especially that among immature mantids? The latter phenomena were simply ignored — they were just uninteresting artifacts of insect life. However, the grand logic of nature was immediately apparent in the headless male's ability to mate. The ruling theory, to use Chamberlin's term, had been able to accommodate itself to, and assimilate, the new scientific discourse. It remained unscathed.A persistent question posed by several historians of this particular topic has been, Why did not the results of Ken Roeder's experiments debunk the myth that males are regularly cannibalized by the females with which they mate? The reason, which we hope is now clear, is that there were two interdependent ruling theories operating here. If one accepts the argument that mantids' cannibalism is simply a normal part of their prey-catching behavior, then one attacks not only the theory that mantids have two separate predatory strategies, but also the more recent theory that mantids have evolved to be the ideal fly-catching machines. This second theory found its first confirming support in the centuries-old practice of feeding flies to captive mantids. Again, the disconfirming evidence of mantids eating prey of various sizes had no impact on the theory. Confirming observations were accepted: disconfirming observations were seen as anomalies.Additional confirmation of both ruling theories was garnered in experiments done in the mid-twentieth century. These experiments were based on the assumption that the original conceptualizations were correct, and consequently they did not test other hypotheses. The combined strength of the two theories is evidenced especially in the Raus' failure to account for the fact that their empirical observations were at odds with many of the conclusions that they drew, and in the fact that Roeder's work is still used to support the belief in the regularity of mating-related cannibalism despite the fact that Roeder, himself, argued the opposite. with both theories well entrenched, it is virtually impossible to promote an alternative theory of mantid behavior: namely, that mantids are generalized, opportunistic predators that manage to survivein spite of the fact that cannibalism sometimes occurs. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss what Cognitive Science of Religion is and what its implications are for theism and the veracity of religious belief. Findings in CSR and its counterpart Evolutionary Psychology aim to explain the origin of religious belief. Some critics of religion, however, brandish the findings of CSR in support of their agenda. Their arguments attempt to either argue against the truth of religion or the justification for religious belief. I will argue that (...) neither of these two kinds of arguments accomplishes its goal. Using CSR to falsify religious belief commits the genetic fallacy. The evolutionary debunking argument for undermining justification for religious belief is a more sophisticated approach, but it fails on account of making too many unjustified assumptions. I outline three brief responses to the challenge of unjustified religious belief. (shrink)

I. The argument from design or ‘teleological argument’ purports to be an inductive proof for the existence of God, proceeding from the evidence of the order exhibited by natural phenomena to the probable conclusion of a rational agent responsible for producing that order. The argument was severely criticized by David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , and it was widely conceded that Hume's objections had cast serious doubt on the adequacy of the teleological argument, if not destroyed its (...) credibility entirely. However, there has been a recent reappraisal of this claim by R. G. Swinburne, who maintains that none of Hume's criticisms have any validity against a ‘carefully articulated version of the argument’. Using an analogical argument based on temporal regularities rather than on spatial regularities , Swinburne claims to have shown that the teleological argument is a legitimate inference to the best explanation whose force depends only on the strength of the analogy and on the degree to which the resulting theory makes explanation of empirical matters simpler and more coherent. Moreover, he claims to have shown that the argument provides support for the Christian monotheistic hypothesis and not merely for the weak claim that the universe was designed . This is an important claim since it has long been thought that Hume's most devastating blow was dealt when he showed that the teleological argument provides just as much support for the negation of certain propositions considered essential to Christian monotheism as it does for their affirmation. (shrink)

Animal use in medical research is widely accepted on the basis that it may help to save human lives and improve their quality of life. Recently, however, objections have been made specifically to the use of animals in scientific investigation of human obesity. This paper discusses two arguments for the view that this form of animal use, unlike some other forms of animal-based medical research, cannot be defended. The first argument leans heavily on the notion that people themselves are (...) responsible for developing obesity and so-called ‘lifestyle’ diseases; the second involves the claim that animal studies of obesity's causes and therapies distract attention from preventive efforts. Drawing on both empirical data and moral reasoning, we argue that the relevant attributions of responsibility and claims about distraction are not plausible, and that, therefore, there is no reason to single out the use of animals in obesity research as especially problematic. (shrink)

Để xem bóng đá và phát sóng video trực tiếp tốc độ cao, Xoilac là trang web lý tưởng. Đặc biệt, Xoilac không có bất cứ quảng cáo nào, vì vậy người xem vẫn thoải mái thưởng thức trận bóng đá mà không lo bị phân tâm vì bất cứ vấn đề gì. Ngoài ra, Xoilac có đội ngũ dày dặn chuyên môn, luôn đưa ra những nhận định chuẩn xác cho từng trận đấu bóng đá. Với đồ hoạ sinh (...) động, âm thanh lôi cuốn và sống động, Xoilac sẽ lưu lại dấu ấn sâu đậm trong tâm trí người xem bóng đá. (shrink)

The Mozi contains at least three distinct arguments against offensive warfare. The "moral argument" claims that offensive warfare is morally wrong. The "economic argument" calculates that the foreseeable costs of a military campaign inevitably outweigh its possible benefits. The "religious argument" warns that military aggression harms the interests of Heaven. This paper discusses these three lines of argumentation, with extensive reference to the original text in translation. The paper explores what the arguments entail, to whom they (...) may have been addressed, and how persuasive they are from a modern academic perspective. It shows not only how Mozi and his followers theorized about offensive warfare, but also how their arguments were used in practice, at least according to anecdotes in the latter part of the received Mozi. The ultimate goal of this paper is to show how the Mohists actively adapted their argumentative strategies so as to find the best words to end wars. (shrink)

I shall consider whether morality requires citizens of democratic societies to advance secular reasons in public debates on political questions. Is it wrong to give purely religious reasons in political discussion? I shall argue that the moral acceptability of public religious arguments that are not supported with secular reasons depends on the political context we are discussing, and that often there is nothing wrong with using religious considerations. I shall also discuss the so‐called shared premises requirement (...) in political argumentation. The overall aim of the paper is to clarify intuitions concerning the ideals of public reason on the one hand, and the commitment to religious liberty on the other. (shrink)

It seems that every so often in philosophy some argument widely accepted as conclusive is challenged, and those who have accepted it as well as he who originated it are alleged to have committed serious errors. Of late this sort of challenge has been levelled against Kant’s criticism of cosmological arguments, and has taken two forms. In its first form it is the claim that Kant’s criticism is irrelevant to those cosmological arguments of which Aquinas’s “third way” (...) is paradigmatic. In its second form this challenge is the claim that Kant’s criticism of such arguments is vitiated by a logical error. The first two things to be shown in this essay are that these two claims are mistaken. The re-examination of Kant’s argument involved here is important not merely because it returns Kant’s criticism to its accustomed status. It is also important because it shows two further things. One of these is not too surprising; this is that Kant’s criticism extends to attempts to prove the existence of God which do not involve the use of a scholastic or rationalist philosophical terminology. The other, however, may be fairly surprising to many; this is that Kant’s criticism equally extends to attempts to prove the existence of any ultimate source of things, no matter how un-Platonic or non-Aristotelian or “scientific” that source may be. Thus this essay shows that what Kant has given us is not merely a successful criticism of cosmological arguments to prove the existence of God, but a successful criticism of cosmological arguments. Every such argument includes an ontological one and thereby either fails or begs the question. This in turn sheds some light on why metaphysical systems and religious positions must be presented for consideration rather than proved beyond objection. (shrink)

It is commonly held that epistemic standards for S ’s knowledge that p are affected by practical considerations, such as what is at stake in decisions that are guided by that p . I defend a particular view as to why this is, that is referred to as “pragmatic encroachment.” I then discuss a “new argument against miracles” that uses stakes considerations in order to explore the conditions under which stakes affect the level of epistemic support that is required (...) for knowledge. Finally, I generalize my results to include other religiously significant propositions such as “God exists” and “God does not exist.”. (shrink)

Parents’ freedom to choose infant male circumcision is the correct policyIndividuals and groups lobbying to have infant male circumcision prohibited or restricted often argue that the practice of routinely circumcising infants is unjustified. For instance, in this issue of the journal, John Hutson argues that it is virtually impossible to justify a policy in which the medical establishment should be able to embark on a “mass circumcision” campaign of 100% of the infant male population [see page 238].1Indeed, I would be (...) hard pressed to find anyone who could rationally disagree with this contention. However, this is because no one is currently arguing for the enactment of a policy that stipulates that all healthy male infants should be routinely circumcised . Arguments seeking to support a prohibition of “routine infant circumcision”, such as the one by Hutson, are arguing against a straw man—and a pitiful one at that.2 Such arguments only serve to misconstrue the debate and avoid engaging in the real and pressing issues concerning the legitimacy of the provision of this procedure.The questions that should be considered, and the ones which I shall be interested in discussing here, are what reasons are justifiable for allowing parents to choose to have their son circumcised? After well informed and careful deliberation should parents have the freedom to choose to have their son circumcised? These are the most relevant questions to be considered because there is a growing collection of citizens, medical practitioners, and lawyers who are currently lobbying for the practice of infant male circumcision to be outlawed—for example, there is a bioethicist who argues that the criminal law should be used …. (shrink)

Traditional views about God and about deliberation seem to imply that we need a deliberation restriction on the concept of divine omniscience. I will argue, however, that this deliberation restriction is both irrelevant and unnecessary. It is irrelevant because there is no time at which God needs to deliberate; and it is unnecessary because even if God does deliberate, it’s possible for him to do so while knowing what the results of that deliberation will be. And because this possibility of (...) deliberating despite knowing the results holds for deliberation in general, my argument provides useful (and perhaps surprising) results not only for discussions of the divine attributes, but also for broader discussions of deliberation itself. (shrink)

Across almost a decade, Desmond Tutu, Anglican cleric and chairman of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, supported a model of civil resistance against the apartheid regime based solely on religious argument. Tutu is one of what Appleby (2000) calls the “religious militants for peace”: people of faith who use religious arguments to buttress resistance against unjust regimes and to support vital political change with regard to rights and justice. Yet the employment of (...) class='Hi'>religious arguments to justify political action seems to contradict the liberal democratic requirements of public reason, particularly the duty of liberal citizens to provide reasons that others could reasonably endorse. If “religious militants” violate their duty of civility by appealing to their comprehensive doctrines, should liberal democracy exclude this form of religiously founded dissent as being unreasonable? Or, rather, should liberal democracy embrace and support the efforts of “religious militants” to enhance and/or restore political justice? (shrink)

In this article, I show why it is necessary to abolish the use of predictive algorithms in the US criminal justice system at sentencing. After presenting the functioning of these algorithms in their context of emergence, I offer three arguments to demonstrate why their abolition is imperative. First, I show that sentencing based on predictive algorithms induces a process of rewriting the temporality of the judged individual, flattening their life into a present inescapably doomed by its past. Second, I (...) demonstrate that recursive processes, comprising predictive algorithms and the decisions based on their predictions, systematically suppress outliers and progressively transform reality to match predictions. In my third and final argument, I show that decisions made on the basis of predictive algorithms actively perform a biopolitical understanding of justice as management and modulation of risks. In such a framework, justice becomes a means to maintain a perverse social homeostasis that systematically exposes disenfranchised Black and Brown populations to risk. (shrink)

In this article, I show why it is necessary to abolish the use of predictive algorithms in the US criminal justice system at sentencing. After presenting the functioning of these algorithms in their context of emergence, I offer three arguments to demonstrate why their abolition is imperative. First, I show that sentencing based on predictive algorithms induces a process of rewriting the temporality of the judged individual, flattening their life into a present inescapably doomed by its past. Second, I (...) demonstrate that recursive processes, comprising predictive algorithms and the decisions based on their predictions, systematically suppress outliers and progressively transform reality to match predictions. In my third and final argument, I show that decisions made on the basis of predictive algorithms actively perform a biopolitical understanding of justice as management and modulation of risks. In such a framework, justice becomes a means to maintain a perverse social homeostasis that systematically exposes disenfranchised Black and Brown populations to risk. (shrink)

The need for renewal felt in various fields with the Tanẓīmat, and the changes and modernization activities realized in accordance with it, and the nature and boundaries of these activities are important issues that determine the period's intellectual agenda. Some of the proposals for a solution to save the state are related to the renewal of religious thought. The bad situation in the Ottoman Empire stems from the way religion is understood, not from religion itself, and one of the (...) names that produce ideas about the necessity of changing this way of thinking is Ḥüseyin Kāẓım Kadri. He believes that Fiqh and Exegeticsshould be based on the work of updating the content of Islamic Sciences within the framework of contemporary needs. Claiming that the basic need of society is not Science of Kalām but Catechism, Kadri claims that the attempt of the science of Kalām, regulated to respond to the needs of the age will not result in even will cause religious conflict among people. In this article, Ḥüseyin Kāẓım Kadri'sintellectual background, his suggestions for the renewal of religious thought and his objection to the new Science of Kalām are discussed.Summary: What defines the history of late Ottoman period is the concept called change. There have been reform attempts in order to canalise the military, economic, socio-cultural change and transformation due to political turmoil starting from the end of the 16th century and beginning of the 17th century. Basic argument regarding these reforms finds its base on Qanūn al-Qadīm and the idea of returning to Sharia. Along with the Declaration of the Imperial Edict of Reorganization (Edict of Gulhane) the previous reforms which were made earlier changed dimension and westernization became a government policy. During the ongoing process, the change in terms of Westernization became a current issue within every segment of Ottoman society. Need for innovation in various areas, and therefore the change and modernization movements and accordingly these movements’ nature and boundries set the intellectual agenda of the era. Some of the suggestions are associated with renewal of the religious thought which are to keep the State from difficult situation it is in. Solutions proposed in this context creates a rich intellectual discussion environment within Western, Islamist, and Turkist intellectuals. Islamists in general terms are of the opinion that the difficult situation Ottoman is in does not stem from the religion itself but the way of understanding religion; and they are of the opinion that this way of thinking should be altered; when they bring about their suggestions, it is seen that the way of thinking is their starting point. What causes the Islamists fall apart within themselves is the nature of renawal. Islamist intellectuals, supporting the idea which is the content of islamic knowledge should be updated according the needs of era, suggest various ideas in terms of which dicipline should be in charge for the needs in question. While some intellectuals are of the opinion Kalām should be prioritised, some are of the opinion Fiqh and Exegetics should be prioritised. Ḥüseyin Kāẓım Kadri, who wrote under the pseudonym of Shaykh Muḥsin-i Fānῑ ez-Ẓāhirῑ, is one of these intellectuals coming up with an idea. Kadri suggests a renawal in thinking based upon Fiqh and ExegeticsḤüseyin Kāẓım Kadriis one of the most prominent intellectuals of Constitutional Period. Working as a governor of an Ottoman province, deputy, and minister and engaging in journalism, Kadri compiles a series of work in religion, language and agriculture. All of his efforts are to find ways of saving Ottoman from its difficult situations. Thus, Kadri questions the quality of the knowledge which was brought about in religious thinking and proposes solutions. What lies under his solution is the need for a dicipline for society’ s practical problems. He bases his opinion on opposition to new theology movement. According to Kadri, ever since Kalām was codified, it has never been useful to Muslims, on the contrary it has impaired the Muslims. Renowation of Kalām creates nothing but problem. In his opinion, due to using Greek philosophy content and method, Kalām is not a dicipline authentic to Muslims, besides it is a harmful dicipline which aims to damage the essence of Islam.One of the reasons why Kalām is out of Islamic thinking tradition is because of the Mu'tazila wises are the founders of this dicipline. Kadri is of the opinion that the wises/intellectuals belonging to this school and their theories regarding to understand the existence do not contribute to the field of faith. Admitting the function of Ahl-al Sunnah school generated after the Mihna Period, Kadri states the insufficient side of that function. To him, hence the subjects such as substance (cevher) –accident (araz), hudûth-eternality, wujud (vücûd)-nothingness (adem) etc have been discussed but at that time the subject in question could not be renovated in regard to needs. Another criticism of Kadri raised against Kalām is he considers this field the reason why Muslims are divided. Especially during the times when Muslims need to be in unity and solidarity, Kadri is worried about new discursion which will occur due to the renovation of Kalām attempts. This concern of Kadri causes him to object Kalām with a pragmatic motive.Kalām which is called Usulu'd-Din is another reason why Ḥüseyin Kāẓım Kadriis against Kalām. In his opinion, theologians complicates the subjects such as amalgation and adjectives of Allah instead of making it clear with ijtihad. Kadri who considers offering proof in terms of faith as faithlessness is of the opinion that faith is not a matter of reason but a matter of sense which has no doubt among people. Criticising the struggle for the enquiry of faith, Kadri puts an emphasis on the significance of the reinterpretation of the principles, for example in the field of Fiqh which deals with the practical area and says it is the most prominent religious duty. He also criticises the imitation of the past and remarks the importance of reason in Fiqh. As an alternative to Ilm-i Kalām, he claims a new Catechism and adds, it is going to provide the religious knowledge people need. It is an ideological contrast of Ḥüseyin Kāẓım Kadrito think Kalām is the reason for all the misfortune Muslims encountered. This opposition causes him to ignore all the accumulation in Kalām field. Moreover, it is the reason why he makes emotional deductions conflicting with historical facts. Kalām plays a role just like the other fields who could not contribute to Islamic Thinking and its renovation process in accordance with the needs of time. However, it is not realistic and reasonable to think Kalām is the only one responsible. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Pittard’s path to rationalism. It begins from the master argument Pittard identifies against rational disagreement among epistemic peers. It raises an issue for Pittard’s endorsement of the first premise of that argument, but focuses primarily on the third premise. It suggests a way of denying the third premise beyond the possibilities Pittard identifies, and then questions the strategy Pittard uses for ruling out competitors to his rationalism for defending the possibility of partisan justification in cases (...) of peer disagreement. (shrink)

Creationists have acquired a more sophisticated intellectual arsenal. This book reveals the insubstantiality of their arguments. Creationism is no longer the simple notion it once was taken to be. Its new advocates have become more sophisticated in how they present their views, speaking of "intelligent design" rather than "creation science" and aiming their arguments against the naturalistic philosophical method that underlies science, proposing to replace it with a "theistic science." The creationism controversy is not just about the (...) status of Darwinian evolution—it is a clash of religious and philosophical worldviews, for a common underlying fear among Creationists is that evolution undermines both the basis of morality as they understand it and the possibility of purpose in life. In Tower of Babel, philosopher Robert T. Pennock compares the views of the new creationists with those of the old and reveals the insubstantiality of their arguments. One of Pennock's major innovations is to turn from biological evolution to the less charged subject of linguistic evolution, which has strong theoretical parallels with biological evolution, both in content and in the sort of evidence scientists use to draw conclusions about origins. Of course, an evolutionary view of language does conflict with the Bible, which says that God created the variety of languages at one time as punishment for the Tower of Babel. Several chapters deal with the work of Phillip Johnson, a highly influential leader of the new Creationists. Against his and other views, Pennock explains how science uses naturalism and discusses the relationship between factual and moral issues in the creationism-evolution controversy. The book also includes a discussion of Darwin's own shift from creationist to evolutionist and an extended argument for keeping private religious beliefs separate from public scientific knowledge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Prophecy without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square by Cathleen KavenyKyle LambeletProphecy without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square Cathleen Kaveny CAMBRIDGE, MA: HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2016. 464 PP. $49.95"The American public square is not a seminar room" (419). This being the case, Cathleen Kaveny's Prophecy without Contempt challenges ethicists, among others, to reconsider the rhetoric of moral address. Rather than a narrow focus (...) on deliberation, Kaveny commends attention to the genre of indictment, and particularly the American jeremiad, as a significant mode of moral address that deserves normative analysis. Kaveny is no partisan of prophecy. But she offers moral and rhetorical criteria of prophetic speech that allow the genre to do its indispensable work.Kaveny's book proceeds in four parts. In the first part she sets the stage for her argument by surveying three prominent accounts of the status of public moral discourse, critiquing each yet drafting them all into a more global [End Page 195] critique of the failure to take into account the central significance of the rhetoric of prophetic indictment. Correcting this neglect in the second part, Kaveny executes a historical retrieval of the American jeremiad, beginning with early Puritan preachers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The point of her at times plodding historical reconstruction is that the jeremiad was not originally socially divisive but rather served to build up the community by calling listeners back to a commonly agreed-on covenant. This uniting function of the jeremiad fails in later generations. Some readers will worry that Kaveny's retrieval risks nostalgia insofar as it conforms to a MacIntyrian declension narrative in which golden origins were irreplaceably fractured.This risk, however, is mitigated by the third and fourth parts of the book, in which Kaveny turns to constructive ethics. She argues that the forensic rhetoric of prophetic indictment should be understood as a chemotherapy. It should not be confused with deliberation, the normal form of moral address. Yet, like chemotherapy, used in the right amount it can restore an ailing patient to health. As we have come to expect, Kaveny is especially adept at taking the moral frameworks developed in one sphere and applying them to another. Trading medical analogies for military, Kaveny argues that best practices of ius bellum verborum can be developed from just war criteria. She adds to these rhetorical constraints that prophetic critique be offered against one's own people with whom one identifies through lamentation and hope. Kaveny concludes with advocacy of prophetic humility and irony as necessary elements of prophetic speech in our pluralistic contemporary context.Although written in accessible prose, Kaveny's book deserves rigorous scholarly engagement. She constructs her argument with the gracious interdisciplinarity of a leading scholar of law and theology at the height of her powers. She is methodologically promiscuous but never shallow, drawing on scholarly fields of moral philosophy, biblical studies, American religious history, in-depth case analysis of contemporary arguments about abortion and torture, and historical paradigms of prophetic virtue (and vice). While scholars in each of these fields will find claims worth engaging in Kaveny's text, ethicists will be particularly interested in her argument for a constrained, continuing need for prophetic indictment.My one critique is that her account of prophetic rhetoric is too conservative. Based on her historical retrieval, Kaveny argues that indictment should serve only to call listeners back to an already agreed-on covenant. It is undoubtedly the case, however, that Kaveny's exemplars of indictment such as Jonah, Lincoln, and King innovated and developed the covenant, even as they invoked it. This complaint aside, Kaveny's book is a major contribution to contemporary conceptualizations of the public square, and stands poised to open new directions for moral analysis of religious actors in pluralistic publics. [End Page 196]Kyle LambeletNotre Dame UniversityCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In debate on faith and reason two opposing positions have dominated the field. The first position asserts that faith and reason are commensurable and the second position denies that assertion. Those holding to the first position differ among themselves as to the extent of the compatibility between faith and reason, most adherents relegating the compatibility to the ‘preambles of faith’ over against the ‘articles of faith’ . Few have maintained complete harmony between reason and faith, i.e. a religious (...) belief within the realm of reason alone. The second position divides into two sub-positions: that which asserts that faith is opposed to reason , placing faith in the area of irrationality; and that which asserts that faith is higher than reason, is transrational. Calvin and Barth assert that a natural theology is inappropriate because it seeks to meet unbelief on its own ground . Revelation, however, is ‘self-authenticating’, ‘carrying with it its own evidence’. 1 We may call this position the ‘transrationalist’ view of faith. Faith is not so much against reason as above it and beyond its proper domain. Actually, Kierkegaard shows that the two sub-positions are compatible. He holds both that faith is above reason and against reason . The irrationalist and transrationalist positions are sometimes hard to separate in the incommensurabilist's arguments. At least, it seems that faith gets such a high value that reason comes off looking not simply inadequate but culpable. To use reason where faith claims the field is not only inappropriate but irreverent or faithless. (shrink)

Liberalism is taking a beating. Many regimes return to religious rationales for state authority. They increasingly oppose liberal institutions. This essay lays the groundwork for engaging these _religious anti-liberalisms_. In this essay, I assess the religious anti-liberalism known as Catholic integralism. This ancient doctrine challenged historic political philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Surprisingly, it has recently resurfaced in some Catholic intellectual circles. Integralists propose that governments exist to secure the common good: temporal and spiritual. God authorizes (...) two powers to govern humankind. The state governs in matters temporal, the church in matters spiritual. When their missions intersect, the church is sovereign owing to its nobler purpose. Contemporary Catholic political philosophy rejects integralism. But it remains overwhelmingly perfectionist: states exist to promote the authentic individual and common good. These _natural law perfectionists_ say that states should promote _natural _goods: goods, such as health and friendship, that anyone can see as such through the use of reason. States should _not_ promote _supernatural _goods: goods, such as faith and hope, that we only grasp through revelation. Catholic perfectionists treat natural and supernatural goods _asymmetrically_. Integralists reject the asymmetry. God authorizes the church to promote supernatural goods, and the church may direct the state to advance its mission. On this basis, I argue that integralists can mount a powerful philosophical argument against standard natural law perfectionism—the _symmetry argument_. It claims that natural law perfectionists cannot justify their asymmetric treatment of goodness. Integralism, in contrast, treats the good symmetrically. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to show the significance for a new situation of Barth's attack upon some of the historical scholarship of his day over fifty years ago. Barth was motivated by Christian theological concerns, but what he stood for has important implications for New Testament studies generally, and in particular for its purpose and place within a Religious Studies syllabus. If what is written has a mildly polemical edge this will betray the scarcely veiled theological interests (...) which prompt the warning against New Testament studies that spurn theology and a theology that spurns the New Testament. But the argument depends upon considerations arising from the character of the New Testament material and the educational reasons for studying it outside the Christian church. Within the theological circle, liberal protestantism is at last emerging from under the cloud cast over it by the dialectical theology. The rediscovery of Schleiermacher is rightly being followed by a rediscovery of Troeltsch. But for reasons for which dialectical theology is itself partly to blame this is being accompanied in some quarters by a failure to insist upon the importance of the Bible for Christian theology. Despite all their differences, liberals and dialectical theologians agreed in defending biblically rooted theologies. Some of those engaged in revising the map of recent theological history need reminding that the emphasis upon the theological use of the New Testament which has dominated the work of Barth and Bultmann has more than a narrowly confessional interest. It is directly relevant to the recent swing towards Religious Studies in British universities and colleges of education. (shrink)

This is the first critical edition and study of a unique and important Muslim polemic against Christians and Jews. The Book of Disputation was written in Arabic by a Mudejar (subject Muslim living under Christian rule in late medieval Iberia) and offers new insight into the cultural and intellectual life of this Muslim minority. The text advances arguments drawn from natural philosophy-largely from Aristotle and Averroes-along with more traditional revealed sources such as the Qur'an and the Bible. Mudejar (...) communities suffered a diminution of religious and political intelligentsia over time. This text, however, highlights the author's particular conception of the world as the creation of God in his defense of Islam, demonstrates the vitality of intellectual life among Muslims in medieval Christian Iberia, and documents the continued cultivation of natural philosophy within these Muslim communities. (shrink)

Cicero’s treatise On Divination is among the most intense ancient discussions of divinatory practices, arguing as much against the background of a long and rich tradition in Greek philosophy as contemporary and recent Roman practices. Focusing on book 2, my contribution will reconstruct Cicero’s “ludic view” of divinatory ritual and extispicy in particular (2.26–41). I will argue that the reference to playing is an important part of Cicero’s argument. I will then use this ancient observation as a hermeneutic lens (...) onto divinatory practices and the materiality involved here. I will conclude on an enquiry into the question of how central this very materiality is for the construction of the divine and the establishment of a bidirectional relationship with it. (shrink)