Philosophy 1020 Lecture Notes - Pascal Boyer, Axial Age, Atheism
8 Jul 2013
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Arguments for theism: ontological, cosmological = four ways, design argument,( first mover, first cause, contingency), This is a really new player in the old field. The person who has championed the argument is canadian. John schellenberg, halifax: wrote: divine hiddenness and human reason. The argument has clear affinities with the argument from evil: cognitive science of religion. It seems that many people feel an invisible presence; a conscious force that accompanies them. This seems to point to the existence of god or gods. Pascal boyer, washington university, most famous person working on this theory: wrote: religion explained, the evolutionary origins of religious thought. Mechanism to detect the presence of agents. Think of how costly it might be for an animal to fail. In their brains : hyperactive agency detection device (hadd) to detect the presence of an agent. False positive signals are a low cost to pay, in evolutionary terms.
