Lucretius On the Nature of Things: selection: Random variations exist among individuals that either harm or benefit the

e animal in the struggle for existence. follower of Epicurus, so most of the book was explanations Ultimately, those individuals who are well adapted will of his beliefs. He's an atomist/materialist who believed survive those who are not, and in turn bear offspring with everything is made up of either atoms or void. Everything similar characteristics. Over hundreds of thousands of years, can be explained as such, even free will & soul. the species as a whole will alter according to its respective Life = be happy / eliminate fear, pain, anxiety environments in order that it may become best adapted. the gods are not involved in man's lifebelieving this only Very controversial idea since before we assigned nature's causes fear/suffering. Also, no need to fear death for same. perfection to god's work (i.e. Paley) Refers to the gods but never really expresses outright belief James Varieties of Religious Experience: or even need to believe in gods at all tries to reduce religion to its simplest form so he can define it he gives a semi-philosophy/semi-science-based reason not to believe in a way that applies to all religions. religion is, arbitrarily, in the gods. the feelings, acts & experiences of individual men in their Descartes Discourse on Method: solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in autobiographical reflections on his life and how he was never relation to w/e they may consider the divine. satisfied with what he learned in school/philosophy, so he Religious ppl want to unite w/ a higher power in order to went off on his own and traveled the world to learn about diff avoid/ease guilt from carnal desires & this manifests in diff ppl/customs ways in diff ppl w/ diff religions. All religious ppl are driven philosophy: anything that could even possibly be doubted by an uneasiness that there's something wrong with their consider false. Senses can deceive/experiences could be material selves & the higher power will save them/give peace dreams/people make errors in reasoning higher power alleviates guilt and worries/makes our lives I think, therefore I am meaningful proves god's existence through 2 circular arguments: (1) bc Ruse Evolution/Creation Struggle even though we have imperfect minds, we are able to imagine boils down the debate to 2 conflicting religions: a perfect god. Thus, he must exist. (2) the same way that Christianity & evolutionism (evolutionism not necessarily 180o is a necessary property of a triangle, existence is a darwin's theory, although that toobut includes philosophies necessary property of god based on evolution, i.e. social darwinism and a general belief was around the same time that Galileo was, and was afraid to in progress, whether social, cultural, w/e) publish when he heard about what happened to Galileo he ultimately thinks both sides need to understand each other Genesis a lot goes on throughout the whole book, but the main reason I picked it is for the first few chapters, particularly the days of Collins The Language of God life story: head of the human genome project, medical degree, creation, which is one of the biggest problems that Biblical literalists biologist/geneticist. started out agnostic read a lot of CS lewis have with Darwin's theory of evolution who rationalizes belief in god and was pretty moved by it. Joshua a lot goes on here, too, but I picked it because Joshua, a He thinks science and religion are not mutually exclusive b/c leader and spy for the Israelites against the Canaanites asks god to stop they don't answer the same questions (how vs. why) the sun so he can continue to fight in daylight. Another example of a problem that Biblical literalists have with science/heliocentric he believes in everything science does, but that god created it. universe. This was brought up in the Scopes trial as well. God started the big bang. Evolution is his tool of creation. Augustine On Christian Doctrine: DNA is the language of god. he's always been amazed by DNA and how beautiful/complex it is he emphasizes the importance of knowing Scripture & memorizing it / this is how we learn about god's love for us encourages allegorical interpretations of the Bible (i.e. the world was not created in 24 hr days). He thinks that The only thing to be enjoyed in life is God, & anything else throughout history, the church has misunderstood science. should only be used in relation to understanding god He shuts down ideas like creationism and intelligent design can learn about natural phenomena but only to the extent that b/c they're just scientifically unreasonable it relates to understanding god and scripture BioLogos is what he calls his belief anything unrelated to god/scripture is in vain Altruism is a big thing his argument relies on for believing in obscurity in scripture is god's way of challenging us, and god b/c it goes against cold-hard evolution (Nietzsche) augustine's book is meant to help us understand these Hume Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion obscurities. He encourages figurative interpretations when necessary. i.e. things that were once O.K. But not today explores whether religious belief can be rational Aquinas Summa Theologica: Dialogue: (1) Demea argues that religious belief should be a describes god, his nature and purpose, man & his nature and priori (kind of like descartes). We cannot know god's nature purpose, Jesus as a mediator between god and man. bc it is inherently beyond human understanding/cannot He believes that theology can be expressed via reason, which explain via reason. (2) Philo empiricist. agrees that god is is what he does in his book (but theol is more important b/c incomprehensible b/c we cannot prove it via experience. reason is limited i.e. cannot explain holy trinity). Objects to argument from design. (3) Cleanthes argues god 5 proofs of god, all of which essentially go along the lines of: can be proved via nature. Argument from design (nature is everything needs a cause (must have 1 original cause) like a machinemust have been created) our souls have reason and intelligence, which is what Philo's objections: (1) the analogy b/w the universe and separates us from animals. So we should use these abilities. machines is weak, especially since a machine is something that exists within the universe/they don't exist independently (2) there's no more reason to assume god set the world in Darwin Origin of Species: order than to assume the world set itself in order. where he proposes his theory of evolution by natural Hume vs Descartes / empiricism vs. rationalism

weird ending (since Hume is notoriously atheistic): Philo, who sounds like Hume, says the proper route toward Christianity is to be skeptical and be able to reason your belief in god / not just by faith alone Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres He believed the celestial bodies were the most beautiful, perfect and divine objects which makes us admire God He describes the nature of the stars and planets: that the universe and earth are spherical bc spheres are perfect, that the planets orbit in perfect circles for the same reason Controversial ideas: The Earth rotates on an axis and that it is not at the center of the universe; rather, the sun is. He explains why Ptolemy's geocentrism is wrong In the middle of everything is the Sun. For in this most beautiful temple, who would place this lamp in another or better position than that from which it can light up the whole thing at the same time? For the Sun is not inappropriately called by some people the lantern of the universe, its mind by others, and its ruler by still others. this is interesting bc it sounds like something the Church would like. The metaphor of God and Christ as the light of the world, etc., makes it seem not so terrible for the sunthe universe's source of lightto be at the center, as opposed to the earth. He seems aware of the controversial nature of the ideas he is proposing and is careful about how he poses them. I wonder if something like this quote is a rhetorical strategy in order to keep the Church at bay, or if it is what he truly believes? Or, perhaps, both. Nietzsche On The Genealogy of Morals