(1) Philosophy of Religion- Keith E.

Yandell A religion proposes a diagnosis (an account of

*Saying someone’s religious beliefs are false is what it takes the basic problem facing human
impolite and politically unwise. beings to be) and a cure (a way of
* (a) Does GOD exists? permanently and desirably solving that
(b) Can a person survive the death of his/her problem).
body? (i) One basic problem
(c) How are religion and morality related? (ii) One fundamental solution’
(d) Is faith inherently irrational?
Religions differ in so far as their diagnoses and
*Judaism, Christianity and Islam agree that cure differ.
our deep problem is that we are sinners in Religion is a cultural system of designated
need of divine forgiveness and renewal. behaviours and practices, morals, world
Advaita Vedanta says –our deep problem lies views, texts, sanctified places, prophecies,
in ignorance of our identity with Brahman, a ethics or organizations that relate humanity to
quality less ultimate reality. supernatural, transcendental or spiritual
Thervada Buddhism says- we mistakenly think elements.
of ourselves as enduring self conscious beings Religious practices may include rituals,
and the cure is seeing that we are composed sermons, veneration of deities, sacrifices,
of only momentary states. festivals, feasts, meditation, prayer, music,
What is Philosophy? art, initiation, funerary services, matrimonial
services etc.
Philosophy (love of wisdom) is the study of
Religion is a belief in and worship of a super
general and fundamental questions about
human controlling power, especially a
reality, existence, knowledge, values (ethics),
personal God or gods.
reason, mind and language.
Metaphysics is the enterprise of constructing
Philosophical methods include questioning,
and assessing accounts of what there is.
critical discussion, rational argument and
systematic presentation Epistemology is the enterprise of constructing
and assessing, what knowledge is and how it
Philosophy is a theory or attitude that acts as
can be obtained.
a guiding principle for behaviour. Synonyms:
ideology, doctrine, view point, world view, Ethics is the enterprise of constructing and
school of thought. assessing, what makes actions right or wrong,
what makes person good or evil, what sort of
Philosophy is a way of thinking about the
life is worth living and how these matters are
world, the universe and society. It works by
related.
asking very basic questions about, the nature
of human Thought, universe and connection Religion A is of a different sort from Religion
between them. B, if what must exist if A’s diagnosis and cure
are correct cannot co exist with what must
What is Religion?
exist if B’s diagnosis and cure are correct and
A religion is a conceptual system that provides
conversely.
an interpretation of the world and place of
human being in it, bases an account of how
life should be lived given that interpretation,
and expresses this interpretation and life style
in a set of rituals, institutions and practices.

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 Basic problem-Ignorance.
Solution: MOKSHA (no subject/object
Monotheism (Judaism, Christianity and Islam)
distinction can be made.) MOKSHA/ Salvation
Vaishnavism, Shaivism and shaktism
is essentially Do-It-Yourself project.
* An omnipotent, omniscient and morally
perfect God created the world and is *There is a heaven to gain and a hell to shun;
providential over it. There is one way to gain heaven and shun hell
* God depends for existence on nothing else, , and there are plenty of ways to shun heaven
and everything else that exists depends on and gain hell.
God for its existence.
Identity(Content identity ; function identity)
* The created world is real and not illusory.
Low standards for content Identity:
*Human beings are created in God’s image
(i)vagueness (ii) generality (iii) trivial results
and thus have some degree of knowledge,
power and (potential) goodness. High standards:
Every person, as a person has dignity and not Clarity; specificity and interesting thesis.
price. Every person has inherent worth as Two religious traditions have identity of
creatures made in God’s image. content if and only if they teach the same
* God is providential in the sense of governing doctrines.
the course of history and moving it towards
Two religious traditions have identity of
the Kingdom of God.
function if and only if they serve same
What is Sin? psychological or social function.
Sin is freely performed action that violates It is false that all religions are doctrinally the
God’s Moral Law. Sin prevents one from same.
realizing his or her nature as (god) made in Religious pluralism
God’s image. Problem: Sin/Guilt
Yahweh, the father, Allah and Brahman,
Cure: forgiveness by God.
Buddha nature are all phenomenal Realities. It
Most part of religious knowledge is gained is something that arises when a human being
through reflection and/or revelation. responds to the real in religious experience. It
Summary of basic Christian Gospel:- is how the Real appears to someone.
Christ died for our sins and was buried and
Remove all human beings and you remove all
rose again from the dead, according to
phenomenal reality. Phenomenal beings do
scriptures. Christ lived sinless. Christ bore our
not exist.
sins in his own body on the tree.
Monotheistic conceptions of ultimate reality:
Reincarnation and Karma :How to escape the
The claim X is God is to be understood as
wheel of samsara or stop the otherwise
(i) X is independent
endless sequence of births and deaths?
(ii) X is self conscious(X is conscious and aware
Life is inherently unsatisfying.
of himself/herself as such; thus X is person)
Advaita Vedanta: The infinite is a noun
(iii)X is transcendent (i.e. X is not identical to
referring to Brahman. Persons (jiva) seem to
world and God does not depend on the world
be enduring mental substances and the
for existence or powers)
objects of sensory perception seem to be
(iv) X is highest being (i.e. the most valuable,
enduring physical substances.
greatest or best)
At the level of Reality, each Atman or
enduring self (jiva)is identical to Brahman.
“Thou art That” Tat Tvam Asi

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Providence: God acts in human history. (2) The origin and evolution of Religion-
Strong Providence (God acts in Public Albert Churchward
Historical events and private revelations) What is religion?
Weak Providence (God acts in private
revelations only) (i) a belief binding the spiritual nature of man
to a super human being on whom he is
Semitic Monotheism conscious that he is dependent. A practice
1) The world has not always existed (it was that springs out of the recognition of such
created in time or time was created with it) relation, including the personal life and
2) God exercises strong providence. experience; the doctrine, the duties and the
3) God exists because God wants it to. rites founded on it.
Jewish and Muslim monotheism (ii) Religion is man’s belief in being mightier
assert that God creates and providential rules than himself and inaccessible to his senses,
the world. God acts in History, ordains but not indifferent to his sentiments and
Prophets and gives revelations. Christian actions with the feelings and practices which
monotheism agrees, but also claims that God flow from such a belief.
has become incarnate in the person of Jesus
Christ. The earliest mode of worship
Reincarnation, Karma & Evil : (i) Propitiation of the super Human Powers
The doctrine of reincarnation claims that each Propitiation of the power in the thunder or
person is embodied in a newly born body, storm, and not the thunder or storm.
lives a human life, and when that body dies
(ii) Propitiation of the spirits of Ancestors.
the person who has been embodied in it
becomes embodied in another newly born (iii) Propitiation, invocation and worship of a
body. great spirit whom they could not define.

The doctrine of Karma says, that the physical, Each Tribe had its own Totem (a natural
social, economic, political etc conditions in object or animal that is believed by a
which a person is embodied and lives a given particular society to have spiritual significance
lifetime are the conditions rendered and that is adopted by it as an emblem.)
appropriate by the persons action in previous The idea/concept of God is derived from
lifetimes. experience. Experience of God doesn’t come
The two claims together yield a third:”what from our sense organs, since God has no body
evil occurs to a person in a given life time are or physical parts. Experience of God is more
morally proper, being the appropriate like Hallucinating: an experience just like a
consequences of what the person has sense experience, but not caused by the sense
previously done. organs responding to something in the real
world.
Many concepts originate with the experience
of only a few people (e.g. Electron). They then
explain it to others and so on, until it becomes
common. Concepts of God differ greatly from
one religion and time to another. This
suggests that Concept of God doesn’t come
from just one type of experience

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(3) God are you there?--William Lane Craig production of Nuero transmitters that
regulate our mood.
(A) God makes sense of the origin of the
universe. (4) ON the meaning of life- Will Durant
i) what ever begins to exist has a cause. What is the meaning or worth of Human life?
(A question always ready to ask and never
ii) Universe began to exist.
able to answer)
iii) therefore the universe has a cause. Thought by its very development, seems to
iv) the cause must be uncaused, changeless, have destroyed the value and significance of
timeless and immaterial. The cause cannot be life.
mechanical but must be personal(Creator) . a) Astronomers:-Human affairs constitute a
moment in the trajectory of a star.
(B) God make sense of the complex order in
the universe. b) Geologists:- Civilization is but a precarious
interlude between ice ages.
a) the fine tuning of the universe is due to
either law ,chance or design. c) Biologists:-All life is war, a struggle for
b) it is not due to law or chance. existence among individual groups, nations
c) Therefore it is due to design and species.

Law: Fine tuning of universe is physically d) Psychologists: the will and the self are the
necessary. It had to be that way and there helpless instruments of heredity and
was no (or little) chance of its NOT being life environment. Soul is but a transient
permitting. incandescence of the Brain.
Design: An intelligent mind behind the cosmos God who was once the consolation of our
brief life, and our refuge in bereavement and
C) God makes sense of the objective moral
suffering has apparently vanished from the
values in the world.
scene.
i) if god does not exist, objective moral values We are driven to conclude that the greatest
do not exist. mistake in Human History was the discovery
ii) Objective moral values exist. of TRUTH. It has not made us free, except
iii) therefore God exists. from delusions that comforted us and
*Something is good because God commanded restrains that preserved us.
it or else God Commands it because it is good. Truth is not beautiful and does not deserve to
In the former case right and wrong are be passionately chased. Truth has taken from
arbitrary and in the latter case goodness is us every reason for existence except the
independent of God. moment’s pleasure and tomorrow’s trivial
hope.
One should not feel compelled to believe that
God exists unless one has evidence that God a) What meaning life has for you?
exists . b) What keeps you going?
The GOD gene: Faith is Hardwired into our c) What help if any religion gives you?
Genes. Human spirituality is an adaptive trait
d) What are the sources of your inspiration
and Dean Hamer located one of the gene
and your energy?
responsible for it, this gene is also code for
e) What is the Goal or motive force of your
Toil?

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f) Where you find your consolation and your Buddha called the extinction of individual
happiness? Consciousness the greatest good.
Biologists reported (i) that all life lives at In those earlier days life was evil. Men were
expense of other life, that big things eat little pessimists about life on the earth and
things and are eaten in turn; (ii) that strong optimists about SKY (abode of everlasting
organisms use and abuse weak organisms in Bliss)
many ways (iii) that the ability to kill is the
What meaning or dignity can the individual
ultimate test of survival
have in a world so vast, among species
Man is just one species among a billion, a without number and in time without end?
passing experiment of nature.
He that increaseth Knowledge increaseth
History:- Rise and fall of Nations. sorrow and in much wisdom is much Vanity.
Decadence; degeneration and death. Victims of too much introspection.
What we call progress is perhaps mere 5) The Anti Christ-Fredrick Nietzsche
superficial change. 1) What is good? Whatever augments the
(a) We discovered birth control and it now feeling of Power, the will of power, power
sterilizes the intelligent and multiplies the itself in man.
Ignorant.
2) What is Bad?
(b) We enfranchised all people and find them Whatever springs from weakness.
supporting and preserving a nefarious
“machine” that block the road between ability 3) What is happiness?
and office. The feeling that power increases and that
resistance is over come.
(C) We talk of socialism but in our hearts we
too are Capitalist and have no serious *Not contentment, more power.
objection to becoming rich. Not peace at any price but war.
Not virtue(Moral acid) but efficiency.
The suicide of the intellect *The weak and Botched(careless) shall perish
Egypt builds and Persia destroys; and one should help them to it.
Persia builds and Greece destroys 4) What is more harmful than any vice?
Greece builds and Romans destroys it. Sympathy for the botched and the weak.
Islam builds and Spain destroys it.
6) The art of worldly wisdom-Balthfar Gracion
Europe builds and Europe destroys it.
A bad manner spoils everything, even reason
Men kill one another. One by one the Nations
and Justice; a good one supplies everything,
rear their Heads in pride and one by one war
sweetens TRUTH.
decapitates them. In the face of this
*Things pass for what they seem, not for what
destructiveness of History, this neutrality of
they are. Few see inside; many take to the
nature between Good and Evil, life and Death,
outside. It is not enough to be right, if right
the soul of man has strengthened itself with
seems false and ill.
faith in a JUSTER world to come, there all
*Better mad with the rest of the world than
these wrongs would be righted.
wise alone.
Gentle gospels of Buddha and Christ were
*Never from sympathy with the unfortunate
blackened by Holy Orgies of revenge.
involve yourself in his fate. One man’s

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misfortune is another man’s luck, for one meaning for you, then God becomes
can’t be lucky without many being unlucky. neurologically real.
*Avoid familiarity. Neither use it nor permit it. Thalamus makes no distinction between inner
He that is familiar loses any superiority his and outer realities and thus any idea, if
influence gives him, and loses respect. contemplated long enough, will take on a
resemblance of reality. Your belief becomes
The truth, but not the whole truth.
neurologically real and Brain will respond
Nothing demands more caution than the accordingly.
Truth. Not all Truths can be spoken; some for
our own sake, others for the sake of others. 8) The Gods and other lectures-
*Don’t think and feel too much. Robert G.Ingersoll
* There is a favourable and unfavourable side Each nation has created a god and the god has
to everything; the cleverness consists in always resembled his creators. He loved and
finding out the favourable. hated what they hated and loved. Each god
was intensely patriotic and detested all
*Don’t explain too much. Most men do not
nations but his own. All these gods demanded
esteem what they understand and venerate
praise, flattery, worship, sacrifice etc and
what they do not see. To be valued things
butchery of unbelievers.
should cost dear. What is not understood
becomes overrated. Reason, observation and experience have
taught us that happiness is the only good and
*Don’t condemn alone, that which pleases all.
the time to be happy is now.
*Be attractive
We inherit our opinions; our beliefs depend
* Live for the moment. Ours acts and thoughts on where we were born. We are moulded and
and all must be determined by circumstances. fashioned by our surroundings
** The analects-Confucious In all the religions, one can notice that God
Q. what should be done in order to secure the did not reward men for being honest,
submission of people? generous and brave, but for the act of faith.
A. Advance the upright and set aside crooked,
then people will submit.
*Your own thoughts, desires and aspirations
comprise your life. By your own thoughts you
makes or mar your life.

7) How God changes our Brain

If you contemplate God long enough
something surprising happens in the Brain.
Neural functioning begins to change. Different
circuits become activated, while others
become deactivated. New dendrites are
formed, new synaptic connections are made,
and the brain becomes more sensitive to
subtle realms of experience. Perceptions alter,
beliefs begin to change and if God has

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