Deck 2: Religion

Question 1

Kant argued that the existence of a thing can be a matter of logic.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Three major sets of "proofs" have emerged as attempts to demonstrate God's existence. They are called (1) the ontological argument, (2) the cosmological argument, and (3) the teleological argument.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

The God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam lacks any anthropomotphic qualities, His emotions are purley God like and reflect nothing of human undersranding.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Aquinas admitted that there was no valid argument against the claim that God and the universe existed for all eternity.

Question 5

In Buddhism, the problem of evil is avoided entirely because Buddhism abandons any conception of an anthropomorphic God.

Question 6

Friedrich Schleiermacher insisted that religion was simply a matter of intense feelings of dependence, nothing more.

Question 7

Tillich expanded the idea of God to represent a meaningless existence.

Question 8

Voltaire was a deist.

Question 9

Kant argued that existence was just a predicate like other predicates.

Question 10

Buddhism responds to the problem of evil with the idea of compassion.

Question 11

__________ argued that objective faith means a sum of dogmas.

A) Kierkegaard
B) Nietzsche
C) Kant
D) Wisdom
E) Paley

Question 12

Friedrich Nietzsche thought that Christianity was an expression of everything that is __________ in human nature.

A) good
B) interesting
C) contemptible
D) hopeful
E) sick

Question 13

Kant argued that the belief in God was __________.

A) rationally necessary
B) demonstrable through logic
C) irrational but helpful
D) a good wager
E) pure nonsense

Question 14

The __________ argument attests that God contains all possible perfection and existence is perfect; therefore, God exists.

A) epistemological
B) cosmological
C) teleological
D) illogical
E) ontological

Question 15

Anthropomorphism is the idea that God is a lot like __________.

A) love
B) people
C) nature
D) spirit
E) anthropology

Question 16

In John Wisdom's metaphor about the beautiful garden, the gardener symbolizes __________.

A) reality
B) emotion
C) the mind
D) God
E) an atheist

Question 17

Which type of people did Albert Einstein say "develop a completely false notion of the mentality of men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world for centuries"?

A) Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results.
B) Those who are prejudiced.
C) Those whose acquaintance with religious doctrine has closed their minds to scientific research.
D) Those who are acquainted with scientific research and discount religious claims on the grounds that there is no way to utilize the scientific method to derive the answers,

Question 18

In Kant's view, God cannot be the object of any possible experience because He possesses which quality?

A) worthiness
B) God is impossible
C) righteousness
D) Transcendence

Question 19

Plato and Aristotle heavily influenced __________.

A) Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam
B) Hinduism alone
C) Judaism and Hinduism
D) Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Question 20

Pascal's wager is in favor of __________.

A) God's existence
B) God's inexistence
C) atheism
D) human virtue

Question 21

The third "proof" of God's existence is usually called the argument from design, or __________.

A) the teleological argument
B) the cosmological argument
C) the ontological argument
D) the analogical argument
E) the cosmogonical argument

Question 22

Taken at face value, the first three versions of the cosmological argument are similar to _________ argument for the "prime mover."

A) Paley's
B) Kant's
C) Aquinas's
D) Anselm's
E) Aristotle's

Question 23

William Paley argued primarily from the idea of the ____________, which attributes purpose to the creation of the world.

A) the teleological argument
B) the cosmological argument
C) the ontological argument
D) the analogical argument
E) the cosmogonical argument

Question 24

The argument from design, known as intelligent design, has the form of an _______.

A) inference to the best explanation
B) inference by elimination
C) inference by analogy
D) inference from perfection
E) inference from preponderance of evidence

Question 25

_______ is St. Thomas Aquinas's first argument for the existence of God.

A) the nature of efficient cause
B) possibility and necessity
C) the argument from motion
D) the gradation to be found in things
E) the governance of the world

Question 26

Give Anselm's version of the ontological argument for the existence of God and Descartes's revision of that argument. Then explain Kant's attack on the argument. Do you agree with Kant that existence is not a predicate? Can you think of any other apparent predicates that are not actual predicates? If existence is a special case, why?

Question 27

Hume argued that if God built the universe, He wasn't a very good architect. Some theists respond that the universe was built as well as it could be and that any changes would make it only worse. Do you find this response convincing? The poet Wallace Stevens once wrote a letter to his wife claiming that "with a wishing lamp and a bucket of sand I could make a world better than this one." Do you agree with Stevens? Can you imagine a better world? What would you change?

Question 28

According to Kant and others, the importance of God in Western thought is His role as the source of our __________.

Question 29

The __________, "Song of God" (ca. 200 BCE), is the most important of the many Hindu sacred texts.

Question 30

To step outside ourselves, to consider the world from an impersonal perspective, called "personal nihility" by __________, is an intimate and unique activity.

Question 31

__________ said that belief in God was a matter of faith. But this was not an irrational belief. On the contrary, he insisted that the belief in God was the most rational belief of all.

Question 32

__________ made the pragmatic argument that believing in God was "rational" insofar as it didn't conflict with our other beliefs and it tended to make us lead better lives.