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Students Zone / Questions / Chapter 13: Reason and Faith

1. Does the progress of the natural sciences render belief in God redundant?

2. ‘If there is a God, and I believe in him, I am rewarded, whereas if I don’t I will be punished. If there is no God, then it doesn’t much matter what I believe. So I can win and can’t lose if I believe in him, which makes it reasonable to do so.’ Discuss.

3. ‘If God does not exist everything is permissible.’ (Dostoevsky). What are the implications of this argument for the relationship between God and morality? Do you think the question of whether God exists should make any difference to morality?

4. Is it possible to believe in the existence of God, yet still not have religious faith?

5. ‘An atheist may actually be moral, but she could have no reason to be.’ Is this right?

6. Explain the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity in Kierkegaard’s account. Why does he believe this distinction is so important?

7. Explain Tillich’s argument that faith is ‘the state of being ultimately concerned’. How convincing is this definition?

8. What is the ‘Euthyphro problem’? Discuss the problems this raises with the relationship between God and morality.

9. Explain what Marx meant when he argued that ‘Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.’ Do you think he was right?

10. Describe and discuss Nietzsche’s view that the moral values bound up with religion are the values of slave morality. Is he right to argue that these values are life-denying, condemning the strong and turning weakness into a virtue?

11. Explain Freud’s account of religion. How much does this account have in common with Marx’s?