Edexcel A2 Philosophy of Religion & Ethics June 2012

Hi,

I'm sitting this exam and I'm so scared!

Can anyone help me on religious language... if the question says, for example, "Discuss the contribution of two types of religious language" what exactly does it mean by contribution? Does it just mean to describe the type of language?

Sorry if that's a stupid question, but any help would be really appreciated!

I think to an extent it doesn't matter - just talk relevantly about the topic in question. With 'contribution' in particular, it could be an idea to talk about cognitive/non-cognitive and use relate to 'use and meaning of religious language'. The latter is basically what is meant by the question, so if it asked, for example 'contribution', apply 'contribution' to 'use and meaning of religious language'.
Hope this helps

Are you doing two philosophy questions? i know what you mean, im going to learn all 3 and then pick on the day which ethical theory question to do - most likely going to be NML or kant. Yeah when theyve mixed religion and morality in the past its been with NML which makes sense really its just a pain having to learn it on top - its the same with Atheism in philosophy section

stuck on natural moral law - can someone please help?
we haven't been taught any scholarly weaknesses of natural moral law, i tried searching on the internet and can't find anything, can someone please help?

Commits the Naturalistic Fallacy - identifies 'good' with a physical concept - that which is natural - some, including GE Moore say this is a big mistake - the physical cannot match up to 'good'.

Charles Curran - NML is dualistic, distinguishes between body and soul. The idea of discovering 'good' from biology is questionable to say the least. Is/Ought Problem from Ethical Language.

Assumes God. One of the telos of humanity is 'worship God'. God is a priori assumption - remove God from the equation in the style of Darwin or Dawkins and the whole thing crumbles.

The whole idea of telos is questionable. Why do we have some intrinsic purpose? Is there any evidence? Could it have changed since the days of Aquinas?

Hi, I just want to check that what i'm revising will cover me for the exam (I think it does but i keep panicking that it won't!). I'm doing 2 Philosophy and 1 ethics questions in the exam.

Religious Language, Religious Experience, Critiques of Religion. (then I'm skimming over LAD just in case the questions are horrendous).
then NML, Deontology, Virtue Ethics and Objectivism, Subjectivism and Relativism.

Also ive skimmed over this thread - 'ethical language' is that objectivism, subjectivism and relativism? and 'ethical theory' thats NML, deontology and virtues ethics right? We've been taught them with different headings so ive never heard of those before.


Also, on a separate note - a past exam question i've just done was something like 'Compare and contrast 2 types of religious language (18)', I did analogy and symbol/myth/metaphor, but could I have used Language games as a type?

Sorry for all the q's!

stuck on natural moral law - can someone please help?
we haven't been taught any scholarly weaknesses of natural moral law, i tried searching on the internet and can't find anything, can someone please help?

yeah what you've done is enough in my opinion
and yeah you're right about ethical theory but ethical language is stuff like intuitionism, emotivism and debates about good

and my teacher has told us that language games comes under non-cognitive, which is a type of religious language

As he said, if you only do revise one ethical theory, it's a good idea to do M&R too. If you do more than one, no need

Hey guys! I've been revising ethical theories, religious language and religious experience for the upcoming paper of thursday (eek). Am I right in thinking that the content of information that I write in the exam will always be more or less the same no matter the question? From past papers, all that seems to be asked is the main features of something and then the strengths and weakness/criticisms. The way I like to revise is learn a model answer off by heart and I just wanted some other opinions (apart from school) on whether my thinking about the exam is right. Basically, I think the question is always going to be (more or less the same) so if I learn my model answers and right these down (bearing in mind I may have to tweak it a little depending on what I get asked), I should be pretty safe. What do you reckon?

Hey, I'm taking this exam too, I'm only revising 3 topics which is what I did last time.. I'm doing Ontological, LAD and Kant, (although I know virtue ethics too having done it for philosophy) is it a bad idea to only revise these ones? Also reading through I've noticed no-ones really doing LAD, wondering if this was for any particular reason, or?

I'm revising Life after Death! I'm doing that Ontological and all of Ethical Theory (Deontology, Virtue and NML).

To be honest i'd revise more ethical theories because you're relying on deontology to come up, and say it doesn't come up you're going to have to do something else.

Okay thanks! Has it ever not come up though?

What can Religious language be linked to in the b questions? what has come up in the past and also where can i find past papers from. I cant find them on the edexcel ...