Group for those who do OCR A2 Philosophy & Ethics [Post Exam Discussion]

Does anyone else feel that it is hard to write a whole essay on some of the nature of God issues e.g. omnibenevolence? Other topics areas like religious experience seem to be too big to write an essay on!

Yes Ayer has non-cognitivist views on religious language and ethics

I thought as much, so I'm right in thinking that with regards to religious language;
Verification, Falsification and the via negativa are NON cognitive
Myth, symbol, analogy are cognitive?

I think the opposite, omnibenevolence is huge..
The ways Gods goodness shown in the Bible (Creation and sustaining of world, God performs miracles for our good, God is compassionate eg Hannah, God sends Jesus to die for us and show us morality, God cares about more than being worshipped and wants us to be moral), Give evidence to these but then argue back with counter evidence, which there's loads of (Mill saying nature is cruel, evidence God is transcendent, some of the Bible suggest and a jealous God "I the Lord and a jealous God", Wiles/Humes arguments against miracles) Then go through the main issues such as 1)Should a good God reward and punish (Could bring in theodicies, view of Swinburne on free will and punishment) 2)Is the concept of hell compatible with a good God 3)The euthyphro dilemma 4)If God HAS to do good actions, does this compromise the goodness of his actions? 5)Should a good God have created such weak willed creatures as humans and given us the ability to do bad things

So yeah I'd say theres plentyyyy to write about there!

Omniscience is harder I'd say...

Ah it is all coming back to me now! I don't find omniscience that bad. You can link it with God's eternity, because obviously the difference between an everlasting and eternal God makes a difference in how God knows. Boethius could be brought in, and the debate about free will. Not loads to talk about but still something

Yeah I guess ahhh I hope omnibenevolence comes up, never has before though ...

Verification, falsification and via negativa

Sorry if I'm being dumb...
But wouldn't verification and falsification be non cognitive approaches to religious language as they say we that we don't know what we mean, and discussion of it is meaningless... Religious statements aren't open to validity or falsity...
Symbol, analogy and myth on the other hand might see religious language as cognitive as we can discuss them and know what we mean...

Yes Ayer has non-cognitivist views on religious language and ethics

Think there is confusion here depending on how you interpreted the original question.

What Noodlzzz is saying is that the methods of 'falification' etc. are all cognitive with regards to our world and thus rel. lang is non-cog
What you two are saying is the non-cognitive theories (analogy etc.) relating to our world are actually cognitive when related to God.

all of you are saying the same thing, just placing different emphases on different prepositions.

Do you mean the Kuznet curve? My teacher has mentioned it in Economics

Afraid I don't know, but let me know when you do? Sounds very similar to Adam Smith however, who argued that capitalism made people more virtuous, to be a synoptic with virtue ethics

Someone below suggested the Kuznet Curve, which sounds about right.

Another question here. On Free Will and Determinism, and i remember my teacher saying a quote along the lines of -
"a man who believes he is free does but dream with his eyes open'.

Ive googled but can't find anything, anyone know who it was?

Someone below suggested the Kuznet Curve, which sounds about right.

Another question here. On Free Will and Determinism, and i remember my teacher saying a quote along the lines of -
"a man who believes he is free does but dream with his eyes open'.

Ive googled but can't find anything, anyone know who it was?

I know a philosophy examiner who is absolutely dead set convinced that Hume and miracles will be up in June

As much as I love Religious Language, I really doubt its going to come up again, i'm revising it but not as much as my other topics.

Hows revision going for everyone? I'm only just properly revising now (stupid amount of exams -__) and luckily have a weekend off work to revise too.

Bit of a no-brainer here.. but I just wanted to ask your advice.

We didn't finish the nature of God section at school, and I've consequently forgotten to revise it. But there's a very strong possibility it might come up next week. So do I attempt to learn it, or just concentrate on the other sections? I probably should just concentrate on the other sections, but I hate going into exams underprepared.

waaah but anyway, back to some religious experience revision.. can't wait till these exams are over!

What is everybody's exam technique here? I (try to):
1. Put a point of view/idea
2. Criticise that idea
3. Evaluate the criticism
4. Conclude the point
5. Repeat steps above
6. In the final conclusions, draw all the points together

I'd learn it, only because it's probably one of the easiest topics The last two questions have been about God being eternal and omniscient, so it may be wise to just look over God's omnipotence and benevolence?

They are quite straight forward, so I'd recommend looking over them.