Should i pick philosophy at A levels even though i am a muslim?

Anyway, if studying philosophy doesn't cause you to question your prior convictions then you aren't studying it properly

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Tillich/Whitehead's argument for transtheism / process theism
Gale & Pruss cosmological argument
FT by Collins et al
5 ways by Aquinas (the second way specifically)
Duns Scotus cosmontological argument (as Kant called it),
Spinoza's argument in the Ethics


doesn't mean they're all successful but they're all very well-reasoned

The ones there I'm knowledgeable about are as full of holes as Mr Laden's body...

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Which ones are those?

All but the process theism thingy and FTmabob.

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Care to show me some links which show they're full of holes? Because even resources like SEP or the IEP wouldn't say this.

With all due respect, I'm not sure how well you know them. Are you sure you're not mixing some of them up (e.g. Gale/Pruss'/Aquinas with WLC Kalam or Duns Scotus for Augustine)

Well technically I'm only knowledgeable about the standard cosmological, ontological and teleological arguments and assumed they were just slight modifications of them. Sorry
But yeah, present those arguments to me

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I can't present the process theism or transtheism without referencing the literature (which would require you to purchase them)

FT can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/43nufb/what_are_your_most_compelling_arguments_for_the/czjovl9?context=3


and https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/2mztnw/with_all_the_arguments_against_the_existence_of/cmfdji9

More technical analysis can be found here: http://www.commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Collins-The-Teleological-Argument.pdf

Awful argument. It completely falls apart when you consider the premise that God, if he existed, would create biological life has zero grounds for being true ("according to traditional theism"- that means nout)

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oh dear.. Well uh, let's see what the professional says!

Awful argument. It completely falls apart when you consider the premise that God, if he existed, would create biological life has zero grounds for being true ("according to traditional theism"- that means nout)

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Putting faith ahead of logic is such postmodern nonsense

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Not at all; it's very good. Here is an example of what Collins explainsAstrophysicist Luke Barnes suggests to look for explanations like God by saying The proposition (call it C for chance) “it is not true that the laws of nature were chosen with intelligent life in mind” is not a necessary truth. It is a hypothesis which could be false, and thus should be tested. It needs to be compared to alternative hypotheses. Simply calling alternative hypotheses “life chauvinism” assumes that they are false. It takes as certain the very thing that we are debating. the fine-tuning of the universe for life shows that the probability that a universe for which C is true is very unlikely to be life-permitting. Thus, given that this universe is life-permitting, we do what we always do when a hypotheses implies that an observed fact is extremely unlikely. We don’t just say “and yet, there it is.” We go looking for alternative hypotheses.

So why would God want to create life (such that the the probability theism isn't low?). The reason is that God is imagined to be morally perfect, and conscious life is thought to be pro tanto good -- this conform to a long-standing thought that God would want to create a life-permitting universe. Furthermore, it is at least prima facie reasonable to think that God would want to create the universe in such a way that we would value life as something that is rare and fragile. Many forms of theism don't predict this, however traditional theism happens to support this notion - so, as per the comment from Barnes above, we look to these hypotheses as they have at least some plausibility. Since we evaluate evidence based on which event is more likely under a certain hypothesis, this being a life-sustaining universe is evidence for the theistic hypothesis.

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Ultimately, this isn't proof but what it shows, if successful,

(1) that the fine-tuning of the universe supports the theory that God exists as against the theory that God does not exist

(2) whatever probability you assigned to the existence of God before encountering these facts about the fine-tuning of the universe, you should raise your probability assignment significantly.

hence, for logical form, then we're given: http://www.commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Collins-The-Teleological-Argument.pdf (here's a very good explanation)

I am currently doing my gcse's and i plan to do philosophy, psychology, economics and business studies at A level. However, despite my interest in philosophy i am quite worried about if it would break my islamic faith. I'll be honest, i don't actually follow the religion. I don't pray, i commit sins and so on but i am happy being a muslim but i am concerned as to whether the theories and questions of god's existence will destroy my faith.

Thanks.

Why doesn't it? The fact of the matter is that such attitudes shouldn't be tolerated in the slightest. I don't give a **** if the person with them is young or not. It's ridiculous. It's like someone who genuinely doesn't see why beating up everyone who annoys them is not the proper way to live. It's that stupid. So no tolerance of it should be accepted at all imo.