Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment

Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment PDF

Author: John Pittard

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-10-01

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0190051833

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The striking extent of religious disagreement suggests that religious conviction is very often the result of processes that do not reliably produce true beliefs. For this reason, many have argued that the only rational response to religious disagreement is to adopt a religious skepticism that eschews confident religious belief. Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment contests this skeptical conclusion, explaining how it could be rational to maintain confident belief even in the face of the epistemic worries posed by disagreement. John Pittard argues against the commitment to rigorous epistemic impartiality that underlies the case for disagreement-motivated religious skepticism, while also critiquing approaches to disagreement that allow for the unproblematic privileging of one's first-person perspective. He emphasizes the importance of having rational insight into reasons that favor one's outlook; however, he challenges narrowly intellectualist accounts of insight, arguing that many of the rational insights crucial to assessing religious outlooks are not achievable through analytical reasoning, but only through relevant emotional experiences. In the second part of the book, Pittard considers the implications that accepting the impartiality requirement favored by "disagreement skeptics" has for religious commitment. He challenges the common assumption that a commitment to rigorous epistemic impartiality would rule out confident religious belief. He further argues, however, that such an impartiality commitment would likely make it irrational to pursue one's favored form of religious life and might prevent one from rationally engaging in any religious or irreligious way of life whatsoever. This troubling conclusion gives reason to hope that the arguments against impartiality are correct and that one can justify conviction despite widespread disagreement.

Religious Disagreement

Religious Disagreement PDF

Author: Helen De Cruz

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-11-15

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1108566731

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This Element examines what we can learn from religious disagreement, focusing on disagreement with possible selves and former selves, the epistemic significance of religious agreement, the problem of disagreements between religious experts, and the significance of philosophy of religion. Helen De Cruz shows how religious beliefs of others constitute significant higher-order evidence. At the same time, she advises that we should not necessarily become agnostic about all religious matters, because our cognitive background colors the way we evaluate evidence. This allows us to maintain religious beliefs in many cases, while nevertheless taking the religious beliefs of others seriously.

Religious Disagreement and Pluralism

Religious Disagreement and Pluralism PDF

Author: Matthew A. Benton

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0198849869

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Epistemological questions about the significance of disagreement have advanced alongside broader developments in social epistemology concerning testimony, the nature of expertise and epistemic authority, the role of institutions, group belief, and epistemic injustice, among others. During this period, related issues in the epistemology of religion have re-emerged as worthy of new consideration, and available to be situated with new conceptual tools. Does disagreement between, and within, religions challenge the rationality of religious commitment? How should religious adherents think about exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist frameworks as applied to religious truth, or to matters of salvation or redemption or liberation? This volume explores many of these issues at the intersection of the epistemology of disagreement and religious epistemology. It engages in careful reflection on religious diversity and disagreement, offering ways to balance epistemic humility with personal conviction. Recognizing the place of religious differences in our social lives, it provides renewed efforts at how best to think about truths concerning religion.

The Epistemology of Religious Disagreement

The Epistemology of Religious Disagreement PDF

Author: J. Kraft

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-05-21

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 1137015101

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Many assume falsely that religious disagreements engage rules of evidence presentation and belief justification radically different than the ordinary disagreements people have every day, whether those religious disagreements are in Sri Lanka between Hindus and Buddhists or in the Middle East among Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Problems of Religious Luck

Problems of Religious Luck PDF

Author: Guy Axtell

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2018-12-06

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1498550185

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This book develops an inductive risk account of the limits of reasonable religious disagreement. The riskiness of different people’s methods for forming religious beliefs is shown central both to understanding fundamentalist orientation and to concerns that philosophers and theologians share for “ownership” of risk in people’s faith ventures.

Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment

Disagreement, Deference, and Religious Commitment PDF

Author: John Pittard

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0190051817

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Every known religious or explicitly irreligious outlook is contested by large contingents of informed and reasonable people. Many philosophers have argued that reflection on this fact should lead us to abandon confident religious or irreligious belief and to embrace religious skepticism. John Pittard critically assesses the case for such disagreement-motivated religious skepticism. While the book focuses on religious disagreement, it makes a number of significant contributions to the more general discussion of the rational significance of disagreement as well.

Challenges to Moral and Religious Belief

Challenges to Moral and Religious Belief PDF

Author: Michael Bergmann

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014-05

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0199669775

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Fourteen original essays by philosophers, theologians, and social scientists explore the challenges to moral and religious belief posed by disagreement and evolution. The collection represents both sceptical and non-skeptical positions about morality and religion, cultivates new insights, and moves the discussion forward in illuminating ways.

God Is Not Great

God Is Not Great PDF

Author: Christopher Hitchens

Publisher: McClelland & Stewart

Published: 2008-11-19

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1551991764

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Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope’s awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.

Religious Disagreement and Pluralism

Religious Disagreement and Pluralism PDF

Author: Matthew A. Benton

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-11-25

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0192589695

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Epistemological questions about the significance of disagreement have advanced alongside broader developments in social epistemology concerning testimony, the nature of expertise and epistemic authority, the role of institutions, group belief, and epistemic injustice, among others. During this period, related issues in the epistemology of religion have re-emerged as worthy of new consideration, and available to be situated with new conceptual tools. Does disagreement between, and within, religions challenge the rationality of religious commitment? How should religious adherents think about exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist frameworks as applied to religious truth, or to matters of salvation or redemption or liberation? This volume explores many of these issues at the intersection of the epistemology of disagreement and religious epistemology. It engages in careful reflection on religious diversity and disagreement, offering ways to balance epistemic humility with personal conviction. Recognizing the place of religious differences in our social lives, it provides renewed efforts at how best to think about truths concerning religion.

A Theology of Disagreement

A Theology of Disagreement PDF

Author: Christopher Landau

Publisher: SCM Press

Published: 2021-05-31

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0334060478

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Even the most casual contemporary observer of Christianity must recognise that the notion of Christian community being identifiable through the mutual love of its members (John 13:35) is difficult to reconcile with the schismatic reality of current ecclesial life. Nonetheless, disagreement remains an ethical subject neglected by theologians. A Theology of Disagreement: New Testament Ethics for Ecclesial Conflicts examines how New Testament texts inform Christian approaches to disagreement. Drawing on New Testament themes, the book explores the nature of an ethic of disagreement, and its practical implications for the church’s public theological witness, as well as its liturgy