Theme C

• Aj Ayer - the world is perfect because that is all we know
• Aquinas - 'it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, moved by no other; and this everyone understands to be God'
• David Hume - 'The world is very faulty and imperfect... and was only the first essay of some deity, who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performace'
• Flew - 'Religious experiences are interpreted in terms of our background and upbringings. Hence, people in Britain tend to become Christians.' 'This is due to their background rather than anything supernatural'
• Gottfried Leibnitz - 'why is there something rather than nothing'
• Maurice Wiles - God is either partisan or arbitrary
• Wiles - 'miracles cannot happen'
• Richard Dawkins - 'These experiences may seem impressive, but they are the result of ideas that reproduce easily upon our brains. They are a virus of the mind'
• Richard Swinburne - Principle of Testimony and Principle of Credulity
• Schwarzenburg - 'if the universe were different in any significant way, we wouldn't be here to wonder why it is the way it is'
• Sigman Freud - 'As with all religious experiences, these events are hallucinations.' 'Just like our dreams, these hallucinations are produced by our subconcious'
• William James - take it seriously, religious experiences happen to so many people all around the world, they change lives
• Wittgenstein - religious experiences have meaning for those who interpret them, something meaning full happened to them, it may seem crazy but it is their way of understanding
• Vedas - 'lead me from the unreal to the real'
• Pslam 19 - 'the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands'