Important Topics

1. 0riginal Sin Saint Augustine.

The traditional story of original sin
God originally made a perfect world. He created Adam and put him to live in the Garden of
Eden - a blissful place where he had nothing to do but take care of the garden. God told
Adam that he could do anything he wanted, except eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil.
Later, God created Eve to be Adam's wife. Eve was tricked by the serpent into eating the
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of life and death. She gave some of the fruit to Adam and
he ate it too
God next visited the Garden he realised that they had disobeyed him. God banished them
from the Garden of Eden into the harsh world outside. God also banned them from eating
the fruit of the tree of life, and so death entered the world.

Adam's sin affects everyone

Augustine developed the following argument:

 the whole essence of human nature was contained in Adam, the first man
 when Adam disobeyed God, the whole of human nature disobeyed God
 thus the whole of human nature became sinful
 thus the whole human race was damaged for all time.

Augustine's theory
We do not say that God is the author of evil, and yet we can correctly say that human beings
are born evil as a result of the bond of original sin with God alone as their creator. —St
Augustine
Augustine saw original sin as working in two ways:

 inherited guilt for a crime

 spiritual sickness or weakness
Augustine thought that humanity was originally perfect ("man's nature was created at first
faultless and without any sin"), immortal and blessed with many talents, but that Adam and
Eve disobeyed God, and introduced sin and death to the world.
 Augustine held that the effects of Adam's sin are transmitted to his descendants not by
example but by the very fact of generation from that ancestor. A wounded nature comes to
the soul and body of the new person from his/her parents, Augustine's view was that
human procreation was the way the transmission was being affected.
Cure For Original Sin
Some believe that human beings can't cure themselves of original sin. The only way they
can be saved from its consequences is by the grace of God.
The only way people can receive God's grace is by accepting his love and forgiveness,
believing that Jesus Christ died on the cross to redeem their sins, and getting baptized
and after Jesus the original sin concept came to an end.

2. Empiricist and rationalist view of human nature

Rationalist
Rationalism is a reliance on reason as the only reliable source of human knowledge. A
psychological characterization of rationalism would describe it as an overly deductive way
of thinking and to the molding of reality to fit one's theoretical understanding.

More specifically, rationalism is the epistemological theory that significant knowledge of

the world can best be achieved by a priori means; it therefore stands in contrast
to empiricism.

The first philosophers who are today referred to as having been rationalists include
Descartes (1596-1650), Leibniz (1646-1716), and Spinoza (1632-1677). The defense of
science offered by Descartes included a form of dualism that carried over elements of
tradition of the scholastics in a form of thinking that is technical, deductive, and abstract.
Rationalism is a method of thinking that is marked by being a deductive and abstract way
of reasoning.

In ordinary usage rationalism is a basic sense of respect for reason or to refer to the idea
that reason should play a large role in human life (in contrast, say, to mysticism).

Empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is a theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily
from sensory experience. It is one of several views of epistemology, the study of human
knowledge, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empiricism emphasizes the role of
empirical evidence in the formation of ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions.
However, empiricists may argue that traditions (or customs) arise due to relations of
previous sense experiences. Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence,
especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method
that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world
rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation. Empiricism, often
used by natural scientists, says that "knowledge is based on experience" and that
"knowledge is tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification".
Empirical research, including experiments and validated measurement tools, guides the
scientific method.

3. Darwin challenge
Theory of Evolution:
Darwin's Theory of Evolution is the widely held notion that all life is related and has
descended from a common ancestor: the birds and the bananas, the fishes and the flowers -
- all related. Darwin's general theory presumes the development of life from non-life and
stresses a purely naturalistic (undirected) "descent with modification". That is, complex
creatures evolve from more simplistic ancestors naturally over time. In a nutshell, as
random genetic mutations occur within an organism's genetic code, the beneficial
mutations are preserved because they aid survival -- a process known as "natural
selection." These beneficial mutations are passed on to the next generation. Over time,
beneficial mutations accumulate and the result is an entirely different organism (not just a
variation of the original, but an entirely different creature).

Monotheism Challenge

Darwinian thinking appeared to contradict the notion, central to Christianity, Jews and
Muslim faiths, that man had a special, God-given place in the natural order. Instead,
proponents of evolution pointed to signs in human anatomy – remnants of a tailbone, for
instance – showing common ancestry with other mammals.

Finally, the idea of a benevolent God who cared for his creation was seemingly challenged
by Darwin’s depiction of the natural world as a savage and cruel place Darwin’s theory
challenged the idea that the natural world existed in benevolent harmony. Darwin’s ideas
provoked a harsh and immediate response from religious leaders in Britain. For instance,
England’s highest-ranking Catholic official, Henry Cardinal Manning, denounced Darwin’s
views as “a brutal philosophy – to wit, there is no God, and the ape is our Adam.”

Scientific Challenge

Darwin had expected no less – fear of a backlash from Britain’s religious and even scientific
establishment had been the primary reason he had delayed publicizing his ideas. Yet the
concept of species adaptation was not so radical at the time. Scientists had been debating
whether animals evolved decades before Darwin put forth his theory. The idea of
“transmutation of species” had been rejected by many prominent naturalists, among them
French scientist Georges Cuvier, who believed that species had been created much as they
appeared in his day. But transmutation also had early champions, including Darwin’s
grandfather, the famed Birmingham physician Erasmus Darwin.

4. Theory of art idealistic and realistic

Idealistic
Idealistic art is secondary value. Plato conceived a world in which eternal ideas constituted
reality, of which the ordinary world of experience is a shadow. Idealism, Plato argued that
all things have a universal form, which could be either a property or a relation to other
things. When we look at an apple, for example, we see an apple, and we can also analyse a
form of an apple. In this distinction, there is a particular apple and a universal form of an
apple. Plato argued that there are some universal forms that are not a part of particular
things. For example, it is possible that there is no particular good in existence, but "good" is
still a proper universal form.

Realistic
Aristotle disagreed with Plato on this point, arguing that all universals are instantiated at
some period of time, and that there are no universals that are unattached to existing things.
In addition, Aristotle disagreed with Plato about the location of universals. Aristotle
maintained that universals exist within each thing on which each universal is predicated.
So, according to Aristotle, the form of apple exists within each apple, rather than in the
world of the forms

5. Existence of God. At least 3 argument

God exists or not? It is one of the most important philosophical questions there is. The
existence of God looks like truth to the believers and non-believers do not believe that.
There are many arguments for and against the existence of God. However, different
philosophers believe in different aspects. Philosopher like Kant believed in existence of
God, although he was against church practice.

Arguments of Existence of God

Existence of god however have been thoroughly discussed and argued by different
philosophers and different aspects.

 Cosmological argument
Everything that exists must have a cause of itself. The universe must have a cause.
Nothing can be the cause of itself. Something outside the universe must have caused
the universe. God is the only thing that is outside of the universe. God caused the
universe. God exists.
 The designer argument
All the complicated parts of a watch that allow it to keep time, we know that they
had a designer who designed them with a function in mind; they are too improbable
to have arisen by random physical processes. Organs of living things such as eye and
a heart, cohere only because they have a function. These things have not had a
human designer. Therefore, these things must have had a non human designer, God
is the designer, God exists.
 Pascal wager argument
The “believe” option in Pascal’s wager can be divided into way ways. One is that the
wagerer genuinely has to believe, deep down, that God exists; in other words it is
not enough to mouth a creed, or merely act as if God exists. According to this
interpretation, God, if He exists, can peer into a person’s soul and discern the
persons’s actual convictions. If so, the kind of “belief” that Pascal’s wager advises a
purely pragmatic strategy.

Conclusion
From the above arguments we can say that even philosophers believe that God exists,
however a few denies. But for philosophers like Kant and Pascal God does exist.

6. Postmodern philosophy key themes.

Postmodernism
There are basically three ways that people use the term “postmodernism”:

 first, to describe a specific era, sometimes dated from the end of World War II but
more frequently starting as late as the 1970s
 second, to describe a body of philosophical ideas and critical studies that date back
to the late 1960s with such poststructuralist thinkers as Michel Foucault, but then in
the 1970s and 1980s comes to include a whole series of different analyses involving
language and symbolic systems that utilizes some of the insights of these earlier
poststructuralist thinkers
 and, finally, a whole body of different artistic works that makes reference to or
embodies the ideas promoted by the above thinkers.

Themes of P.M
1. Relativism
2. Rejection of science
3. Multiculturalism
4. Hyper reality
5. Virtual reality
6. Cyber space
7. Intertextuality

 Cyber Space
Cyberspace is widespread, interconnected digital technology. The term entered the
popular culture from science fiction and the arts but is now used by technology
strategists, security professionals, and government.
Cyberspace's core feature is an interactive and virtual environment for a broad
range of participants.
Cyberspace allows users to share information, interact, swap ideas, play games,
engage in discussions or social forums, conduct business and create intuitive media,
among many other activities. The term cyberspace was initially introduced by
William Gibson in his 1984 book, “Neuromancer.”