Religion and friendly fire : examining assumptions in contemporary philosophy of religion : the Vonhoff lectures and seminars, University of Groningen, 1999-2000

In locating friendly fire in contemporary philosophy of religion, D.Z. Phillips shows that more harm can be done to religion by its philosophical defenders than by its philosophical despisers. Friendly fire is the result of an uncritical acceptance of empiricism, and Phillips argues that we need to examine critically the claims that individual consciousness is the necessary starting point from which we have to argue: for the existence of an external world and the reality of God; that God is a person without a body, a pure consciousness; and that to assent to a religious belief is essentially to assign a truth value to a proposition independent of any confessional context. When these products of friendly fire are avoided, we arrive at a new understanding of belief, trust and the soul, and refuse to say more or less than we know about the realities of human life in the service of religious apologetics. "Friendly fire" is the result of an uncritical acceptance of empiricism and Phillips argues that we need to critically examine the claims that individual consciousness is the necessary starting point from which we have to argue: for the existence of an external world and the reality of God; that God is a person without a body, a pure consciousness; and that to assent to a religious belief is essentially to assign a truth value to a proposition independent of any confessional context. When these products of friendly fire are avoided, we arrive at a new understanding of belief, trust, the soul, and refuse to say more or less than we know about the realities of human life in the service of religious apologetics Nine chapters based on the Vonhoff Lectures and Seminars Phillips (philosophy of religion, Claremont Graduate U. and emeritus U. of Wales-Swansea) delivered at the University of Groningen in 1999/2000, are not separate or self-contained essays, he says, but interlocking parts of a single treatise. In the first four, he examines and criticizes assumptions that go deep in contemporary philosophy of religion but which he considers problematic. In the remaining chapters, he explores the implications of these assumptions for some key religious concepts and beliefs. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR Why is this book for the philosophical friends of religion?