Prohibition of Religious Ambiguity Essay -- Philosphical Lawfulness, Ag

William crowds rivalryWilliam James argues that freethinkerism is not a valid choice to make. He opens his argument with the conjecture that voluntarily adopted faith abides by philosophic lawfulness (74). He builds from this by defining a hypothesis as anything that may be proposed to...belief and it may be every live or late(prenominal) in quality. A life hypothesis is one that appeals as a real possibility. The quality of being live or dead is not an intrinsic property. Instead, they are relations to the individual thinker metrical by...willingness to act. James defines an option as a decision between two hypotheses which may be 1) living or dead, 2) forced or avoidable, and 3) significant or bantam (75). An option may be genuine if it is live, forced, and momentous. Jamess next move is to show that scientific questions are trivial options with dead hypotheses and are avoidable, unlike the religious question. He shows this by inquisitive whether or not it matters if we have particular scientific theories or scientific beliefs. He conjectures that it makes no difference in these instances. James summarizesScience says things are morality says some things are better than other things and religion says...1) the better(p) things are the more eternal things,...and 2) we are better off even out now if we believe 1 (76).James suggests that the religious hypothesis is forced and momentous therefore, for those who religion is a live hypothesis, it is a genuine option. Hence, James concludes that he cannot accept the agnostic endures for truthseeking because any rule of thinking which would absolutely baffle us from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule (77). U... ...onal decision --just like deciding yes or no,-- and is attended with the same chance of losing the truth (75). Hence, every individuals hand is forced in making a decision regarding the religious hypothesis. One must ei ther believe in the eternal or believe in the worldly because there is no in between option. According to James, if and when someone identifies with an agnostic philosophy, he or she is not choosing ambiguity, he or she is ultimately choosing incredulity of the religious hypothesis and will be subject to the same consequences of distrust if the religious hypothesis is sound. Therefore, according to Jamess argument, agnosticism is not philosophically lawful. Works CitedJames, W. (1896). The Will to Believe. In G. L. Bowie, M. W. Michaels, and R. C. Solomon (Eds.), Twenty Questions An Introduction to ism (74-78). Boston, MA Wadsworth.