“Windows To Spirituality”
What Is Creationism? Creationism is the religious belief that the universe and life originated “from specific acts of divine creation“, as opposed to through natural processes, such as evolution. Creationism covers a spectrum of views including evolutionary creationism, but the term is commonly used for literal creationists who reject various aspects of...
Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the natural, physical, or material world or universe. “Nature” can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are part of nature,...
Nature In Philosophy Nature in philosophy has two inter-related meanings. On the one hand, it means the set of all things which are natural, or subject to the normal working of the laws of nature. On the other hand, it means the essential properties and causes of individual things. How to understand the meaning and significance...
What Is Science? Science (from the Latin word scientia, meaning “knowledge“) is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. The earliest roots of science can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3500 to 3000 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity,...
Religious Views On The Self Religious views on the self vary widely. The self is a complex and core subject in many forms of spirituality. In Western psychology, the concept of self comes from Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Carl Rogers where the self is the inner critic. Some Eastern philosophies reject the self as...
Annihilationism Annihilationism (extinctionism or destructionism) is the belief that those who are wicked will perish or be no more. It states that after the final judgment some human beings and all fallen angels (all of the damned) will be totally destroyed so as to not exist, or that their consciousness will be extinguished, rather than suffer everlasting...
Ethical Dualism Ethical dualism (ethos,”character”, “custom”, and Latin duo, “two”) refers to the practice of imputing evil entirely and exclusively to a specific group of people, while disregarding or denying one’s own capacity to commit evil. The consequence of such stance is the creation of an “Us” versus “Them”, thereby polarizing social configurations into extremes...
What Is Social Darwinism? Social Darwinism is any of various theories of society which emerged in the United Kingdom, North America, and Western Europe in the 1870s, claiming to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics. Social Darwinists argue that the strong should see...
Religious Skepticism Religious skepticism is a type of skepticism relating to religion. Religious skeptics question religious authority and are not necessarily anti-religious but skeptical of specific or all religious beliefs and/or practices. Socrates was one of the most prominent and first religious skeptics of whom there are records; he questioned...
What Is Causality? Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is what connects one process (the cause) with another process or state (the effect), where the first is partly responsible for the second, and the second is partly dependent on the first. In general, a process has many causes, which are said to be...
Materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness, are results of material interactions. In Idealism, mind and consciousness are first-order realities to which matter is subject and secondary. In philosophical materialism the converse is true....
Naturalism In Philosophy Naturalism in philosophy is the “idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world.” Adherents of naturalism (i.e., naturalists) assert that natural laws are the rules that govern the structure and behavior of the natural universe, that the changing universe at every stage...
Islamic Attitudes Towards Science This article covers Islamic attitudes towards science. Muslim scholars have developed a spectrum of viewpoints on science within the context of Islam. The Quran and Islam allow for much interpretation when it comes to science. Scientists of medieval Muslim civilization (e.g. Ibn al-Haytham) contributed to the new...
Christianity And Science This article covers the relationship between Christianity and science. Most sources of knowledge available to early Christians were connected to pagan worldviews. There were various opinions on how Christianity should regard pagan learning, which included its ideas about nature. For instance, among early Christian teachers, Tertullian (c....
Relationship Between Religion And Science Various aspects of the relationship between religion and science have been cited by modern historians of science and religion, philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others from various geographical regions and cultures. Even though the ancient and medieval worlds did not have conceptions resembling the modern understandings of “science”...
Problem Of Religious Language The problem of religious language considers whether it is possible to talk about God meaningfully if the traditional conceptions of God as being incorporeal, infinite, and timeless, are accepted. Because these traditional conceptions of God make it difficult to describe God, religious language has the potential to be meaningless. Theories...
Philosophy Of Religion Philosophy of religion is “the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions.” These sorts of philosophical discussion are ancient, and can be found in the earliest known manuscripts concerning philosophy. The field is related to many other branches of philosophy, including metaphysics,...
Philosophy Of Science Philosophy of science is a sub-field of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultimate purpose of science. This discipline overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between...
Science In The Medieval Islamic World Science in the medieval Islamic world was the science developed and practised during the Islamic Golden Age under the Umayyads of Córdoba, the Abbadids of Seville, the Samanids, the Ziyarids, the Buyids in Persia, the Abbasid Caliphate and beyond, spanning the period roughly between...
Religious And Philosophical Views Of Albert Einstein This article covers the religious and philosophical views of Albert Einstein in detail. Albert Einstein‘s religious views have been widely studied and often misunderstood. Einstein stated that he believed in the pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza. He did not believe in a personal God who concerns...
