Liverpool, United Kingdom

Theology, Philosophy and Religion

Master's
Language: EnglishStudies in English
Subject area: humanities
Qualification: MA
Kind of studies: part-time studies
Master of Arts (MA)
University website: www.hope.ac.uk
Philosophy
Philosophy (from Greek φιλοσοφία, philosophia, literally "love of wisdom") is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was probably coined by Pythagoras (c. 570–495 BCE). Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation. Classic philosophical questions include: Is it possible to know anything and to prove it? What is most real? Philosophers also pose more practical and concrete questions such as: Is there a best way to live? Is it better to be just or unjust (if one can get away with it)? Do humans have free will?
Religion
There is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. It may be defined as a cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, world views, texts, sanctified places, prophesies, ethics, or organizations, that claims to relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental, or spiritual elements.
Theology
Theology is the critical study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries.
Religion
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
Edmund Burke, A Vindication of Natural Society (1756) Preface. Vol. I. p. 7.
Philosophy
Why should not grave Philosophy be styled?
Herself, a dreamer of a kindred stock,
A dreamer, yet more spiritless and dull?
William Wordsworth, The Excursion, Book III. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 596-97.
Theology
If complex organisms demand an explanation, so does a complex designer. And it's no solution to raise the theologian's plea that God (or the Intelligent Designer) is simply immune to the normal demands of scientific explanation. To do so would be to shoot yourself in the foot. You cannot have it both ways. Either ID belongs in the science classroom, in which case it must submit to the discipline required of a scientific hypothesis. Or it does not, in which case get it out of the science classroom and send it back into the church, where it belongs.
The Guardian, "One side can be wrong", 1 September 2005.
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