Introduction to Philosophy

EDITORSBeau Branson (Book Editor) did his PhD in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame under Richard Cross. His research focuses on the philosophy of the early Church Fathers and lies at the intersection of ancient history, contemporary metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. He is currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Brescia University in Owensboro, KY.

Christina Hendricks (Series Editor) is a Professor of Teaching in Philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada, where she often teaches Introduction to Philosophy courses. She is also the Academic Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology (2018-2023), a BCcampus Open Textbook Fellow, an OER Research Fellow with the Open Education Group, the Creative Commons Canada representative to the CC Global Network, and a member of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Legal Information Institute.

AUTHORS
Beau Branson (see above, under "Editors")

Marcus William Hunt is a PhD candidate in philosophy at Tulane University. His research interests include the philosophy of the emotions, a topic that ranges over philosophy of mind and philosophy of religion, as well as the philosophy of the family, which ranges over applied ethics and social philosophy.

Timothy Knepper is Professor of Philosophy at Drake University, where he directs The Comparison Project, a public program in global, comparative religion and local, lived religion. He is the author of books on the future of the philosophy of religion (The Ends of Philosophy of Religion, Palgrave, 2013) and Dionysius the Areopagite (Negating Negation, Wipf & Stock, 2014). He has also edited student-written photo-narratives about religion in Des Moines, Iowa and in Beijing, China as well as The Comparison Project's lecture and dialogue series on ineffability and on death and dying.

Robert Sloan Lee did his undergraduate work at the University of North Texas in Denton and his graduate work in philosophy (MA and PhD) at Wayne State University in Detroit. He now lives in Texas with his wife Elizabeth and daughter Brighton. His areas of academic interest and research include philosophy of religion, science and religion, epistemology, and the works of Plato, Boethius, Anselm, George Berkeley, David Hume, and Brand B

Where did the universe come from? Is life a result of chance, or design? If God is loving and all-powerful, why does evil still exist? Is religious belief just a byproduct of undirected evolutionary processes? Or did God make sure humans would evolve in such a way as to believe? Are philosophers closed-minded about religion? And why is so much of philosophy of religion about God-but not about gods?

Introduction to Philosophy: Philosophy of Religion introduces students to some of the major traditional arguments for and against the existence of God. It also includes discussions of some less well-known, but thought-provoking arguments for the existence of God, and one of the most important new challenges to religious belief from the Cognitive Science of Religion. An introductory chapter traces the deep interconnections between philosophy and religion throughout Western history, and a final chapter considers what place there is for non-Western and non-monotheistic religions within contemporary philosophy of religion.

Whatever your religious beliefs-or lack of beliefs-we think you will find many of the arguments in this book fascinating to think about, and useful starting points for deeper philosophical discussions.