Assignment: Can you answer

Once you have completed the unit on philosophy of religion, you will be ready to respond to an article written by an actual
atheist in a research paper.  This article, titled “On Being an
Atheist,” was written by H. J. McCloskey in 1968 for the journal Question.  In this article, McCloskey is both critical of the classical arguments for
God’s existence and offers the problem of evil as a reason why one should not
believe in God.

Your
assignment is to read McCloskey’s short article and respond to each of the
questions below. The basis for your
answers should primarily come from the resources provided in the lessons
covering the Philosophy of Religion unit of the course — Evans, Craig, Dr. Foreman’s two video
PointeCast presentations “Arguments for God’s Existence” and “Approaching the Question of God’s Existence,” which is the material that is covered in the Study Guide’s for Lessons 17 & 18.  Included in this material from Dr. Foreman is the very important article from Dr. William Lane Craig on “The Absurdity of Life Without God,” which can be found in the Reading and Study section ofWeek/Module 6 in Course Content.

Below I have provided five (5) questions that you must answer within your paper to properly respond to McCloskey.  I have also directed you to exactly where you can find the correct answers in our course materials.  I have literally even provided the exact page numbers and the two PointeCast Presentations & Study Guides (17 & 18)in the course materials to save you time and eliminate frustration.  I want you to be able to do your very best on this paper by focusing all your energies on thinking, analyzing, and writing.

The five (5) questions serve to provide you with an outline to organize your paper around.  Your answers to them will provide the material that will serve as
the body of your paper.  You are not merely to quote these sources as an
answer to the question(s) – answer in your own words. When it is essential to
confirm and support your argument with a quote, of course you must do so.  Although you are allowed
to appeal to outside sources, you ONLY need to quote from the course materials.  Frankly most plagiarism occurs when students use the Internet rather than just sticking to the course materials, which is all you need if you use them properly.

All quotes and paraphrases
must be properly documented, using
 Turabian or Chicago Manual of Style  preferred.  But you may use APA  or  MLA  style formatting, just use them properly.  There must be quotes from the course materials to properly support your arguments, and don’t forget to quote McCloskey and reference him as well.  All of the course materials MUST be included in a Bibliography  or  Works Cited  page that comes as a separate page at the end of your paper.

Note
that we take plagiarism very seriously! All papers are automatically run
through  SafeAssign  to detect plagiarism. Any violations are awarded a grade
of F, or 0 points and could result in failing the class.

Remember, this Response
Paper is to be a minimum of 1500 words (approximately six pages of 250 words each), and should
be written as a single essay and  not just a list of answers to
questions .

You may be critical of McCloskey, but you must remain
respectful.  The purpose of this paper is to provide a philosophical response to McCloskey, NOT a theological or Biblical one.  The best papers are written in third person and directed to McCloskey, who as an atheist will not accept the theological and Biblical positions that most of us would listen to.  So, since you are writing to answer an atheist philosophically (and this class is a philosophy course), if you include theology, the Bible, or person testimony you will not do well.  I love the Bible and theology and I love personal testimony—but this is NOT the place for it.  This paper is for you to demonstrate that you have understood the course materials and can integrate the relevant ideas into a well reasoned argument in response to a well known atheist.

If you want to properly answer McCloskey and do well on this paper you will need to provide a detailed response to
each of the five (5) questions below.  Remember, I have also directed you to exactly where you will find the correct answers to these five (5) questions from within the course materials so that you can properly provide a detailed response to each question.

Assignment Can you answer

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Again, this assignment isn’t designed to see if you are capable of independent philosophical thought and come up with answers on your own or from the Bible.  This assignment is designed to see if you can assimilate and integrate philosophical concepts into a cogent and coherent response to important philosophical questions posed by McCloskey.  Your written response should be properly formatted as a university level research paper following the writing style of Turabian/CMS, which is the proper style (but I will allow APA or MLA) for philosophy papers.

In your paper,
you should address the following five (5) questions:

1. McCloskey refers to the arguments as
“proofs” and often implies that they can’t definitively establish the case
for God, so therefore they should be abandoned. What would you say about this in light of
the comments on the approaches to the arguments in the video presentations “Arguments for God’s Existence” and “Approaching the Question of God’s Existence,” and the material that is covered in the Study Guide’s for Lessons 17 & 18?  The video “Arguments for God’s Existence” presents the Best Explanation Approach, the Cumulative Case Approach, and the Minimalistic Concept of God approach.  These approaches are crucial to organizing all the information in this paper.  The video “Approaching the Question of God’s Existence” details and expands on the Best Explanation Approach and is incredibly helpful and will help you understand how to answer McCloskey’s arguments.

Important information for writing discussion questions and participation

Hi Class,

Please read through the following information on writing a Discussion question response and participation posts.

Contact me if you have any questions.

Important information on Writing a Discussion Question

• Your response needs to be a minimum of 150 words (not including your list of references)
• There needs to be at least TWO references with ONE being a peer reviewed professional journal article.
• Include in-text citations in your response
• Do not include quotes—instead summarize and paraphrase the information
• Follow APA-7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

Participation –replies to your classmates or instructor

• A minimum of 6 responses per week, on at least 3 days of the week.
• Each response needs at least ONE reference with citations—best if it is a peer reviewed journal article
• Each response needs to be at least 75 words in length (does not include your list of references)
• Responses need to be substantive by bringing information to the discussion or further enhance the discussion. Responses of “I agree” or “great post” does not count for the word count.
• Follow APA 7th edition
• Points will be deducted if the above is not followed

• Remember to use and follow APA-7th edition for all weekly assignments, discussion questions, and participation points.
• Here are some helpful links
• Student paper example
• Citing Sources
• The Writing Center is a great resource

Welcome to class

Hello class and welcome to the class and I will be your instructor for this course. This is a -week course and requires a lot of time commitment, organization, and a high level of dedication. Please use the class syllabus to guide you through all the assignments required for the course. I have also attached the classroom policies to this announcement to know your expectations for this course. Please review this document carefully and ask me any questions if you do. You could email me at any time or send me a message via the “message” icon in halo if you need to contact me. I check my email regularly, so you should get a response within 24 hours. If you have not heard from me within 24 hours and need to contact me urgently, please send a follow up text to.

I strongly encourage that you do not wait until the very last minute to complete your assignments. Your assignments in weeks 4 and 5 require early planning as you would need to present a teaching plan and interview a community health provider. I advise you look at the requirements for these assignments at the beginning of the course and plan accordingly. I have posted the YouTube link that explains all the class assignments in detail. It is required that you watch this 32-minute video as the assignments from week 3 through 5 require that you follow the instructions to the letter to succeed. Failure to complete these assignments according to instructions might lead to a zero. After watching the video, please schedule a one-on-one with me to discuss your topic for your project by the second week of class. Use this link to schedule a 15-minute session. Please, call me at the time of your appointment on my number. Please note that I will NOT call you.

Please, be advised I do NOT accept any assignments by email. If you are having technical issues with uploading an assignment, contact the technical department and inform me of the issue. If you have any issues that would prevent you from getting your assignments to me by the deadline, please inform me to request a possible extension. Note that working fulltime or overtime is no excuse for late assignments. There is a 5%-point deduction for every day your assignment is late. This only applies to approved extensions. Late assignments will not be accepted.

If you think you would be needing accommodations due to any reasons, please contact the appropriate department to request accommodations.

Plagiarism is highly prohibited. Please ensure you are citing your sources correctly using APA 7th edition. All assignments including discussion posts should be formatted in APA with the appropriate spacing, font, margin, and indents. Any papers not well formatted would be returned back to you, hence, I advise you review APA formatting style. I have attached a sample paper in APA format and will also post sample discussion responses in subsequent announcements.

Your initial discussion post should be a minimum of 200 words and response posts should be a minimum of 150 words. Be advised that I grade based on quality and not necessarily the number of words you post. A minimum of TWO references should be used for your initial post. For your response post, you do not need references as personal experiences would count as response posts. If you however cite anything from the literature for your response post, it is required that you cite your reference. You should include a minimum of THREE references for papers in this course. Please note that references should be no more than 5 years old except recommended as a resource for the class. Furthermore, for each discussion board question, you need ONE initial substantive response and TWO substantive responses to either your classmates or your instructor for a total of THREE responses. There are TWO discussion questions each week, hence, you need a total minimum of SIX discussion posts for each week. I usually post a discussion question each week. You could also respond to these as it would count towards your required SIX discussion posts for the week.

I understand this is a lot of information to cover in 5 weeks, however, the Bible says in Philippians 4:13 that we can do all things through Christ that strengthens us. Even in times like this, we are encouraged by God’s word that we have that ability in us to succeed with His strength. I pray that each and every one of you receives strength for this course and life generally as we navigate through this pandemic that is shaking our world today. Relax and enjoy the course!