Christian Idealism

Note: This was originally written back in early 2021 on the worldview design training center. For that reason I do not agree with all of the arguments put forward (even though I still agree with the conclusion). Furthermore, I do not think Simplicity *on its own* has any relevance for increasing probability (even intrinsic & prior probability) see this video  on why. But I still think it can be a way for certain theist of the idealist type to argue for theism's simplicity as a theory.  By: Kyle Alander One of the most important debates in the philosophy of religion is in regards to Simplicity. Of course there are different kinds of simplicity (Ontological & Syntactical) I want to focus on more Ontological simplicity as that has been the one preferred by naturalists to argue against Theism. Philosophers such as Robert Koons and Richard Swinburne use syntactical simplicity to argue that Theism is simpler than Naturalism (since Theism has the least amount of fundam

Note: This was the very first philosophy paper I wrote as a semester final in community college. It was in my introduction to philosophy course that I took back in 2021. So while I agree with what is said in this paper it is far far  inferior to the methodology I now adopt, one can learn a lot in 2 years. Anyways even though I don't fully endorse the methodology and arguments employed here I still want to share it. Enjoy!  By: Kyle Alander Theism vs Naturalism I will propose a way to make progress on the question of God's existence. I will begin by laying out limitations of traditional approaches in terms of giving deductive or inductive arguments for or against the existence of God. Then I will show the problems with framing theism as if it is adding into naturalistic commitments. Finally, I will seek to show that theism enjoys certain theoretical virtues that naturalist rivals lack. My purpose is not to decisively show that theism is true, but to illustrate a stra

Note: This is a revised version of two articles I wrote in the worldview design training center back in early 2021. This is a conjunction of those two articles. I am currently not an idealist in the contemporary sense. I am agnostic on the question about what is the best theory of consciousness and I do not share all the opinions expressed. However I still do believe that idealism has a lot going for it as a theory of mind.  By: Kyle Alander What is a person? Seems simple enough right? Well the more you think about it the more strange persons become. However I think the proper way to think of a person is in terms of what we would call a mind. A mind is capable of thinking, making decisions and feeling different things. In fact if you're reading this then you have a mind and have experience.  Minds are very strange because they have emotions, thoughts, hopes, and feelings but yet we can conceive of a world with no emotions no thoughts no hopes and no feelings. We can co

Note: This article was originally posted in the worldview design training center back in January of 2021, so it does not fully represent my current thoughts on the subject of fine tuning and how theism explains it (I think better objections to fine tuning exist in the literature and there are better ways to cash out how fine tuning favors theism). But I think it still provides a reasonable response to Oppys specific objection  By: Kyle Alander One of the things I have been thinking deeply on is Graham Oppy's objections to the fine tuning argument. Probably the most powerful one from him is an objection he presents in his book " The best argument against God " he presents a dilemma in this way " If we are comparing (i) a view that says that it is a brute fact that parameters take a value from a given range with (ii) a view that says that parameters were chosen to take a value from the same range, but it is simply a brute fact that this particular choice wa