Interesting! The way you frame the question, it appears you may be assuming that explaining an event in terms of God is only feasible if all other explanations (that we know about or can imagine) are exhausted / untenable. I suggest that a lower standard of evidence may be fitting --for the record, contemporary philosophers rarely appeal to proofs, and thus "standard of proof"; the concern, rather, is with good or bad arguments. Allow me to change your example slightly: let's imagine that many of the contemporary theistic arguments establish good grounds to believe that there is a maximally excellent, omnipresent, omnipresent Creator and sustainer of the cosmos (imagine, for example, that some version of the ontological, cosmological, teleological arguments, the argument from fine-tuning and arguments from the emergence of consciousness are credible) and that vast numbers of persons (maybe even over half the world's population) report having experiences in which they feel called to be just and...

I could be wrong, but I believe that few philosophers today would claim that causation (per se) can be eliminated in an adequate description and explanation of the world. Indeed, it would be hard to understand our communicating right now (my intentionally responding to you, using computational mechanisms) without making use of cause-effect relations. There are abundant philosophical treatments of causation ranging from those that appeal to laws of nature, counterfactuals, Humean regularities.... I myself favor the idea that causation is best not understood as fundamentally involving laws of nature; I suggest that what we think of as laws of nature are abstractions that rest on substances (things / particles) that have primitive or basic causal powers and liabilities, but this (like so many things in philosophy) is controversial. There are still defenders of the cosmological argument for theism. You might look at what I think is the excellent entry on the cosmological argument in the free online...

Interesting. I suppose that if "spiritually" is understood very broadly to mean something like having reverence, care, respect, an appreciation for some things being sacred like promise-keeping, honesty or respecting the integrity of others, then perhaps spirituality of this general sort might be essential (by definition) for trusting and respectful relationships. On religion: some religious traditions (or traditions within the traditions, e.g. orthodox Judaism as opposed to liberal or reform Judaism) discourage practitioners / "believers" to marry outside "the faith" or the practice or the tradition, but "mixed marriages" (and thus relationships) seem more common. On atheism: "Atheism" may be variously defined; minimally it might mean either someone who makes the positive judgement that there is no God or someone who simply does not believe there is a God. The difference is subtle and may make no practical difference, but the former "atheist" goes on record (so to speak) in affirming there is no...

These days, there are very few substantial claims (God exists, there are objectively true ethical values, utilitarianism is superior to Kantian ethics, everything is physical, etc) that philosophers would claim to be able to prove (or disprove). We instead refer to there being good or bad reasons or arguments for various positions, sometimes ranking these reasons and arguments as persuasive / cogent / even compelling versus unpersuasive / weak/ confused, etc.... It would be very hard to come up with a percentage of philosophers living today (or throughout history) who have thought that there are strong reasons for recognizing the reality of God; such a task would also need to take seriously the different concepts of God that philosophers have explored and affirmed. I am a theist (believe God exists) and believe that there are good grounds for theism, while at the same time recognizing that there are good reasons for atheism, agnosticism, and embracing different concepts of the divine. For a good...

I am not entirely clear about the question, exactly. If "philosophical ethics"means ethics (either ethical theories or specific ethical positions) that are supported by philosophical theories or reasons, then many such theories and reasons may be consistent with different religious beliefs and practices. For example, Christian philosophers have adopted or worked with utilitarianism (some of the first utilitarians in modern philosophy were theists, pre-dating Jeremy Bentham), Kantians; they have advocated natural law, intuitionism, moral particularism, and so on. You might have in mind, however, ethical positions that are advocated by particular kinds of philosophers such as those who are deeply committed to secularism. In such a case, a Christian philosopher like John Hare (currently at Yale University) who defends a divine command theory of ethics (defended also by C. Stephen Evans, Baylor University) is not at all going to be compatible with the moral theory of non-theists (atheists or agnostics),...

Philosophers have differed on whether belief in an all good, just, powerful, loving God has an important role in living morally --Kant, famously, contended that a practical faith in a just, powerful God was essential in making sense of the moral law, but there are many philosophers who approach ethics without an appeal to a supernatural or overall cosmic vision of justice. In any case, let me offer a line of reasoning you and your girlfriend might consider. If she wants to marry a Christian man, it is probable she wants to marry someone who lives out a life of the virtues that are associated with (or are integral to) Christian values such as honesty, compassion, love of neighbor, fidelity... As an agnostic about theism (belief in God) perhaps you are not an agnostic about the central importance of love of neighbor and the world (what a Christian might think of as creation), and it may be that you might actually be more of a Christian (in terms of what you actually value) that someone who self...

Interesting question. During the medieval period, philosophical work was done on many subjects that might be assessed independent of religious convictions on the theory of truth, different accounts of human and animal nature, logic, ethics, the constitution of the world (or reality) but much of that work (and other work that is explicitly religious involving natural and revealed theology) was carried out with one eye on the religious implication of the views at hand. For example, philosophers who were observant Jews, Christians, and Muslim might craft different accounts of human nature influence by Plato and Aristotle while also considering which account would allow for the possibility (or promise) of a dynamic individual afterlife for persons.

You might have already identified the term you are looking for: a theory or position that is immune to falsification might simply be referred to as unfalsifiable. There is an informal term that is sometimes used to refer to a philosophy that does not allow for any (conceivable) challenge: all the wells are poisoned. In other words, there is no access to untainted counter-evidence or arguments. I suggest that a plausible case of this is the thesis that all human action is self-interested (directly or indirectly). This position is sometimes advanced with a definition of "self-interest" that makes it virtually impossible to describe a counter-example (people sacrificing their lives for others that seem profoundly non-self-interested can be readily re-described as even selfish). On sacred scripture, however, I think we are exploring a somewhat different matter. First, in most world religions that have sacred scripture, their meaning is often understood as living (this is the term Christians use) and...

I will try to resist this reply: that depends on what you mean by "religious" and "moral." But definitions do matter, and I will not be able to avoid appealing to definitions. If you have a very broad definition of "religious" according to which being religious involves reverence, caring about what is sacred, being consistent (as when someone might say of an athlete that "she works-out religiouslyl") and if "morality" includes such elements, then, yes, there is an important (at least) intersection between being religious and being moral. But if by "religious" one means that one adheres to religious traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam.... then most philosophers have not thought that being religious is essential for being moral. In fact, many religious thinkers (theologians or sages) have insisted that morality (both the awareness of what is moral and the ability to live a moral life) is available for persons in general independent of one's religious beliefs and...

I believe that if one's education in public school did not include some attention the world religions (a study of their history, teachings), then one's education would be profoundly incomplete. I think that it would be impossible to claim to be well educated in the history of Europe, the near and middle East, Asia, the Americas, Africa without some knowledge of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. One might be well educated in math, physics, chemistry, biology without such a background, but once one comes to terms with history, culture, art, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, psychology, medicine... I propose that it would be very difficult to avoid "a brief history of the principles [and history] of the world religions." You asked about the principles of philosophers as well as religion and, on that point, I also think it would be hard to claim to be well educated without some exposure to the philosophical principles that underlie a culture's history and governance. In my country,...