Skip to main content

Interview on the problem of evil

There is a 15 minute interview (Nigel Warburton interviewing me) on the problem of evil and the existence of God available here.

It's an mp3. I understand it will also be available as an ipod download on itunes shortly...

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hello Stephen

I had the pleasure to listen to your discussion on the problem of evil at Philosophy Bites. I think it was a good move to use Epicures as a steppingstone for your later comments on how the argument pro an al good, all knowing and omnipotent God mirrors the argument pro an al evil, all knowing and so forth God hereby displaying how utterly unconvincing the argument is. This also displays I dare say the peculiar phenomenon of faith and demonstrates how unreflective it is.

To use Harold Blooms words from Omens of the Millennium: “If you can accept a God who coexists with death camps, schizophrenia, and AIDS, yet remains all-powerful and somehow benign, then you have faith.” For the modern critical thinker faith at this level seems incomprehensible but hey. I guess one could view faith as love for the incomprehensible or impossible. Still the question remains what on earth motivates people to develop and rely on such a faith?

Jan B.W. Pedersen, Frederiksberg, Denmark
Stephen Law said…
Thanks Jan. I have to say, I don't know the answer to your final questions. I wish I did. My suspicion is that there is a genetic component (as Dennett suggests).
jeremy said…
Wonderful! The arguments are brought home with such clarity that any carelessly-left cobwebs are swept away, and contradictory notions are disposed of. This really ought to be played at least once in every school!
Anonymous said…
Dennett might be on to something yet I think the vast majority of todays belivers have been brought up in - in lack of a better word a religious context. Asking critical questions about faith or religion is questening not only the truthvalue of the faith or religion but the value of ones culture, ones upbringing, ones parents and their way of life etc. My guess is that such questions in most cases would be met with severely liftet eyebrows and spawn a rather nasty family-atmosphere. Not all people have the courage to go against the stream and stand alone. I imagine that most people will rather live as happy pigs rather than as an unhappy Socrates.

Jan B.W.P.
PS! I can conform that one can download the interview from iTunes
Unknown said…
Hi Stephen,
I find the problem of evil irrelevent. It's Ockham's razor that trumps the problem of evil, not the other way round as you suggest in
http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentViewArticle.asp?article=1475.

I wanted to make a quick point, but it became a rant, so I've put it here:
http://ronmurp.blogspot.com/

Popular posts from this blog

EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS

(Published in Faith and Philosophy 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2011. Stephen Law. Pages 129-151) EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS Stephen Law Abstract The vast majority of Biblical historians believe there is evidence sufficient to place Jesus’ existence beyond reasonable doubt. Many believe the New Testament documents alone suffice firmly to establish Jesus as an actual, historical figure. I question these views. In particular, I argue (i) that the three most popular criteria by which various non-miraculous New Testament claims made about Jesus are supposedly corroborated are not sufficient, either singly or jointly, to place his existence beyond reasonable doubt, and (ii) that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed – a principle I call the contamination principle – entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of indepen

Why I won't be voting Labour at the next General Election, not even to 'keep the Tories out'.

I have always voted Labour, and have often been a member of the Party, campaigning and canvassing for them. For what it’s worth, here’s my feeling about voting Labour next General Election:   1. When the left vote Labour after they move rightwards, they are encouraged to just move further right, to the point where they are now probably right of where e.g. John Major’s Tory party was. And each time the Tories go further right still. At some point we have got to stop fuelling this toxic drift to the right by making the Labour Party realise that it’s going to start costing them votes. I can’t think of anything politically more important than halting this increasingly frightening rightward slide. So I am no longer voting Labour. 2. If a new socialist party starts up, it could easily hoover up many of the 200k former LP members who have left in disgust (I’d join), and perhaps also pick up union affiliations. They could become the second biggest party by membership quite quickly. Our voting

Aquinas on homosexuality

Thought I would try a bit of a draft out on the blog, for feedback. All comments gratefully received. No doubt I've got at least some details wrong re the Catholic Church's position... AQUINAS AND SEXUAL ETHICS Aquinas’s thinking remains hugely influential within the Catholic Church. In particular, his ideas concerning sexual ethics still heavily shape Church teaching. It is on these ideas that we focus here. In particular, I will look at Aquinas’s justification for morally condemning homosexual acts. When homosexuality is judged to be morally wrong, the justification offered is often that homosexuality is, in some sense, “unnatural”. Aquinas develops a sophisticated version of this sort of argument. The roots of the argument lie in thinking of Aristotle, whom Aquinas believes to be scientifically authoritative. Indeed, one of Aquinas’s over-arching aims was to show how Aristotle’s philosophical system is broadly compatible with Christian thought. I begin with a sketch of Arist