Stephen Law

An ultrasound scan Some religious folk believe that, perhaps with the right training and/or immersion in religious practice - some can become sensitive to meaning and significance in the world - meaning and significance that is lost on atheists. I look out the window and just see the sunset. They look out the window and see the Glory of God. But are they detecting meaning and significance that is really there for anyone with eyes to see? Or are they merely projecting that meaning and significance onto a realty that lacks it? I suppose it boils down to something like the difference e.g. between 1. seeing the baby or the tumour in those shifting, fuzzy ultrasound scan images - something not everyone can do, and which requires training to get really good at it, and 2. seeing the canals of Mars. In the 1870s the astronomer Schiaparelli thought he could see the Martian canals through his telescope, and started to map them. Others joined in. They confirmed the existence of Schiaperelli...

Jack Symes interviews me on The Evil God Challenge for his book Philosophers on God . Also included Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett, Richard Swinburne, Yugin Nagasawa, and William Lane Craig. Prepublication draft. Chapter Eight The Evil-god Challenge Stephen Law   Introduction The problem of evil is perhaps the most powerful argument against classical monotheism. However, as Nagasawa pointed out in our previous chapter, religious believers claim to have an infinite number of resources at their disposal; resources which, they say, can be used to explain why God allows evil to exist. A lot of ink has been spilt on whether these explanations are successful. It’s a complex and contentious debate, which rarely leads to opponents changing their minds. Perhaps, if we want to break the deadlock between theists and atheists, we need to reframe the discussion?   In 2010, Stephen Law released a paper that would do just that. Today, Law’s article – ‘The evil-god challenge’ – is among the mos...