On another blog, FideCogitActio, some theists of a "classical" stripe (that's to say, like Brian Davies, Edward Feser) are criticisng the Evil God Challenge (or I suppose, trying to show how it can be met, or sidestepped). The main post includes this: In book I, chapter 39 , Aquinas argues that “there cannot be evil in God” (in Deo non potest esse malum). Atheists like Law must face the fact that, if the words are to retain any sense, “God” simply cannot be “evil”. As my comments in the thread at Feser’s blog aimed to show, despite how much he mocks “the privation theory of evil,” Law himself cannot escape its logic: his entire argument requires that the world ought to appear less evil if it is to be taken as evidence of a good God. Even though he spurns the idea that evil is a privation of good, his account of an evil world is parasitic on a good ideal; this is no surprise, though, since all evil is parasitic on good ( SCG I, 11 ). Based on the conclusions of se...
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So that was a little bit depressing...
It seems to me that its fairly easy for the faithful to point to people in the past and say that they changed society through faith. So many people professed to be so and sometimes may have had to to get their point made. Anyway, as the previous contributor suggests, a number of folk are easily impressed by anecdotes rather than statistics. Quoting Baenjamin Disraeli doesn't make statistics lies and wouldn't change how insurance companies quote for premiums.
Shh! Don't say that. You'll have George thingy and the assorted theists jump on you and the Aussie Doctor trying to enroll you on that course...
Seriously though it was a pity they tried to cram so many "big questions" into a single program, it would have been a lot more interesting to develop the points in a bit more depth.
George Carey got very close to playing the atheism-is-a-faith-position card - but the discussion wandered off.
And as for the minister who was so keen on William Wiberforce and the abolition of slavery as a legacy of Christianity, can he show me the verse in the Bible that condemns slavery? I think this might the minimum required before he can claim that Wilberforce campaigned for abolition because of his faith.
Stephen, you were an oasis of reason in a sea of crud. I heard very few decent arguments in the whole hour from anyone else - mostly just non sequiturs, anecdote, assertion, begging the question, and general lack of sound arguments.
A pity you were shouted down by that priest.
What a terrible programme. Nicky Campbell seems to destroy everything he touches.
I notice again with annoyance that the programme is filled under the BBC's "Religion & Ethics" category, as if they go together.
Regards, Paul.
Stephen - I didn't quite catch the full reference you gave in the programme. Could you repeat here? I'd like to investigate...
Lord Carey was fairly good, although I felt his description of faith as starting with beliefs and then trying to fit new knowledge around them was revealing, and drives home the fact that trying to characterise atheism as a faith position is rather silly.
The presenter was dreadful.
http://hurwi.net/blog/?p=28
(See also the January 21st, 2009 at 6:03 pm comment.)