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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I've got purely selfish reasons to be fond of Gordon Brown - I started work and started a family under the Tories and remember waking up to the fact that we'd have been better off on the dole (because it cost money to work - e.g. in travel - but every penny you earned came straight off your benefits). Then Tax Credits came in and suddenly we could actually think about buying a house, taking holidays, and generally having some quality of life.
It infuriates me to hear people reeling out the 'all parties are the same line' now... the Tories' idea of educational opportunity in my home town was to cream off the top 50 kids every year and send them to the local public school, dumping the rest in an underfunded 'comprehensive' (= secondary modern). My kids now attend an actual comprehensive - one that (horrors!) everyone's allowed to go to - which was built from scratch two years ago and which makes the 'posh' school I attended look like a garden shed.
Just show how quickly people start taking things for granted I guess - or maybe people with younger kids now just don't realise what things used to be like, or higher earners don't realize (or don't care) how much the lives of us 'little people' have improved under Labour. Not looking forward to getting the Tories back though.
You know DM, the fruitcake who's been posting death threats/messages of Christian love (I get the two confused) on here lately? Well, I decided to follow some of his links to see what formidable anti-atheist arguments he has in his arsenal. In pride of place at the top of one of his favourite pages, here:
http://nostraamerica.atspace.com/
- is a video called 'Checkmate, Atheists'. Poor old DM seemingly hasn't noticed that it's a rather mirthsome *parody* of crappy Christian arguments, taking the piss out of people exactly like him.
Or maybe DM is a joke character himself?
Either way, thanks DM - cheered me up!
you bastards!
/not an atheist, don't deny my own life element
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/plonk.php
(scroll down)
More worryingly though, see here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/09/update_on_dennis_markuze.php
Perhaps it's worth setting up some temporary moderation till he buggers off?
Also, it appears you have been hit by a Labour spambot too. By the Boulder Pledge, I now may not vote Labour. Oh well.
One more time:
*******
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/FaceOff/
********
THE REAL QUESTION:
DOES ATHEISM HAVE A FUTURE?
AND THE ANSWER - NO!