Skip to main content

Debate videos



One of a series of videos in which I debate Andreas Hamza Tzortzis over an hour or two on "Islam or Atheism" at De Montford University. They were a very good-natured and friendly crowd and made me feel very welcome, even though (obviously) not many were atheists. You need to turn it up to hear their questions. Click through for other installments.

Comments

Anonymous said…
How on earth did you sit through that evening.

That guy has obviously read a lot and understood nothing.

SL
Paul P. Mealing said…
This is good to see, Stephen - should be more of it.

This is what philosophy is about, in my view: challenging people, without denigrating them, so that they are forced to think more deeply about what they believe.

Regards, Paul.
zak said…
Enjoyed the debate , we should have more of it. It helped me to consolidate my faith in Islam .Thank you.
zak said…
Enjoyed the debate , we should have more of it. It helped me to consolidate my faith in Islam .Thank you.
Steve Wade said…
I enjoyed the debate. I cannot for the life of me imagine how someone could watch it and have their faith in Islam "consolidated". Perhaps Zak means "unshaken". Some people do have unshakeable faith. Its not something to be proud of.
Trent said…
You really have to wonder about the response to the question, "Why would you create creatures that needed to tear each other limb from limb?"

"You tell me."

It seems that religious folk cannot address these types of questions without resorting to, "I have no idea, but God is real anyway" type of answers.

Bullet-proof faith. 'Tis a scary proposition.
Zach said…
Did you not give a 10 minute rebuttal, Dr. Law? In the video, Hamza is the only one who gave one.

Popular posts from this blog

The Evil God Challenge and the "classical" theist's response

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...

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...

Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism refuted

Here's my central criticism of Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN). It's novel and was published in Analysis last year. Here's the gist. Plantinga argues that if naturalism and evolution are true, then semantic epiphenomenalism is very probably true - that's to say, the content of our beliefs does not causally impinge on our behaviour. And if semantic properties such as having such-and-such content or being true cannot causally impinge on behaviour, then they cannot be selected for by unguided evolution. Plantinga's argument requires, crucially, that there be no conceptual links between belief content and behaviour of a sort that it's actually very plausible to suppose exist (note that to suppose there are such conceptual links is not necessarily to suppose that content can be exhaustively captured in terms of behaviour or functional role, etc. in the way logical behaviourists or functionalists suppose). It turns o...