Skip to main content

Interesting day on "Evil and Suffering"

Please note that ALL are welcome to attend this event (at which I am also speaking - see below).

University of London International Programmes in Theology

Day Conference: Evil and Suffering

Friday 14th September 2012
Heythrop College, University of London

10.30-11.00 Registration
11.00-11.05 Welcome
11.05-12.00 Lecture: ‘Title TBC’, Mr Ahmad Achtar
12.00- 12.15 Tea & Coffee Break
12.15-13.15 Lecture: ‘Cosmic Joy and Local Pain: Evil and Suffering in the Hebrew Bible and the Book of Job’, Dr Ann Jeffers
13.15-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.00 Lecture: ‘The Evil God Challenge’, Dr Stephen Law
15.00-15.30 Tea & Coffee Break
15.30-16.30 Split Session: Study Skills/Q&A for current students
Information/Q&A for prospective students
16.30 Close

For details go here.

Comments

John Danaher said…
Sounds very interesting. Might be an excuse for me to pop down to London too.
June 18, 2012 at 4:08 PM
Unknown said…
Cool! I'm going to try to make that but I'm most eager for your gig with the Camden chapter of Skeptics in the Pub (http://london.skepticsinthepub.org/Event.aspx/1066/Believing-Bullshit)
It's unclear as to whether I can coerce any of my co-conspirators into taking a friday off for the event you're posting about.
June 21, 2012 at 3:46 AM
Post a Comment

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...
446 comments
Read more

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...
159 comments
Read more

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...
151 comments
Read more