Stephen Law

Sceptical Theism and Divine Deception 1. Sceptical Theism Evidential arguments from evil often take something like the following form: If God exists, gratuitous evil does not exist. Gratuitous evil exists. Therefore, God does not exist God is a being that is omnipotent, omniscient and supremely good. Gratuitous evil is evil there is no adequate reason for God, if he exists, to permit (the evil is not necessary to secure some compensating good or to prevent some equally bad or worse evil). Why suppose the second premise is true? A no so-called ‘noseeum’ inference has been offered in its support. It is suggested that if we cannot identify any God-justifying reason for much of the evil we observe, then it is reasonable to believe no such reason exists.

CHELTENHAM SCIENCE FESTIVAL Event Title: S109 DOES SOCIETY NEED RELIGION? Time: 16:00 Venue: Pillar Room Date: Saturday 7 June 2014 What is the role of religion? Religion has been helping us find our place in the world for millennia. But with the scientific understanding we now have, could we be growing out of a need for religion? Without its guidance and moral teachings would society collapse? Author of The Young Atheist's Handbook Alom Shaha leads a discussion, with philosopher Stephen Law and sociologist Linda Woodhead, about the role of religion in modern society.

Here is a template for an argument from the minimal facts used for example, to argue for the resurrection (see Gary Habermas here for example). 1)      These facts are agreed on as our starting point. 2)      There is a variety of explanations of these facts, including the explanation that [insert preferred extraordinary and/or miraculous event E] happened 3)      All of these explanations fail to have the explanatory scope or power for all of the facts, apart from the explanation that [E] happened. 4)      There is no compelling reason to exclude the explanation that [E] happened. 5)      Therefore (probably) [E]. This is a an interesting schema, I think. You find it employed to justify a wide variety of "extraordinary" claims. I am compiling a list of examples, so if you have any, do please let me know (include as a comment, with web link, or whatever). Quotes or clips would be particularly useful.