Here is a post for the philosophers of religion amongst you. Can we rule out an evil god on the grounds that the world is not nearly evil enough? Of course we can. But then why can’t we similarly rule out a good god on the grounds that the world isn’t nearly good enough? Back in 2011 I debated philosopher and Christian apologist William Lane Craig on the existence of God ( link ). I presented the evidential problem of evil as my main argument against the existence of God. In particular, I pointed out that, for almost the entire two hundred thousand year sweep of human history, one third to a half of each generation died, usually horribly, before reaching their fifth birthday. This caused immense suffering to both all those kids and also their parents who had to watch helpless as their children were killed on an industrial scale. That evil is certainly ‘inscrutable’ in the sense that we can see no good reason why God would allow it. This and much of the other ev
Stephen Law is a philosopher and author. Currently Director of Philosophy and Cert HE at Oxford University Department of Continuing Education. Stephen has also published many popular books including The Philosophy Gym, The Complete Philosophy Files, and Believing Bullshit. For school talks/ media: stephenlaw4schools.blogspot.co.uk Email: think-AT-royalinstitutephilosophy.org