Stephen Law

William Hawthorne comments here : I did not argue from (1)Many of the brightest philosophers believe in God to (2) Therefore, God exists, or even to (2*) Therefore, belief in God is reasonable. What I suggested is this. The fact that many of the brightest philosophers believe in God should give us pause before we join atheist apologists (like Dawkins) in dismissing theism as delusional. And in general, I would argue that if many extremely brilliant people have thought about p carefully, subjected p to rigorous logical analysis, and have come to believe that p, this should give us reason to refrain from lazily dismissing p as childish or delusional. A more thorough investigation would be called for. So I have not committed a fallacious appeal to authority. For evidence that many of the brightest philosophers reject naturalism and endorse theism, visit the following webpage: http://rationalperspective.wordpress.com/theistic-philosophers/ In fact, when it comes to Christian philosophers i...

I said a while ago that we'd discuss arguments from authority regarding religious belief. For example, you often hear people say "Many leading philosophers are believers, so it can't be that unreasonable, can it?" William Hawthorne earlier made this sort of move (correct me if I am wrong, William). Another example I heard from philosopher Gary Habermas (paraphrasing) "The vast majority of Biblical scholars agree that the historical evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus is strong" (he then proceeds to argue that what they agree on then provides ample evidence that Jesus was resurrected. I am reading his "The Case For The Resurrection of Jesus" at the moment. My view is these arguments from authority are very weak. But at this point I merely invite comments... Go here for examples of fallacious appeals to authority. Are the above fallacious appeals?