Reddit reviews The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God
We found 25 Reddit comments about The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Oxford University Press USA
Colin Howson – Objecting to God
George H. Smith – Atheism: The Case Against God
Graham Oppy – Arguing about Gods
Graham Oppy – The Best Argument Against God
Herman Philipse – God in the Age of Science
J. L. Mackie – The Miracle of Theism
Jordan Sobel – Logic and Theism
Nicholas Everitt – The Non-Existence of God
Richard Gale – On the Nature and Existence of God
Robin Le Poidevin – Arguing for Atheism
Andrew Melnyk – A Physicalist Manifesto
In general, academic philosophy of religion is dominated by theistic philosophers, so there aren't many works defending atheism and atheistic arguments in the professional literature.
But there are still a few notable books:
I didn't add him because others have already mentioned him, but everything written by Graham Oppy is fantastic IMO. He is maybe the leading atheist philosopher in the field of philosophy of religion. A good place to start with his writings is his 2013 paper on arguments for atheism.
Christianity is, as far as I'm aware, as coherent and rigorously defended as other competing systems, due to its pedigree of at least a thousand years of dedication to its defense. That said, there are books such as Mackie's The Miracle of Theism that methodologically dismantle these defenses.
We are then left with a problem: some philosophers find all or most of these criticisms to fall short while others think they sufficiently undermine theism generally, a fortiori undermining Christianity as well.
This leaves us with something like Kołakowski's Law:
>The law of the infinite cornucopia…applies not only to philosophy but to all general theories in the human and social sciences: it states that there is never a shortage of arguments to support any doctrine you want to believe in for whatever reasons. These arguments, however, are not entirely barren. They have helped in elucidating the stats questiones and in explaining why these questions matter.
Or the shorter quip from Dretske, 'one man's modus ponens in another man's modus tollens.'
There's plenty of books that directly deal with this problem. One of my favourites is W.W. Bartley's The Retreat to Commitment (1st Edition, not the 2nd Edition) which focuses in the first half on Protestant theologians and philosophers presenting the tu quoque defense against secular philosophy and the second half proposing a solution to the tu quoque.
>It is difficult to imagine why professional philosophers, as much as they are trained in reason and logic, can be engaging in something as incomprehensible and unreasonable as institutionally refusing to criticize religious claims.
I don't know what's given you the impression that philosophers refuse to criticize religious claims, but it's not accurate. Philosophers overwhelmingly identify as atheists, and are usually not hesitant to say so. Unless your school is religiously affiliated, I'd bet that if you do head over to the philosophy department and ask whether they think God exists or not, they'll be happy to tell you that they think he doesn't.
Some resources you may wish to investigate are the atheism and agnosticism SEP article and the Cambridge Companion to Atheism.
edit: Additionally, you could check out a monograph like Mackie's Miracle of Theism or Parsons' God and the Burden of Proof.
Some stuff that's important in contemporary analytic phil religion:
The Miracle of Theism by J.L. Mackie
God, Freedom, and Evil by Alvin Plantinga
God and Other Minds by Alvin Plantinga
The Coherence of Theism by Richard Swinburne
The Existence of God by Richard Swinburne
Can God Be Free? by William Rowe
Perceiving God by William Alston
The God Debates: A 21st Century Guide for Atheists and Believers
http://www.amazon.com/God-Debates-Atheists-Believers-Everyone/dp/1444336428
Actually, this is a great book for both of you.
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If he's hard into philosophy:
The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God by J. L. Mackie
http://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Theism-Arguments-Against-Existence/dp/019824682X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302906893&sr=1-4Mackie
The Impossibility of God / The Improbablity of God by Micheal Martin (and others)
http://www.amazon.com/Impossibility-God-Michael-Martin/dp/1591021200/ref=pd_sim_b_25
http://www.amazon.com/Improbability-God-Michael-Martin/dp/1591023815/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
The Six Ways of Atheism: New Logical Disproofs of the Existence of God
http://www.amazon.com/Six-Ways-Atheism-Disproofs-Existence/dp/0954395662/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302907259&sr=1-1
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> I can't pretend that what doesn't exist? Specifically?
Arguments for the deity. You can disagree with them, but you can't pretend they don't exist. And you can't pretend they don't follow rules and identifiable premises. They simply do. Objectively.
> I see this claim a lot, but I've never seen support for it. Talking about evidence without actually providing any is hardly convincing.
I'm now shilling this book. Here is the proof they exist. Go investigate.
https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Theism-Arguments-Against-Existence/dp/019824682X
Now we can end this thread.
Miracle of Theism by J. L. Mackie is a great resource for this topic. Mackie is an atheist and gives a very thorough explanation and analysis of nearly every form the arguments about God take.
One work which I highly recommend is The Miracle of Theism
I have a
totally legalpdf version of the book. If anyone would like to read it, send me a pm.Lot of people in this thread giving some very bad or lazy responses. My undergraduate philosophy thesis was on Plantinga's freewill theodicy but my courses covered the breadth of religious philosophy and so I've actually had to read and discuss this book before.
I don't know how to do the symbols on my keyboard so apologies in advance but if you are looking for a book that provides an insanely comprehensive refutation of "modern-logic" formalized versions of the ontological argument, you want Jordan Howard Sobel's "Logic and Theism", which goes into great detail with the formal logic notation.
Sobel's explanation of why modal axiom S5 is superficially correct but entirely redundant and not applicable to this problem is as good as Mackie's but stated with needless complexity so for that you should read J.L. Mackie's The Miracle of Theism for the goodies there. Mackie and Sobel both think that Plantinga crudely overextrapolates <>[]X-->[]X from <>X->[]<>X. Mackie does it better than I do.
The long and short of it is that Plantinga's argument, while more sophisticated than Anselm's in its formalization, is really not that much more sophisticated in its premises. Sobel hammers on the point that there is a crucial amphiboly on "maximally excellent in possible world X" between "maximally excellent [given the conditions of] possible world X" and "maximally excellent [and also existing in] possible world X" more than he needs to in an otherwise very efficient textbook. His more interesting counterclaim attacks another amphiboly in the inference from "<>[]X(^01&02) in W" to "[]X(^01&02) where X^01 & 02 can stand for whatever property he's looking to establish. He shows through the formulation that there is a "floating," unresolved <> in the argument that actually reduces the entire ontological argument to "<>x" where x is the entire ontological argument.
I won't be in front of the book for a few hours but if you like you can message me and I can try to scan or take pictures of the pages from his book, it's a little expensive to buy just to beat your friend in an argument, but I've never seen it refuted in print.
I tried arguing this point on r/askanatheist the other day and had a ton of atheists getting pissed at me (one kept accusing me of believing in God even after I'd repeatedly said I was an atheist). They were trying to argue atheism wasn't even a belief...it was just true by default.
The annoying part is that there are plenty of good defenses of atheism. You don't have to prove God certainly doesn't exist for atheism to be a reasonable proposition. "God claims are not justified" is a valid atheist position, and the proof involves a reasonable argument as to why the opposite claims are unsound. Mackie wrote a book on this exact subject, well worth the read.
Not all theists are 100% certain God exists and have irrefutable proof for their position, yet they are still considered theists. I don't know why atheists assume any burden of proof requires them to take a 100% position against God existing and have irrefutable proof for it. If anything atheism requires far less justification.
If you're looking for something more philosophical, I'd suggest J. L. Mackie's "The Miracle of Theism." Mackie was an Australian philosopher and even lived long enough to cover some modern arguments. For example, Plantinga's Modal Ontological Argument is subjected to some thorough scrutiny, and the book as a whole is essentially a response to things Richard Swinburne wrote.
why not? because he discusses miracles?
makie's the miracle of theism is a response to that book.
blackwell's companion to natural theology might be something.
Confrontational atheism: Testament: Memoir of the Thoughts and Sentiments of Jean Meslier
>"Know, then, my friends, that everything that is recited and practiced in the world for the cult and adoration of gods is nothing but errors, abuses, illusions, and impostures. All the laws and orders that are issued in the name and authority of God or the gods are really only human inventions…."
>"And what I say here in general about the vanity and falsity of the religions of the world, I don’t say only about the foreign and pagan religions, which you already regard as false, but I say it as well about your Christian religion because, as a matter of fact, it is no less vain or less false than any other.
Softer (much less confrontational) atheism: 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God
>This unique approach to skepticism presents fifty commonly heard reasons people often give for believing in a God and then raises legitimate questions regarding these reasons, showing in each case that there is much room for doubt. Whether you're a believer, a complete skeptic, or somewhere in between, you'll find this review of traditional and more recent arguments for the existence of God refreshing, approachable, and enlightening.
Favorites non-fiction (or at least mostly non-fiction as time will tell) and not directly related to atheism: Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension and The Illustrated A Brief History of Time and the Universe in a Nutshell
Favorites fiction (also not directly atheist related): Treasure Island, and Hogfather: A Novel of Discworld
Atheism book I've tried to read and found to be over my head that's supposed to be the end-all-be-all: The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God
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Currently reading and while enjoyable it's a bit tough to get, I've found myself re-reading pages regularly: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter
Well as a Theist I can tell you it's not giving me any real pause.
For starters I don't take my theological beliefs from John Milton or Dante so appealing to Lucifer to make a point about Free Will and Omnipotence doesn't do much for me.
What you have on hand is the classic Problem of Evil applied to a very specific but hardly universal story passed around Christian circles. It may give a Creationist a head scratcher but then these are also people who can't fathom how a less developed eye would be a radical improvement for a being surrounded by blind predators.
Similarly talk about "destiny" and hell is further compressing your argument to a very narrow focus. One that's not by any means a case closed slam dunk. Universalist will tell you everyone goes to heaven regardless of belief and sin, Annihilationist will explain how hell is simply oblivion and not any kind of conscious experience (You die and that's all, you don't get to live forever with everyone else). Calvinist will tell you we don't have Free Will.
And we need some narrowing down of our terminology used here. What does "Omnipotence" mean? Because I've yet to hear a single understanding shared by all on what it curtails. Is it simply logical possibility? IE God can create a perfect circle but can't create a squared circle? Or does it extend beyond the logically possible and includes the nonsensical? God can break an unbreakable stone or God can pinetree a remote. The later makes any discussion worthless, the former means inability on God's part to act when people choose sin is not contradictory to omnipotence.
Or to put this simply and short, you're argueing against a straw man of a Christian. You've created an amalgamation of common tropes that you believe comprise the core of Christianity but is not at all representative of the entirety of the Religion. Similarly your argument does not end the discussion. Maybe God is dick, how does that end Christianity or disprove God? If you want to shake up someones faith just show them pictures of dead bodies after natural disasters and ask them how God lets something like that happen. When they tell you "Mysterious Ways" you have your answer on if they're willing to sit down and listen to a point by point of why what they believe is wrong.
But really what's the focus here? Trying to disprove Christianity or validate your own beliefs? IF the former, well you're fighting against a Hydra if the later I highly recommend JL Mackies The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God
Uhhhhhh....
Graham Oppy wrote one of the most brilliant books on atheism ever.
J.L. Mackie, probably one of the top atheist philosophers of the 20th Century, also wrote what's often considered to be the best book on atheism ever written.
The expertise is in refuting the arguments for God's existence, and then putting forth arguments that God cannot or is unlikely to exist.
I agree 100% about seeking out the best of each side. Too many people think philosophy of religion is some kind of tug of war, with any acknowledgement of an opponent's strength being too big a concession.
I'm with /u/ludi_literarum in that I think that this question is better dealt with in writing, so I'll start with some book recommendations; I think some of the best, most substantial arguments for theism can be found in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology and Aquinas. For the best atheist arguments, I always recommend The Miracle of Theism, Arguing About Gods, and Logic and Theism.
Of those on your list I have some experience of, the good:
1. William Lane Craig. The debate king, whether or not you think his arguments are sound. Always smart, organised, and prepared.
2. Matt Dilahunty. I don't believe I've ever seen Dilahunty in a debate context, trying to make a positive case for atheism to an audience, but I've seen quite a bit of The Atheist Experience. He listens patiently to anything that anybody has to say in support of anything supernatural, even when the caller is rude or their argument idiotic, then politely explains why he finds the argument wanting. You have to respect him.
3. Christopher Hitchens. Only ranks up here because of his wit and eloquence, not because I think highly of his arguments.
The bad:
4. Lawrence Krauss. He earns his spot down here for his main contribution to the theism debate, A Universe from Nothing. We all constantly see it appealed to as a solution to the problems of the cosmological argument, which it simply is not—for those who want details of this, see David Albert's review of the book in The New York Times. What does Krauss have to say about this review? Dr Albert "was a philosopher, not a physicist, so I discounted him." (16:20–16:35)
5. Sam Harris. I watched him debate William Lane Craig on whether there can be objective moral values apart from God. Craig tore him apart, largely because Harris chose to merely assert that Craig's interpretation of his book was wrong without explaining how and then waste all his time giving obviously canned speeches about how stupid it is to believe in God.
6. Richard Dawkins. His replies to famous theistic arguments in The God Delusion can be most charitably described as very inferior to what can be found in academic literature, and I think his "who designed the designer" argument shows a lack of appreciation of certain traditional attributes of God (as Dr Gary Gutting wrote about at length here).
First and foremost, I strongly recommend you cross-post this to /r/askphilosophy (and probably also /r/philosophyofreligion) since they'll be much more qualified than here to suggest topics and lesson-plans.
Second, you should probably include the Leibnizian cosmological argument alongside the Kalam, since they are sufficiently different. There's plenty of good material out there on this: Pruss' article for the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (this book is a very good resource, see here for more chapters) is pretty definitive, but both he and Richard Gale have written stuff on this.
Third, I think you should use different atheistic arguments. Drop Russell's teapot: especially given your expected audience you should stick to positive arguments against the existence of God. Russell's teapot you can work in as a side comment that argues that if the negative case (i.e. refuting theistic arguments) succeeds then we should be atheists, but other wise leave it be. Better topics I think would be the Argument from Non-Belief (see also here) and Hume's argument against belief in miracles (I have a bunch of resources on this I can send you, but the original argument in Of Miracles is pretty short and is free online). You might want to read one of Mackie's The Miracle of Theism, Martin's Atheism: A Philosophical Justification or Oppy's Arguing About Gods for a good source of atheistic critiques and arguments.
> To make money and because why not?
You could claim that universities cover a lot of subjects "to make money." The point is that theology is an academic field, contrary to what you wrote previously.
> I read a ton of philosophy textbooks
Could you give an example? It would be easier to compare on a concrete basis.
> > he doesn't really believe it's a useful discipline except insofar as it supports science
> Because it's true.
I guess you don't in fact read a lot of philosophy, then, otherwise you'd see the problem with this.
> He's as much a philosopher as...
By that definition, we're all philosophers. Which is fine - you're basically defining it as someone who thinks, and writes about what he's thinking. Almost any blogger or redditor qualifies, although some are better at it than others.
> He knows everything there is to know about religion.
If you want to be taken seriously in discussions, don't make wild claims that are clearly false on their face. People will have a tendency to dismiss what you're saying, with good reason.
> Sam Harris as well. He's got a degree in philosophy
Well, he has a bachelor's degree in philosophy, so you can head on over to /r/philosophy and find plenty of people who have more formal philosophical education than he does. Someone with a bachelor's has not made an acknowledged original contribution to the field. It's doubtful that his work in books like "The Moral Landscape" would qualify as such, since like Dawkins' book, it doesn't really contain original material - it offers a standard consequentialist position with some handwaving about maybe one day being able to scientifically determine morals by measuring well-being. It doesn't engage the extensive existing philosophical literature about morality, and doesn't resolve new issues.
> So 2 philosophers supporting Dawkins is plenty for me. 2 people have put their reputations on the line.
Hardly, since Harris doesn't have an academic reputation, he's purely a pop author.
In any case, it's not that Dawkins' book is wrong, it's just that it's neither original philosophy, nor advanced philosophy, and as such, it doesn't demonstrate any philosophical prowess. That in itself is not a criticism of the book, or of Dawkins - the book provides excellent introductory coverage of a broad range of issues which, to someone not yet familiar with them, can be very useful. Dawkins would probably agree that that was its purpose! But if you consider it philosophically advanced or sophisticated, all it means as that you haven't been exposed to much philosophy.
As a concrete example of a book that provides a much more in-depth philosophical treatment of the subject, see Mackie's The Miracle of Theism. Don't be put off by the name, it's a strong critique of theism. Read the reviews at that link to get some idea of what the book contains.
J.L. Mackie has a fantastic work called The Miracle of Theism. Its a popular work to use in philosophy of religion classes.
You may want to check out J.L Mackie's The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God for further reading on the subject. It's approachable to the non philosopher, and covers both sides of the arguments even if Mackie does ultimately come down on the side of atheism. Mackie was a respected philosopher, and as you would expect handles these philosophical questions much better than Dawkins and the other horde of non philosophers who are popular among the typical reddit atheist.
I have a subjective non-transferable experience of his existence. Faith is not belief without evidence. That would be arbitrary, like waking up one morning and exclaiming for no reason, "I have faith God exists!" No Christians do this. Their evidence is experiential and it varies.
As for conventional proofs with broader applications, I advocate the KCA alongside follow up argumentation.
You have to be careful what you read out on the interwebs when it comes to critiquing the argument. Most is written by amateur philosophers, as far as proffesional philosophers who've actually READ the work that they are critiquing. Such as, Wes Morriston, J. L. Mackie, Graham Oppy, also discussed by Oppy in. Though, even their published critiques are well, not good. Not going to go into detail atm.
>The "professional philosophers" who use incorrect definitions, on the other hand, I couldn't care less about.
First off, let me be clear again, you're the one using the incorrect definition. We can know that because we have rational minds that can understand rational arguments. And luckily, we have redditors that are very proficient at providing just the rational arguments we need to show that weak atheism is not intellectually viable.
>. If you could be so kind as to point out some of these "professional philosophers" - with sources - so I could dismiss anything they have to say on the matter, it would save me a lot of time.
First, I do so love the overconfidence. You've clearly proven my point there. You're completely unaware of even who these philosophers let alone what they argue, yet you're absolutely convinced of your ability to dismantle whatever it is they have to say.
The question is why would you want to? Clearly you're attached to the label atheist, and you're here so you at least like the impression of being intellectual, so why would you be interested in dismissing the arguments of professional atheists philosophers out of hand? Surely you'd want to at least see what they had to say. In fact, I'd say that you'd want to study and really understand their arguments. But maybe that's just me projecting what I want onto you.
Just in case, here are a few atheist philosophers of religion you ought to be reading up on.
>And just because "professional atheist philosophers" make arguments that gods don't exist, that doesn't change the definitions.
Read all of those links (remember to check your local library or your local university's library!) and you'll see that atheists who aren't a part of the cacophony of the unsophisticated group think do not argue for weak atheism. They do not simply argue against the theist's argument and, convinced they have sufficiently undermined that argument, declared themselves free of any belief. They believe there is probably no God and they argue there is probably no God.
You take pride in your belligerence, but it's a shame that belligerence comes from a position of ignorance. I worry about the status of atheism not because I think the theist arguments have won but because people like you are so completely ignorant of the topic that they can't even get straight what atheism even is, what arguments actually support it, and what obstacles there are for atheists to overcome. And yet you feel justified in spewing your nonsense in the most jackass way you can muster.
You probably are looking for something like this.
There isn't a step by step guide, just like there isn't a step by step guide for any other thing we might want to know. If you're waiting for someone to tell you exactly what to do, you'll be waiting till you're dead. Only one thing to do, listen to the people who believe that God exists, try and understand them, read up on the matter: there's loads of philosophy of religion and theology, keep going. Here's a good introduction: https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Theism-Arguments-Against-Existence/dp/019824682X