Faith & Reason: Strange Bedfellows?

For more on today's presentation:

• "The Ethics of Belief," William Clifford's classic argument for evidentialism
  
• "The Will to Believe," William James's nonevidentialist response to Clifford
  
• "Believing Without Evidence," a modern-day evidentialist's take on the Clifford-James debate

Hear No Evil

If you like to get philosophical on the treadmill, try downloading and listening to these podcasts on the problem of suffering:

• Well-known contemporary philosopher (and ordained priest) Marilyn McCord Adams offers some insights into the problem of evil in this audio interview. (Download)
  
• The NPR program Fresh Air has an audio interview with Bart Ehrman on the problem of suffering. (Download)
  
• Here's even more audio from a few philosophers on the problem of suffering. (Download)
  
  

Suffer-iness

Here's Stephen Colbert's take on evil:

Bad Things to Good People

Here are some links on the problem of evil.

• There is a collection of resources all about the problem of evil, including criticisms of several different responses to the problem. I mean, wow.
• I'd like to highlight one article in particular: a discussion of the "God works in mysterious ways" response: do we have enough evidence to believe that there is a reason for all the suffering in the world, but humans aren't smart enough to understand what that reason is?
• Thoughts on everyday evil and the Holocaust.
  
• Does everything happen for a reason? This cartoon dinosaur has an interesting take on that question. (T-Rex also occasionally wonders why bad things happen to nice people, and whether we're in the worst possible world.)

More with the Creepy Guy

Here are some recommended videos on the design argument from Closer to Truth:

• Philosopher Richard Swinburne likes the design argument. (Part 2 of his interview is here.)
  
• Philosopher Bede Rundle is less convinced.
• Philosopher Colin McGinn tackles the issue of fine-tuning.
  

Design in the Mind's Eye

Here's an interesting approach to explaining the seeming complexity, order, and functionality of the universe: maybe it's all in our mind.

Psychologist Paul Bloom argues that we see intentional design and patterns too much... including in things that are actually random. So things that seem so fine-tuned and unlikely from our perspective might not actually be. Here's a video dialogue on this topic:


Bloom has two great books (Descartes' Baby and How Children Learn the Meaning of Words) on how our minds develop from early childhood on.

Like a Machine, Only More So

Here are some links on the design argument for God's existence.

• Here is a nice explanation of the design argument, along with an explanation of the wacky arg for god's existence that we could've studied.
  
• Here is an audio interview on Hume's criticisms of the design arg.
  
• One philosophers' take on the debate between evolution and intelligent design.
• Is our universe fine-tuned for life? Maybe not.
• Wait, can science even judge religious claims, or are they talking about different things? Maybe an inference to the best explanation can help us...
  
• What about all the "design flaws" in nature? Are they evidence against a supreme designer?
  
• Well, recent research might show the appendix serves a purpose, and so wouldn't count as a design flaw.
  

Midterm

Just a reminder: the midterm will be held on Friday, November 5th. It's worth 20% of your overall grade. There will be a review in class on Wednesday. It will cover the topics we discussed in class so far:

• philosophy in general
• doing philosophy
• understanding and evaluating arguments
• types of arguments: deductive, example, analogy, causal, authority
  
• what is knowledge?
• Plato on knowledge vs. true belief
  
• skepticism (specifically external world skepticism)
  
• Descartes battling skepticism
• Descartes's certainty: his arg that "I exist"
  
• Nick Bostrom's simulation arg for skepticism
• God stuff
• The cosmological argument, specifically:
• Aquinas's "first cause" version of the argument
  
• The abductive version of the "first cause" argument
  
• Aquinas's "contingency" version of the argument
  

BE THERE.

Religion Journal Guideline

Here is a guideline for the next big assignment: the journal you have to keep during our discussion of God.

Worth: 15% of your overall grade

Due Date: the beginning of class on Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

Assignment: The assignment is to keep a journal during our section on philosophy of religion. I want you to write several short journal entries about the various arguments for and against the existence of God. We’ll be going over all these arguments in class during the next few weeks. Each entry should be around two paragraphs long.

This assignment is a chance for you to do philosophy. I want you to demonstrate that you understand what we are reading and discussing. (Present each argument in your own words.) In addition to this, I want you to critically evaluate each argument we read and discuss. (Are any premises questionable? Does the argument provide enough support for its conclusion?) It is also a chance for you to give your opinion on these arguments, and defend your opinion with good reasons.

You should have the following journal entries, in this order:

1) Your first entry on your thoughts about God before discussing any of this stuff in class. Do you think there is a God? Why or why not?

2) An entry explaining and evaluating the cosmological argument (Aquinas reading).

3) An entry explaining and evaluating the design argument (Hume reading).

4) An entry explaining and evaluating the problem of evil argument (Sober, Augustine, and Hick readings).

5) A final entry where you discuss your thoughts about God after reading these philosophers and discussing this in class. Has your opinion about God changed? Have your reasons for your opinion changed?

The journal does not have to be typed. There is no length requirement. (Again, the suggestion is around two paragraphs per journal entry.)

Why Is Anything Anything?

The website Closer to Truth has a ton of short interviews with modern-day philosophers (and other smart people) on their thoughts about god. For instance, there's an entire episode on the cosmological argument titled "Did Our Universe Have a Beginning?" and an entire section titled "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" Here are some related videos:

• Theist John Leslie says God best explains why there is something.
  
• Theist Peter van Inwagen believes in God, but doesn't like this arg.
  
• Atheist Colin McGinn thinks it's a meaningless question.
• Physicist Steven Weisberg says we should wait for science's answer.
• Apatheist Master Shake uses it as an excuse to be lazy.
  

Speaking of silly jokes, here's one of my favorite responses to the cosmological argument (from Gerald Dworkin's list of philosophy quips:)

When a philosopher announced that the title of his talk was “Why is there Something rather than Nothing?” Sydney Morgenbesser said to the man sitting next to him, “If there was Nothing he would still complain.”

And here's a video on the relationship between philosophy and religion:

• Does Philosophy Illuminate Religion?

God Shtuff

If you've read a good article on god stuff, recommend it to us by emailing me or posting the link in the comments section of this post. In the meantime, I have some stuff for you.

How should we approach our discussions about god? Here's one of my favorite essays on this:

• "Reasonable Religious Disagreements" [pdf] by Richard Feldman
  

The National Public Radio show Fresh Air ran a pair of interviews with two scientists talking about whether God exists. (Since they're not trained philosophers, some of their arguments aren't the best. Try to spot their mistakes!) The conversations touch on a lot of things we'll be discussing in class.

• Richard Dawkins pushing atheism
  
• Francis Collins pushing theism
  

Hey, where's the interview with an agnostic? The media are so biased toward those with opinions.