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23+ Works 882 Membros 4 Críticas

About the Author

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke University. He is co-instructor of the Coursera MOOC also called Think Again, and co-author of the textbook Understanding Arguments (with Robert mostrar mais Fogelin). mostrar menos

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Obras por Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

Moral Skepticisms (2006) 33 exemplares
Pyrrhonian Skepticism (2004) 24 exemplares

Associated Works

The New Intuitionism (2011) — Contribuidor — 12 exemplares

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It's hard to rate a book like this, because the truly committed no doubt think that their side won. I'm not entirely thrilled with philosophical arguments, either. I find arguments over matters like whether a timeless god can impact a temporal realm a waste of time. How could we possibly know? The greatest value for books like this is for people like I was in my late teens and twenties, trying to sort out what they think and believe. The two authors are William Lane Craig (WLC) and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (WS-A). They are generally focused on the Christian god, which I will refer to as God.

I think I will just make some slightly random remarks. At first I wasn't interested in WLC's arguments about the origin of the universe. I don't really think that anyone knows; I don't believe in gods for other reasons. No disrespect to the scientists, but we have such a limited view of the universe, and their ideas tend to be hypotheses piled upon hypotheses. Their ideas may honorably change as we get more information. Two thoughts occurred to me. One is that for all WLC's extensive scholarship and reading, there really isn't much support for his hypothesis that God created the universe. Pretty much he relies on the Occam's Razor argument that it is a simpler explanation than scientific ones. If he wants to compete on scientific grounds, he needs to do better than that. First he needs evidence of some sort before his hypothesis can be entered into the running. Further, the hypothesis needs to be falsifiable to be good science. Anybody can make up something, and hundreds of religions offer alternatives, like the Earth Goddess giving birth to the Sky God with whom she then had numerous children. Even though the focus is on the Christian God, I think one must still consider that it has many competitors who also see their deities as granting prayers, performing miracles, giving their devotees entrance into a heaven, and being a real Presence that the believers has a relationship with.

For all the scientific arguments that WLC offers, it remains that the people most knowledgeable on the subject, scientists, generally don't accept those arguments as eliminating the possibility of a non-miraculous origin for the universe . These days, scientists as a group are far less religious and less likely to believe in a god than the rest of the population. The difference is even higher when considering the most distinguished scientists. I feel confident in saying that his scientific arguments are not terribly effective.

I found it somewhat laughable that WLC chose rape as an example of objective morality. If there is one thing that many societies, including Christians, haven't taken seriously, it's rape. In the Jewish Bible, God encourages his follows to do whatever they want with female captives, just like practically every other society. Even if the rapist attacks a woman of his own society, the fault can be smoothed over if he is in a position to marry her. No-one consults her opinions about this solution. This didn't improve with the coming of Christianity. I don't recall Jesus saying anything about rape. Kidnapping and raping a heiress was also a frequently successful way to rise in the world in Medieval Europe. Just fix the problem by forcing the woman to marry her rapist, because she's ruined anyway. A Christian marriage is supposed to require consent by both parties, but if a reluctant bride like Lady Jane Grey can't stand up to a few severe beatings, she probably doesn't know what she really wants anyway. Even if a society nominally considers rape to be a serious crime, e.g., by attaching a serious penalty to it, the law tends to be extenuating circumstances: what was she doing out late at night?; What was she doing wearing those clothes; a five-year-old should have known better than to be alone with a family friend, and anyway, she accepted candy from him. (That's based on a true case.) Woman in Christian schools and colleges have complained about being pressured to do their Christian duty of forgiving the rapist and dropping charges. The international priest-sex scandal in the Roman Catholic church demonstrates that rape isn't taken seriously to this day, and other churches have their similar scandals. There is also the ever popular argument that the charge will ruin some poor guy's life; in the recent case of Brock Turner, who raped an unconscious woman, the rapist's father argued that twenty years of his son's promising life shouldn't be blighted by something that only took twenty minutes. If the woman got drunk, she was asking for it, and if the man was drunk, he can't be considered responsible since he was inebriated. And of course, the classic, men have these uncontrollable urges, you know, they can't help it.

When WLC argues that most biblical scholars agree with his facts that prove that Jesus rose from the dead, WS-A rightly points out that most people who decide to study the Christian Bible do so because they already have a commitment to Christianity. Others have pointed out that it is likely that most Moslems who study the Koran already believe that Muhammed is the chief prophet of Allah. I do wish that people who argue like WLC would give some figures, because I know that not all scholars agree with him and his facts. Bart Ehrman, Karen Armstrong, and Bishop Spong leap to mind. A friend of mine who is a biblical scholar and considers Christianity to be the center of his life does not believe in the Virgin Birth, the divinity of Jesus, the Resurrection, or miracles of any sort. He believes that Jesus is a prophet sent by God to model good behavior: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, clothing the naked, and so forth.

WS-A introduces the question of the goodness of God, and the problem of evil. It is here that we get into the heart of why I am an atheist. How, he asks, can one justify the sometimes painful deaths of infants, like Down syndrome infants who die from an intestinal blockage. If God wanted them out of the way, why didn't He just have their mother miscarry, or fix the genetic defect? The question of evil becomes particularly difficult to explain for Christians, like a religion professor friend of mine, who reject the Garden of Eden as a literal occurrence. My friend falls back on the insistence that if it's good, praise God, of it's bad, blame a human being. I don't remember the details, but a woman in need raised money on the internet, for which she thanked God. She might have at least mentioned the people who sent her the money. My friend also argues that the proof of both the existence of God and of his goodness is that he has had a better life than he deserves. People who haven't are apparently best ignored; a rather selfish attitude for someone whose religions urges us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

WLC falls back on the insistence that what God does is always for the best, and in service of some wonderful plan, including the untimely and sometimes agonizing deaths of infants. Funny how that varies according to the medical assistance available. When reading history, it is painful to note the heavy infant mortality rate with so many deaths that we can prevent in our own time. Henry VIII's youngest sister, Catherine, died soon after birth because she was too premature to nurse. A relative of mine was born with the same problem and now is a sturdy little boy because we have the ability to keep such children alive until they have developed enough to nurse. Down Syndrome children can survive if they can get the operation to repair their intestinal blockage, but presumably societies and individuals wealthy enough to obtain such care aren't in need of some divine lesson. If they are in need of a lesson, as WLC suggests at one point, it is amazing how easily almighty God's purposes are thwarted.

WLC also justifies suffering on the grounds that it is difficult for God to herd a bunch of people with free will in the direction that he wants them to go. Why do gods always seem to act in convoluted ways? If God is that intent on herding us, why didn't he make us more biddable? Because God wanted us to be free to choose to love us, they say. Then why doesn't he just leave us alone, stop meddling in our decisions, and stop causing suffering to innocent people on the off chance that somehow that will make things better. I'd also like to know if WLC opposes abortion. If we're supposed to reflect that God makes it up to suffering and dying babies by taking them to heaven, doesn't he do that for babies who die before birth whether from natural miscarriages (reportedly most conceptions) or induced abortions? Personally, I find it more satisfying to chalk things up to chance than to make excuses for God.

That's my reaction: I imagine that people committed to WLC's religion remind themselves that the Bible tells us that a fool says in his heart that there is no God. I presume that the fool was smart enough to keep that idea in his heart because there were gruesome penalties for saying it aloud. The book did give me some things to think about, and someone as puzzled as I was when I began to doubt may find it worth reading.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
PuddinTame | 3 outras críticas | Apr 20, 2018 |
A debate between a believer and a non-believer on the existence of God. Craig uses the exact same arguments he uses everywhere, and while his style and his arguments work very well in a live debate because of his glib self-assurance, when they are written out in this format, it is much easier to see the holes. This particular debate is a little more accessible than some of the other debates Craig has engaged in with philsophers, as the language is less abstruse and dense, but the authors still resort to a great deal of obfuscatory language and dense philosophical prose that is very difficult for the lay person to sift through.… (mais)
 
Assinalado
Devil_llama | 3 outras críticas | Apr 13, 2011 |

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23
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2
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882
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ISBN
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