Isaac's Meandering Musings

I have mainly included works can be divided into two groups: (1) works that have some historical significance to the debate on the existence of God; and (2) serious recent contributions to the debate. The works are listed chronologically. Most of the earlier works are included because of their historical significance. The more recently published works are included primarily because of their high quality and in-depth discussion of the subject. The works are divided into three columns: theistic, atheist & agnostic and book-length debates. Unsurprisingly, the longest column is the list of theistic works, partly because theists have been discussing the existence of God in print for much longer than atheists have and partly because a greater number of theistic philosophers are actively interested in the philosophy of religion than atheist philosophers are. Many atheist philosophers of the early-mid twentieth century tended to assume (erroneously, as it has turned out) that philoso...

Since my late teens I've been an admirer of the design argument for the existence of God. It was probably the first intellectually serious argument for God's existence I studied - prior to that I'd mainly become familiar with crude presentations of the moral argument or question-begging arguments for the validity of the Bible (e.g. 'The Bible says its the word of God, so it must be!'). My first encounter with the design argument was reading creationist Jonathan Sarfati's By Design. It was an interesting book, but the argument it presented was a little bit simplistic. Overall, Sarfati's argument made two significant leaps in logic: (1) his argument leaped from the inadequacy of neo-Darwinian explanations (which he exposed quite well) to the reality of design, excluding other possibilities too quickly, (2) he leaped from 'designer' to 'God of the Bible', with little or no argument for such a leap. I later moved on to the works of Intellig...

In a web article entitled ' Shermer's Last Law ' I read the following quote: 'In [Arthur C.] Clarke’s 1953 novel, called Childhood’s End , humanity reaches something like a singularity and must then make the transition to a higher state of consciousness. One character early in the story opines that “science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the nonexistence of Zeus or Thor, but they have few followers now.” '  I had encountered this argument before, attributed to Michael Shermer, the editor of the Skeptic , though I was unaware that the argument actually originated with sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke. This shouldn't have surprised me though, as many quasi-intellectual arguments against religion that have been popular over the last half-century originated in Clarke's writings. (Clarke and Carl Sagan remain two of the most influential figures in what I call 'po...

One thing I am constantly reminded of when browsing the internet studying people's opinions on the existence of God - from the opinions of experts in the philosophy of religion to internet bloggers - is that a lack of understanding of the concepts of 'God', 'theism' etc. as well as the arguments for and against the existence of God is widespread. Amongst religious theists, there seems, generally, to be a disinterest in the study of rational debates on the existence of God. Reasons for this vary from general disinterest ('Philosophical arguments have nothing to do with my personal beliefs.') to hostility to rational argument on the issue ('You just have to believe what the Bible says. Everything else is secondary - the opinions of men, not the word of God.'). This is in strong contrast to the high-quality work done by serious religious scholars, such as William Lane Craig, Richard Swinburne, Robin Collins, Brian Davies and many others. On the other h...