Stephen Law

Here is Jamie's response to my reply to him here . Believing in Jesus as God does not answer these questions. Believing puts the priority of life on a relationship with Jesus (which gets into spiritual/mystical issues, I realize) and that makes all other issues secondary. For instance, I believe that a primary man existed who caused the Fall even if I can't prove reasonably when he existed. (Perhaps that will be discovered or proven at some future point.) The reason I believe in that primary man is because that is what the Bible (Romans 5:12 & others) teaches in the plan of redemption (from a Reformed theological perspective). One might say that this is an insular or circular argument (the Bible is true because it says it's true and therefore I believe it). My point, though, is that because I accept that Jesus is God (not the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus) then the things the Bible teaches about him are True, and that includes things I don't fully understand. L. Ron Hu...

Following on from preceding post, the "Mad, Bad or God" challenge so often put by Christians (first put by C.S. Lewis) is really an example of the fallacy of false dilemma (as Kyle P. points out in comment on preceding post). In the Philosophy Gym, I call it the salesperson's fallacy , because it is commonly used by salespeople. The "Mad, Bad or God" challenge is being used to "sell" Christianity by presenting us with just three options, which then seem to force us to choose "God" as most probable answer. It works by airbrushing out other, far more likely, answers (see preceding post ). Here's the entry: False dilemma (the salesperson’s favourite) It is common to argue like this: Either A or B Not A Therefore B This is often a perfectly acceptable form of argument, as in this case: Either John has a driving license or else John is not permitted to drive. John has not got a driving license. Therefore, John is not permitted to drive. This ...

A nice Christian guy called Jamie has got in touch after he heard my podcast on the problem of evil. Here's the latest exchange (done with his permission). Jamie writes: I won't call it "the problem of evil" anymore since that's a misnomer. I was going off the title of the podcast. So as I understand it then, you were answering that problem (during the podcast) by basically refuting the idea of god (including an all-powerful, all-good god) on the grounds of reasonableness. If I've got that right, let me address the god/evil idea from a whole other angle. Instead of starting with God, start with Jesus. (And I'll assume that there is enough documentation of his life to agree that he existed.) C.S. Lewis said something like "Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord." If one believes him a liar or lunatic then any other Philosophy will do. Anything. But if he was Lord then that changes everything. A believer is bound to accept the whole of th...