My band the Heavy Dexters playing here tomorrow night:
JOE'S BAR AND GRILL
260 Banbury Rd Oxford OX2 7DX.
8.30pm - 10.15pm.Tel. 01865 554484
Stephen Law is a philosopher and author. Currently Director of Philosophy and Cert HE at Oxford University Department of Continuing Education. Stephen has also published many popular books including The Philosophy Gym, The Complete Philosophy Files, and Believing Bullshit. For school talks/ media: stephenlaw4schools.blogspot.co.uk Email: think-AT-royalinstitutephilosophy.org
Comments
His name is Edward Feser, just in case you were to have any interest in responding to him.
Thanks.
just in case you have missed this, Bill Craig has briefly clarified his response to your Challenge in here:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=q_and_a
Some key lines: "I suspect that Law thinks that theists will try to deny the symmetry between these two cases. But that would be a mistake. The two situations strike me as symmetrical—I would just say that in neither case would we be justified in thinking that the probability is low. Just as a good Creator/Designer could have good reasons for permitting the suffering in the world, so an evil Creator/Designer could have malicious reasons for allowing the goods in the world, precisely for the reasons Law explains . . . In our debate Law seemed flat-footed in the face of this response. He takes it as just obvious that an evil god would not permit the goods we see in the world—look at the rainbows, look at the children, etc.! But this is no better than the atheist who takes it to be just obvious that the suffering in the world would not be permitted by God—look at the tsunamis, look at the Holocaust, etc. This sort of response is basically an appeal to emotions and fails to grapple with the fact that a Creator/Designer of the world could well have sufficient reasons for permitting what he does."
This strikes me as convincing. If Craig is right, then your insistence that it´s just obvious that the goods in the world rule out an evil god, turns out to be question-begging.
(Btw, this "TruthOverfaith" -dude has been banned from Feser´s and also Victor Reppert´s blogs for his insanely insulting comments.)