The Human Question

D'Souza and Ehrman both make excellent points and give good rebuttals.  And I certainly found fault with Ehrman's brilliant but post-evangelical approach to philosophical questions.  But for the moment I'll point out how D'Souza could have done better. When Ehrman asked "where is God when there is suffering without relief?" one of the answers that should have been given is that God is present in creation even in those situations.  Otherwise, the impression is given that God is present only when performing miracles.  Given such an assumption, the choice for a theists would be between something like deism (inasmuch as God would often seem to be non-provident) and hyper-supernaturalism (God's always doing miracles... which does not seem to be obviously true). Another point that D'Souza makes (and is a good one) is skillfully turned in a different direction by Ehrman.  D'Souza argues that human evil outstrips Darwinian necessity.  Good point, provi...

In his book on immortality, Dinesh makes a very savy response to the claim that the desire for life after death is mere wish fulfillment. He points out that belief in life after death is found in all cultures--even in societies that expect the next life to be quite dreary. So, carrying the ball where my reading of/listening to/ him left off (he might make this point later on), I would ask why even such societies posit life after death? What is it in human nature that makes it so natural to think this way? It cannot be merely desire if the next life is not depicted as all that desirable. Also, I would point out that those who believe the human brain is a computer talk about downloading a program for your brain and thereby enabling you to continue living after apparent bodily death... apparently this sort of wish fulfillment is okay, as long as you have made science your religion.

I just learned (from D D'Souza) that Dawkins is the source of the "invisible spaghetti monster" version of the objection that theism is unverifiable. What this example actually shows, however, is that the one who proposes it is thoroughly ignorant of the history of philosophy. A similar display of ignorance is pointed out by Dawkins himself in his Greatest Show on Earth. He objects to those who object to the purported lack of links in the evolutionary record by saying, "Where is the fossil for a ..... [here I forget, but it is a hybrid name, like "chimp sapiens" or something like that]. Dawkins points out how the very act of positing such an objection is a ridiculous display of ignorance. And he does so by proposing hilarious intermediate species, mixing plant and animals in his names. He is right to the silliness of his creationist opponents, but a very similar criticism could be made of his recourse to the "invisible spaghetti monster"...