Skeptical theism states that if we cannot tell whether any of the evils in our world are gratuitous, then we cannot appeal to the existence of gratuitous evil to conclude that God does not exist. However, I can't help but think that we can. The rules of probability tell us that that individual probabilities can be quite low, but their disjunction can be very high. For instance, there may be only a small chance that you will be involved in an automobile accident on a given day, but if you drive every day, the chances are pretty good that you will be in one on some day in your lifetime. Similarly, even if the chance that a given instance of a trillion cases of suffering is gratuitous is quite low, the chance that one of that trillion is gratuitous can be can be very high, and it only takes one instance of gratuitous evil to rule out the existence of God. Coming from someone who is not a philosophy major, am I right in my criticism of skeptical theism or is it too naive?

Where does one draw the line between honoring the work of an earlier writer/scholar/artist and plagiarism or fraudulent re-use?

I really want to do a phd in philosophy and teach, but the society says I should not. I am 19 , but have got to go back to high school to finish up . A long way to go. How do I motivate myself? How do I ignore my other and unimportant desires/distractions to become what I want and is most meaningfull to me?

Are there any philosophers who argue that novel experiences in themselves are good things, or do philosophers generally class some experiences as good and others as bad?

Any comment the the fact that the expression "begs the question" is now used regularly in the U.S. media to mean "needs to be asked" rather that it's original meaning "Assumes the conclusion in the argument" ? Should Philosophers develop a new expression the capture the original meaning ? Thanks.

Hi, I'm a biology student who often uses biology as a framework for understanding thought. I've come to a really tough crossroads of thought. What differentiates cognitive biases from logical fallacies?

I would really like to know what logic is. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has TOO MANY articles on logic for someone like me. Let me list most of them: action logic, algebraic propositional logic, classical logic, combinatory logic, combining logic, connexive logic, deontic logic, dependence logic, dialogical logic, dynamic epistemic logic, epistemic logic, free logic, fuzzy logic, hybrid logic, independence friendly logic, inductive logic, infinitary logic, informal logic, intensional logic, intuitionistic logic, justification logic, linear logic, logic of belief revision, logic of conditionals, logical consequence, logical pluralism, logical truth., many-valued logic, modal logic, non-monotonic logic, normative status of logic, paraconsistent logic, propositional dynamic logic, provability logic, relevance logic, second-order and higher-order logic, substructural logic, temporal logic. I have started reading some of these articles, but I still didn't find an answer for my basic question. In...

Is it easier to love or be loved? I have tried to be loved by people, but I usually get pushed away. I guess I'll never be loved. All I can do is love and take care of other people.

What do we mean by the assurance, "It's not personal"? Why is that supposed to mollify us?

Assuming that trees are not conscious, is there anything morally wrong with cutting down a tree that has survived for a thousand years?