Thanks to Charles Taliaferro for resurrecting this interesting question (which I was too swamped to answer when it came around the first time). It is important to remember that like many philosophical arguments it has a specific audience in mind. Let's call the intended audience 'the agnostic gentleman' in these two senses: first, the intended audience is genuinely agnostic in that he/she really believes that miracles and the incarnation are possibilities with a reasonable probability of being true. The intended audience does not have a strong commitment to naturalism or standing opinion against the possibility of miracles. Second, the intended audience is a 'gentleman' in the sense that he/she really wants to hold an unambiguously positive view of Jesus so the 'liar' and 'lunatic' options of the 'trilemma' will not be attractive to him/her. For someone holding the two previous commitments, the argument can be quite effective. The initial questioner's error was in assuming that no one would find...

It is probably fair to say that William Lane Craig (WLC) is making an overstatement. But, the truth that he is overstating is that in the mid-20th century Anglo-American philosophy there was little or no influential new work in Christian philosophy and now there is quite a bit, including some that is published by the most reputable secular academic presses. To cite just a few examples consider: Richard Swinburne's The Existence of God & The Coherence of Theism (both by Oxford University Press(OUP)), Alvin Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief (OUP) & God and Other Minds (Cornell UP), Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks (Cambridge UP), William Alston's Perceiving God (Cornell UP), Eleonore Stump's Reasoned Faith (Cornell UP), and Alexander Pruss's The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (Cambridge UP). Oxford and Cambridge University Presses are largely viewed as the two most respected publishers of philosophy in general and...

I would say that there are at least two competing values in contemporary liberalism: liberty and equality. Minimum wage laws serve to increase economic equality by eliminating the possibility that someone might get paid less than the 'minimum wage'. Yet you are quite right that minimum wage laws are illiberal in that they eliminate one's liberty to hire and work at a lower wage. On the whole, it seems like a worthwhile trade off to me. I'd also point out that this kind of liberty is less meaningful to someone who is so poor that they would be inclined to accept ultra-low wages out of economic desperation.... some of us would regard such a contract as 'exploitation'.

I don't think the illegality of prostitution has direct implications for whether or not we think pleasure is a moral good. We might think that pleasure is a moral good, but might ban an activity that promotes short term pleasure because we think (rightly or wrongly) that it results in a long term overall reduction in pleasure. So, even a group of hedonist utilitarians might ban prostitution if they think (correctly or incorrectly) that it spreads STDs too much (including deadly STDs) thereby producing a net decrease in overall long term pleasure. Someone might also be in favor of banning prostitution because they think pleasure is of genuine worth, but merely of less worth than other goods (virtue, stable family relationships, etc.). You may also recall that Mill's version of utilitarianism weighs the 'quality' of pleasure and not just the 'quantity'. So, someone might think (correctly or incorrectly) that physical pleasure is of a lower quality than other pleasures and therefore should be weighed...

Why might someone think that polygamy is inherently incompatible with genuine love? One very plausible reason is that it sounds like you are asking your 'true loves' to enter into an inherently unfair and inequitable relationship... you would receive 100% of the relational attention from two women, while they each have to settle for about 50% of your relational attention. That means you receive quadruple the relational benefits (from the two of them combined) compared to what each of them can expect to receive individually from you. That sounds like a wonderful arrangement for you, but not a very good deal for them.... and asking them to be involved in that doesn't sound very loving. I don't deny that it is possible to have deep sentiment for multiple people at the same time, I'm just saying that it looks like you're asking them to enter into a type of relationship that is objectively unfair and not likely to be in their best interests (and why would you do that if you truly 'love' them?). There...

Of course, it isn't morally acceptable to disobey a law merely because you disagree with it (you seem to be confusing the concept of a 'law' with the concept of a 'suggestion'). Let's suppose I'm an American driving in Europe and I want to drive on the right side of the street simply because I prefer it and find the government's insistence that I drive on the left side to be unintuitive and intrusive. This would likely result in someone getting hurt... most likely me. Laws like this one are designed to promote public order and protect people. I think the drinking age is a good example of this pattern (that laws we disagree with are often there to protect us and promote public order). The drinking age was raised to 21 in the USA largely to cut down on drunk driving accidents and injuries. And (statistically speaking) it has worked rather well. I admit that laws like this one do hinder the liberty of more responsible young adults for the sake of the 'greater good,' but it is hard to argue with...

You appear to be asking the question: "how can someone make decent money, without taking part in the only established system for making money"... the obvious answer is that they can't. If someone judges the economic system to be unjust, their options are rather limited. They can try to move to a place with a more just system of economics (good luck, there are probably a few places that are more 'fair' but most places are worse IMO). They can try to withdraw from the system in some way, perhaps by living off the land in a commune of some kind or by taking a vow of poverty and joining a religious order. Probably, the most practical of the options is to begrudgingly take part in the system while working to reform it from inside (again good luck, reforms happen slowly and unintended consequences are common). But in any case, if you find contemporary capitalism to be fundamentally unjust I'd suggest that 'making decent money' should no longer be an overriding goal for you. After all, isn't the current system...

Wow, there is quite a lot in your question here. First, I think it is true that a broadly 'analytic' approach is probably dominant in the English speaking world, but I wouldn't say that all of philosophy is 'analytic'. Also, I don't think that the broadly analytic approach is reducible to 'rigorous linguistics.' Yes, there is a corner of the philosophical world that never seems to argue about anything other than linguistics, but it seems pretty clear to me that it is only a small portion of philosophy. I still think there are important debates that are being examined.... for example in ethics compare John Rawls's A Theory of Justice , Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue or Three Rival Versions of Moral Inquiry , and Peter Singer's How Are We To Live? these thinkers are certainly engaging in very substantial debates. Or in philosophy of religion read J.L. Mackie's Miracle of Theism and Richard Swinburne's The Existence of God . I'm sure other panelists could come up with their...

I think that only a genius would have a chance at getting a philosophy job without a graduate degree. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but if you are going to invest years into trying to make this happen you need to know what you are up against. When you apply to a philosophy position, your application will generally be in a stack of 100-200 applications. If you don't have the traditional credentials via a degree your publications and letters of rec will have to be unambiguously BETTER than just about everyone else's in the stack (being as good as everyone else won't be enough). Furthermore, your lack of academic affiliation will be an extra barrier to getting those publications and letters. Yes, some venues use blind review, but not all do. Even if you could get a couple of respectable letter writers, you would need to get them to give you clear, very strong recommendations and say that you are as good as the top students in the programs they teach in. At some schools it may be simply illegal or...

Sure, but there are several different things we could mean by saying that one language is more difficult than other. One language could have more complex grammatical rules than another. Another language might have simpler grammatical rules, but have more irregularities that break those rules (I am told that English is notorious for having a large number of irregularities). One language might have more letters, words, or use more sounds than another. We also might mean that one language is harder than another in the sense that learning it might be harder for me based on what I already know. For example, a native English speaker might find Latin relatively easy to learn due to the fact that it uses the same alphabet as English and because many English words have Latin roots and therefore many similar words have similar meanings in the two languages. In contrast, that same person might find Thai to be difficult to learn due to its foreign alphabet, unfamiliar pronunciations, and lack of similarities...