During the 2004 Presidential Debate between George W. Bush and John Kerry campaign a young female college student asked John Kerry about abortion and his political position on this issue. Kerry responded first by asserting that he is a Roman Catholic and that he did not endorse or feel good about the practice; but he added that he also believed that “articles of faith”, by which I presume he meant a religious belief about the moral status of abortion, are not matters of legislation or law (a position I fundamentally agree with). Kerry’s response seems to assume that morality, or at least morality based on religion, should not be a part of law; however, it also appears to me that it is difficult to imagine where law would derive its power if not from some kind of (religious?) moral basis. I have been trying to see how Kerry’s comment is intelligible in light of the dilemma of how laws would have any kind of power, or that there would be any justification for their authority, without some kind of moral...

The question "What is the basis of morality?" is obviously an extremely difficult one, and it can sometimes seem as if there are as many answers to that question as there are philosophers who have thought about it. Or maybe more. But I take it that the questioner's central worry is whether there is any real possibility that law might not "derive its power...from some kind of (religious?) moral basis". And that is quite a different matter. There are, I think, two important things to say about this. First, it's not at all clear that religion is capable of providing the kind of basis for morality that is sought. This is often regarded as one of the central points of Plato's great dialogue Euthyphro . There, Socrates poses the question, whether what is good is good because the Gods will it, or whether the Gods will what is good because it is good. And his point is that neither answer is very happy. If what is "good" is good only because the Gods will it, then even torturing babies for fun would be...

Why is it that very religious people tend to be kinder and more compassionate (with a few notable exceptions to people they deem unworthy i.e.: homosexuals) than secular people? Is this evidence that we need religion/should be religious?

Are we entirely sure that religious people do tend to be kinder and more compassionate than secular people? And are we sure of this, especially, when we do not set aside the notable exceptions?

Having just read Dawkins's The God Delusion I was appalled to learn how reviled atheists are in America. In Europe a person's stance (including politician's) on religion is largely irrelevant unless they draw attention to it. What is going on in America? What should skeptics and atheist philosophers do there to point out that atheism is a reasoned and logical viewpoint that doesn't presuppose immorality, etc.? It beggars belief that all presidential aspirants have to (in some cases as Dawkins remarks) probably pretend to be Christians in order to have any chance of being elected. I know of the Atheist's Wager, acceptance of which seems braver to me than blindly accepting the religious promises of heaven as dictated by those who brought you up. And what place do 'faith-based initiatives' have in an ostensibly secular government where church and state are separate under the constitution?

I agree with Eddy that atheists are indeed regarded with a good deal of skepticism in the United States, and, in particular, that an "out of the closet" atheist would have a hard time being elected to national office. That said, I think his own comments reveal that he is almost as ignorant of the varieties of religious belief as are the believers he is criticizing. I think it's probably safe to say that a majority of the people at my church do not "believe in a God with supernatural powers ... or in special creationor in immaterial souls", with the only question I'd leave open being how many of us believe in some form of continued existence ("life" is probably not the correct term) after death. To borrow from the words of someone who wrote recently in Time discussing Barack Obama's religious beliefs, for many relgious folks, God is more a matter of mystery than of miracles.

The clarification is welcome, but the reason for my remark was simply that I was putting these two remarks together: (i) "I think that an avowed atheist would have absolutely no hope ofelection to President or likely to any major office in any (or almostany) state, regardless of his or her other attributes orviews..."; (ii) "Once one recognizes that atheists can and do believe these [sensible] things, itis difficult to see why choosing not to believe in a God withsupernatural powers...should count against one's ability to bean effective political leader or most anything else." Unless I'm missing something, (ii), read against (i), strongly suggests that an atheist is someone who rejects supernaturalism , etc, which rather strongly suggests that a theist is someone who endorses it. Perhaps (ii) was badly stated, and should have said simply, "...it is difficult to see why choosing not to believe in a divine being should count against...".

Most atheists presumably believe that there is insufficient evidence to justify belief in God. What I want to ask is: is there ANY evidence? Or none at all? Is there anything that the panelists might point to and say, "this counts as evidence that God exists"?

Sorry, I didn't see this one, or I'd certainly have said something about it. Unsurprisingly, different people have different views about what the evidence for God's existence might be. And, for that matter, very different conceptions of who or what God is. Most of the suggestions Jasper considers are familiar and ancient, and still popular. And I'll agree with him: pretty unconvincing. But there are other views. Speaking just for myself, I'm not really sure if I'd say there was any "evidence" of God's existence. It's not that I don't think there's any reason to believe that God exists. I do. It's rather that I don't think I could describe my reasons in terms of "evidence". I suppose that much of my own conviction lies in my personal experience of the divine. But of course I don't expect anyone else to find that convincing, and such experiences aren't like (say) visual experiences, where you can just say, "Well, look for yourself". And I wouldn't want to model this, as some philosophers have, on...

Are philosophers generally less religious than the general population? I'm not talking about the old-school ones, just the ones that are still alive.

This is a thorny topic, and I doubt there is any detail concerning philosophers per se. But for some data, see the Harris Poll on Americans' Religious Beliefs , which found that people with post-graduate degress are somewhat less likely to believe in God. But the difference isn't very impressive: 85%, as opposed to 90% for the general population. There are larger gaps concerning belief in miracles, which is perhaps not so surprising, either.

As I see it, there is not a single person on the planet who can prove or disprove the existence of God. If there is no provable God and/or afterlife then there can be no better hope for anything beyond the grave than what religion espouses. If there is a God however, then the rewards for correct behavior are well defined. Why then would the rational man NOT believe in some sort of supreme divine being if there is no proof either way?

To ask a question our illustrious leader, Alexander George, has several times asked here: What's meant by "prove"? If what's meant is what's ordinarily meant by "prove", then it's not clear that a single person on this planet can prove human beings evolved from apes. Nor can anyone prove that the Loch Ness monster does not exist. But that simply doesn't mean that there can't be good reasons to believe that human beings evolved from apes or that the Loch Ness monster does not exist. There can be, and there are. Now what exactly that has to do with the rest of the question is not yet clear. But have a look here http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/ for some thoughts (not mine).

When I studied philosophy, all the professors I had held the same views about religion -- that "god-talk" was "cognitively meaningless." I recall reading philosophers like Flew, Smart, and Mackie on this. It was my understanding at the time (I attended NYU in the 1960s) that major academic philosophers in the U.S., the U.K., and the other English-speaking countries saw philosophy as logical (or linguistic) analysis and held these views as well. Have such philosophers come to see religion differently over the past forty years?

At the time the questioner mentions, it wasn't just religious claims that philosophers declared "cognitively meaningless". Any metaphysical claim was supposed to suffer the same fate. Well, part of what's changed is that that's changed. Metaphysics is now a flourishing, and for the most part respectable, branch of philosophy again. So while it may be hard to be sure quite what "God is the Supreme Spirit, Who alone exists of Himself and is infinite in all perfections" means, it's surely not much harder than to be sure what (-- insert quotation from contemporary metaphysician --) means. The idea that some things exist in and of themselves and that some things exist only in virtue of the existence of other things, in particular, is quite metaphysically respectable: For example, pretty much everyone would agree that a set exists only in virtue of the existence of its members. Of course, it's one thing whether flat-footed interpretations of religious claims would render them meaningless. It's...

In the debate between theists and atheists/agnostics, which side has the burden of proof? Are believers supposed to prove that God must exist, or must atheists demonstrate that God cannot exist?

What is the purpose of this "debate"? Is there a trophy? a financial reward? Or is the purpose supposed to be to determine the truth? or to determine what we should believe? I think the answer to your question very much depends upon the answer to this question. Let's suppose the purpose of the debate is to determine what one should rationally believe. What who should rationally believe? Does the person already have a view on this question? That is: Is she already a believer or a non-believer? Or is he or she utterly agnostic? This question, too, matters, at least according to some epistemologists, since these philosophers would take seriously the idea that the question we thinkers face is always whether to change our existing beliefs. And there's another crucial question, at least on some religious epistemologies: If one bases one's belief upon religious experience, how is that supposed to enter the debate?

Richard Dawkins has written: That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. Is this valid, logically? If not, what are the consequences? He is talking about religious belief, i.e., belief in some God or other. Dawkins' statement makes sense to me but can any logical argument invalidate it? Would he then have to retract his statement, or is there a gray area between semantics and logic?

I don't know the context of this claim, nor why Dawkins thinks---I take it he does think this---that no-one has any "evidence" for religious belief. Most theistically inclined epistemologists of religion, in the analytic tradition, anyway, think we do have certain kinds of evidence for belief in God. Dawkins might not find the evidence impressive, or he might disagree as to the evidential facts themselves, but it would be a parody of religious faith to think people believe on absolutely no basis. Just for example, suppose one is some kind of coherentist. Then you might think belief in God forms part of an overal "theory" of the world, and the evidence one has for it is that this theory is coherent, more successful than alternative theories, etc. You've got the same kind of evidence for your belief in God, ultimately, as for anything else you might believe, though belief in God, in such a system, will be deeply embedded, like very high-level theoretical claims, rather than towards the periphery, where...

Are there any interesting arguments for the existence of God from the existence of beauty? i.e., because there is beauty, we know there is God?

My understanding is that Kant argued in something like this fashion. Or, at least, that Kant thought that it was through the contemplation of beauty that we could experience the divine. I don't myself see that any sort of real argument will be forthcoming along these lines, but I do understand the sentiment. Certainly there is music that makes me particularly conscious of God: Plenty of Coltrane, for example. But for myself, I think my deepest sense of the divine emerges from contemplation of the men and women who have made great contributions towards the emergence of justice in the world. To me, that is, the best argument for the existence of God is the existence of people like Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. I don't expect that to be convincing to anyone else, though.

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