In “Religion: A Barrier to Clear Thinking,” the final article in the award winning series of lay philosophy articles published in the Christchurch Press, Canterbury based Philosopher Simon Clarke addressed the question, “what is the biggest obstacle to thinking clearly about social and political issues?” Predictably he answered “Several answers suggested themselves but time and [...]
Entries Tagged as 'God and Morality'
Contra Mundum: Secular Smoke Screens and Plato’s Euthyphro
March 2nd, 2010 23 Comments
Tags: Contra Mundum · Euthyphro Dilemma · God and Morality · Investigate Magazine · Peter Geach · Plato · Simon Clarke · William Lane Craig
“My Ways are Not Your Ways” Notre Dame Conference
November 10th, 2009 1 Comment
In September this year, the centre for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame hosted a conference entitled “My Ways Are Not Your Ways”; the proceedings of the conference can be seen at the previous link and is a good resource.
The theme of the conference, as outlined on Notre Dame’s webpage, is as [...]
Tags: Faith and Reason · God and Morality · Notre Dame · Philosophy of Religion · Theology
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Infantile Religious Morality
September 24th, 2009 71 Comments
In “Why Traditional Theism Cannot Provide an Adequate Foundation for Morality” Walter Sinnott Armstrong criticises William Lane Craig’s contention that theism, if true, provides an adequate foundation for morality. Armstrong contends that Craig’s position is “incredible”[1] and subject to a “cavalcade of devastating objections.”[2] He goes on to conclude that his criticisms do not just [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Ethics · God and Morality · Patrick Nowell Smith · Philosophy of Religion · Richard Mouw · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Tekton E-Book: John Loftus’ Why I Became an Atheist Refuted Feat. MandM
September 17th, 2009 5 Comments
Tekton Education and Apologetics ministries have released an online book, John Loftus’ Why I Became an Atheist Refuted, as a special edition for their E-Block Online Journal. While most of the book is authored by J. P. Holding, Chapter 2 is not completely,
Chapter 2: “The Christian Illusion of Rational and Moral Superiority” — Two part [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · E-Book · God and Morality · John Loftus · JP Holding · Tekton Apologetics Ministries
John W. Loftus on The Christian Illusion of Moral Superiority Part II
May 8th, 2009 2 Comments
In my previous post, John W. Loftus on The Christian Illusion of Moral Superiority Part I, I argued that Loftus’ position was based on a confusion between ontological and epistemological foundations. I will now address his arguments against divine command theory.
Loftus’ Arguments Against a Divine Command Theory
After misconstruing the divine command theory as an [...]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Atheism · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · John Loftus · Robert Adams · William Wrainwright
John W. Loftus on The Christian Illusion of Moral Superiority Part I
May 7th, 2009 12 Comments
Several Christian thinkers, most notably, C S Lewis, John Hare, Robert Adams and William Lane Craig have argued that Theism provides a superior foundation for moral obligation than Naturalism does. Most of these thinkers defend this notion by developing and defending a divine command theory.[1] John W Loftus is aware of this and in The [...]
Tags: Atheism · Divine Command Theory · God and Morality · John Loftus · Philip Quinn · Robert Adams · Stephen Evans · William Alston
Divine Commands and Intuitions: A Response to Ken Perrott
May 5th, 2009 34 Comments
Ken Perrott from Open Parachute has asked me some questions about my views on morality and divine commands. Views I have repeatedly expressed on this blog. Given that others have from time to time asked me similar questions, and given the length of my response, I have decided to turn my answers into a post. [...]
Tags: Atheism · Bad Reasoning · Divine Command Theory · Ethics · God and Morality
With God Anything can be Permitted: Another Bad Argument against Theistic Morality
April 28th, 2009 30 Comments
Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov’s famously contended that if God does not exist then anything is permissible. Ken over at Open Parachute disagrees and goes one step further and argues that the shoe is on the other foot. Ken maintains that theistic accounts of obligation lead to an “extreme form of moral relativism” and in fact, Dostoevsky’s [...]
Tags: Atheism · Bad Reasoning · Divine Command Theory · Ethics · God and Morality
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, William Lane Craig and the Argument from Harm Part II
April 20th, 2009 7 Comments
In my last post, I discussed Walter Sinnott-Armstrong’s argument from harm. I concluded by suggesting that his conclusion missed the point and failed to address the conditional, defended by William Lane Craig that, if theism is true then there exists a sound foundation for moral duties. In this post I will argue that the same [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Ethics · God and Morality · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · William Lane Craig
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, William Lane Craig and the Argument from Harm Part I
April 18th, 2009 No Comments
This is the first of a two-part series where I examine a recent argument criticising religious ethics by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.
In many of his publications and debates William Lane Craig has defended the contention that if theism is true then there exists a sound foundation for moral duties. In a recent article, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has criticised [...]
Tags: Divine Command Theory · Ethics · God and Morality · Walter Sinnott-Armstrong · William Alston · William Lane Craig
