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Anti-God just as likely as God, Peter Millican.

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vespine:
I recently watched a debate between William Lane Craig and Peter Millican, a professor of philosophy at Oxford. The full thing is on YouTube. I really can't stand WLC, but I thought Millican handled himself exceptionally.  As far as I am aware he isn't really a "debater" and this might be the only big debate he has had, or at least the only one which is available online, I've not really heard of him before, but for anyone who is into watching these debates, I recommend this one. Millican doesn't seem well known, or at all, in the skeptics community, I searched for him on this forum and couldn't find anything, but he seems to me like possibly one of our hidden gems.

A great argument he made which I had not heard before, he does admit he might not be the 1st to think of it, was that just about any argument a theist can use for God can be used to argue for an "anti-God".

If an argument that is used to support God can just as easily be used to support anti-God, then they essentially cancel each other out.

Specifically in the "problem of evil" and objective morality: evil can't exist without good or free will, sorrow can't exist without joy, hate can't exist without love, you can't be "unethical" without ethics.

I think anti-God has a much stronger case for existence then God. Primarily, in the course of human history, for every person who has live a fulfilled life full of wealth, love and joy, thousands if not millions have died in poverty, alone and afraid, the victims of hate or mere whims of nature. A tsunami can wipe out hundreds of thousands of people in one fell swoop, what is the equivalent event that can similarly cause hundreds of thousands of people to experience joy and love?

A second point comes to my mind, there is a complete lack of consensus regarding the "real" God, this is PRECISELY the tactic we would expect "anti-God" to use in order to divide humanity into conveniently bigoted groups to prevent them from co-operating and working out issues together. Instead it ensures they will fight and kill each other guaranteeing centuries of suffering for millions of people.

Shibboleth:

--- Quote from: vespine on Jul 03, 2012, 08:31:31 PM --- what is the equivalent event that can similarly cause hundreds of thousands of people to experience joy and love?

--- End quote ---

birth, orgasm, election of the first black man, freedom, the new year, fireworks, coming home from work to an amazing supper, flowers, a perfect sunny day, etc.

Whether there is a god or not the reason why we lament death is because life tends to be so wonderful.

vespine:

--- Quote from: Shibboleth on Jul 03, 2012, 11:04:43 PM ---birth, orgasm, election of the first black man, freedom, the new year, fireworks, coming home from work to an amazing supper, flowers, a perfect sunny day, etc.

Whether there is a god or not the reason why we lament death is because life tends to be so wonderful.

--- End quote ---
Birth: I think easily you can argue this for anti god: people suffer and die during birth too and a good portion of the population never experience it before they die. And you can't suffer unless you are born, so it HAS to have some sort of "reward" for giving birth or else people would just stop doing it and there would be no more suffering.

Orgasm... Interesting, I'd have to think about that a bit more. I've never heard anyone use orgams as an argument for the existance of god..

Elections, fireworks, freedom, new year, again can't see how these could be used as arguments for god.

A perfect sunny day, not bad, but put it this way, a tsunami would ruin your perfect sunny day, while a perfect sunny day would do nothing to cheer you up the day after a tsunami, except in an ironic sense maybe. Again, it's anti-Gods way of saying "suck it".

vespine:
Theists have to make up all sorts of excuses why suffering and dying during child birth is a punishment from a God who is supposed to be omnibenevolent, for something done by our most ancient ancestors. No such excuses are necessary for Anti-God, in fact it makes perfect sense. There is just enough reward in it to ensure people continue doing it.

I've spoken to many recent parents over the last couple of years and hearing some of their stories and sometimes seeing them at their "lowest", I wonder if it's some sort of con.

Of course I don't actually believe that. The purely natural explanation fits all the evidence. I'm just making the case for anti-god.

jomike:

--- Quote from: vespine on Jul 03, 2012, 08:31:31 PM ---A great argument he made which I had not heard before, he does admit he might not be the 1st to think of it, was that just about any argument a theist can use for God can be used to argue for an "anti-God".

If an argument that is used to support God can just as easily be used to support anti-God, then they essentially cancel each other out.
--- End quote ---


The British philosopher Stephen Law (blog) has developed the argument in some detail in what he calls the "Evil God Challenge:"

The "Evil God" Challenge

Law used the argument to great effect in his debate with WL Craig last year (mp3 here, transcript here).  If you enjoyed the Millican debate, you might also dig this one.

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