Debating gods existence is futile

IntroductionFirst, I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome Pro to the site. As perhaps the single worst offender of ‘rehashing the God debate’, I thought I’d look past the irony of Pro debating a topic he thinks is futile, and give a defence of participating in discussions over traditional arguments for and against the existence of God. In my first round, I’ll take what I consider the main themes of Pro’s post, and respond to each of the points he makes.The progress of the God debatePro’s debate that the arguments concerning God’s existence have not made any progress is just absurd. To use one example, the problem of evil, my own favourite argument in this context, has undergone tremendous change. The popularly formulated version of the argument (the logical PoE) for example is widely thought to have been refuted by Alvin Plantinga. As defender of the logical PoE J.L Mackie writes,“Since this defense is formally [that is, logically] possible, and its principle involves no real abandonment of our ordinary view of the opposition between good and evil, we can concede that the problem of evil does not, after all, show that the central doctrines of theism are logically inconsistent with one another. But whether this offers a real solution of the problem is another question.” (1)What does this tell us, and why is it relevant? Well, it shows, that there is indeed progress in these sorts of arguments. Indeed, the PoE remains relevant because it has been further developed by philosophers (such as Rowe, 1979) to withstand common criticisms. This is relevant because if these arguments can be developed, refined, and even dissolved, it certainly follows that the agnosticism of Pro may be a conclusion which would be undermined. In fact, pretty much all the arguments in this area can be and have been developed in a similar way. These developments must have the capacity to make either atheism or theism more reasonable, unless one subscribes to hard agnosticism, but I don’t really see how one could justify such a position. In any case, the theistic concept of God seems to be a God would have a marked influence in the world.If progress is even possible in this area, it seems that hard agnosticism simply isn’t warranted. Obviously, there has been massive progress, not just in developing old arguments, but in establishing new areas to discuss. Also, work in this area does often engage with science, despite Pro’s claim. Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism, for example, tries to establish that if evolution and naturalism are true, then we have an epistemic defeater for our beliefs. Clearly, if scientists want to engage with the logical consequences of their own views, then they would be spending quite a bit of time discussing points relevant to the philosophy of religion, so even science will inevitably lead back to this area in certain cases.ConclusionIn conclusion, Pro has not even tried to justify hard agnosticism (which he has to), has merely asserted the God debate to be “in a rut”, and will have to respond to both the progress in the philosophy of religion and the tendency of popular science to get embroiled in such debates (i.e. Dawkins, Hawking, Atkins). Unless, and until he does this, it is safe to conclude that these arguments are far from futile.Sources 1) http://www.iep.utm.edu...