Questions MAR 29

 SL 3-4 (after we catch up with 1-2) 

Time to select final report topics, presentations to follow same order as midterm reports. Try to relate your topic to the texts we're reading now, even if you're expanding on your midterm presentation theme. 

Remember, the accompanying final blog post is due April 29 but you can post earlier drafts if you want potentially-helpful constructive feedback.

Also: Don't forget to read and comment on Grace and Adele's midterm report posts.

1. Many Theists respond to the logical problem of evil by asserting the possibility of a divinely-ordained what?

2. The quantity of evil in the world is relevant to which version of the problem?

3. What's an example of a second-order good alleged to require first-order evil?

4. The evil god hypothesis raises what problem?

5. The evidence of there being no evil god is also, Law suggests, evidence of what?

6. Why can't Adam & Eve's sin explain contemporary natural disasters?

7. No one insists that what is a faith position?

8. What is apophaticism?

DQ

• How much evil (suffering) is too much? How many innocents can be sacrificed for a "greater good," in a world still plausibly created and sustained by an all-powerful benevolent deity? Where do you personally draw the line?
• Are we not "puppets" with OR without divinely-granted free will, if the deity is omniscient and already knows everything we're going to "choose"?
• How much less suffering in the world would still be compatible with the opportunity for all to build their souls/characters through adversity and life-challenges? 53
• What would you do if you were an evil god? 58
• What do you think of Augustine, the Fall, original sin etc.? 61
• Do you agree with Darwin? 62
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Ch 4 

1. God's commands, on Law's (Plato's) reading of the Euthyphro dilemma, are for what purpose?

2. Like it or not, what cannot be avoided? (HINT: What did Stewart Brand say?)

3. What does Law say about Arthur Brooks's book, and the link between religion and charitableness?

4. What's distinctive about humanist morality?

5. If what were true, there'd be no point in thinking critically about morality?

DQ

• Do you believe there is an absolute/objective moral standard independent of a god? 76
• Has there been "huge" moral progress since the '50s? 79
• Are you as baffled as Lin Yu Tang? 81
• Is a pragmatic justification of morality adequate?
• Is it logically coherent for relativism to be true, in the usual understanding of the term?
• 
  

DQ

• What does "god" mean to you? 76