As a sociological matter, I'd guess that most, though certainly not all philosophers don't find any of the usual arguments convincing. (There are exceptions, not least among panelists here at askphilosophers.org) That said, a couple of caveats are in order. The first is that in most intro classes, what one gets are bare-bones versions of the arguments. This is particularly clear for the ontological argument, where the most powerful versions are sufficiently complex that most intro courses avoid them, but in my experience it's true to some extent for all of the arguments . For example: there's a good deal more than can be said on behalf of versions of the cosmological argument than one tends to find in the intro to philosophy presentations. The second point is that even though arguments are important, it would be a mistake to think that most serious believers are believers because they find some argument or arguments convincing. Their reasons are broader and more diffuse than that. I'd suggest...

The term "child abuse" is loaded enough that I'm going to set it aside. And I'm going to restrict myself mainly to one point. You seem to assume that religion is always a matter of "blind faith" and that if parents bring their children up in a religious tradition, this is inevitably a matter of "programming." But why think that? Isn'tit possible that perhaps you've been a bit indoctrinated (not to say brainwashed) on that point yourself? Some beliefs are blind. That applies to some cases of religious belief and to a good many other kinds of belief as well. But not all beliefs about matters that go beyond the facts need be blind, and this is as true for religion as it is for anything else. The great religious traditions include traditions of argument, reflection, weighing of considerations, and discernment. Not all believers cling to their beliefs for dear life; not all believers believe that they're bound for hell if they have questions or doubts. In fact, for some serious religious people,...

An interesting question, but I'm not quite sure I can go along with your suggestion. First, miracles. Suppose that the story of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth occurred just as described in the Gospels. (We're not inquiring here into how likely this is; just suppose for argument's sake that it happened.) By any reasonable use of the word, that would count as a miracle. (If it's not miraculous enough, add your own extra bells and whistles.) Briefly, it would be an event that wouldn't occur as the laws of nature ordinarily run, and it would have a clear religious significance. Most every user of the word "miracle" would agree that it would be a miracle, so it's hard to see how we could know otherwise analytically. Your friend's objection is that the event, being in space and time, must have an identifiable cause, and therefore can't be a miracle. But this isn't clear either. First, we could question the assumption that everything occurring in space and time must have an identifiable...

Sure. Even if existence is not a predicate, it's at least arguable that necessary existence is. (As Norman Malcolm pointed out years ago, there really are two versions of the argument, and the second one deals with necessary existence.) We doubt that existence is a predicate because, roughly, saying that something exists tells us nothing about what it's like. Not so for necessary existence. Not just anything could exist necessarily. The computer I'm typing on is the wrong sort of thing to be a candidate for necessarily existing thing. Assuming that some things are of the right sort to exist necessarily, necessary existence would be a predicate. Whether this is a defense of the argument all things considered is another matter. But I think the point made here is fair as far as it goes. A being that merely happened to exist wouldn't be a being than which none greater can be conceived.

How about neither? Let's start with religion, about which only a few words. Some forms of religion are dogmatic and deeply invested in doubtful beliefs, but it's a mistake to think all religion is like that, contrary to the persistent insistence of some apologists for atheism. And "science" writ large hasn't settled whether everything is a product of deterministic forces, let alone about what that would imply if it were true. On the first point: it's open to serious doubt whether quantum processes are deterministic. And it's simply not true that the macro-world would be sealed off from all quantum indeterminism. More important, it's simply not settled that determinism has the dire implications you suppose it has. Most philosophers, I'd guess, accept some version of compatibilism, according to which physical determinism and human freedom can coexist. A bit of searching around this website will find various discussions. Here's one that might be helpful. Of course, it might be that the...

It's a recurring question, and various versions of it make their way into arguments for God's existence. For the moment, I'll just raise one obvious worry (not original to me.) Let's agree that human life is extraordinary. If we assume that this calls for divine explanation, we run the risk of positing a being who is at least as extraordinary as we are, and therefore at least as much in need of explanation. But in that case, we seem either to be set upon an infinite regress or else it isn't clear that we had to take the first step in the first place. This hardly settle the question of whether there's a God (I'm taking that to be what you men by Higher Power.) But it does point out that some arguments for God's existence are too simple and too quick.

Voluntarists say just that: God can make contradictions true. And if someone is really prepared to say that contradictions might be true, it's not exactly clear -- to me, at least -- how to answer. But I'll confess that I've never understood the pull of this solution. Here's a way of getting at what bothers me. Suppose, to see if it could make sense, that there's an omnipotent God. (Our goal is to see if the concept is coherent; not whether it fits any actual thing.) Suppose we have a computer screen with 1280 x 720 pixels. (Let them simply be on or off; ignore color.) Suppose we ask God to turn a set of pixels on so that there's a circle on the screen. (We have to allow for a certain amount of approximation, but that won't affect the real point here.) God can easily do that. (So can anyone with a good Paint program.) Now suppose we ask God instead to arrange pixels so that there's an equilateral triangle on the screen. Once again, no difficulty. But now suppose we set God a third task: turn...

I'd been hoping one of our classicists would take a stab at this, but since none has… The Jews were not the only people in the ancient world to develop monotheistic ideas, nor, for that matter, was Judaism clearly monotheistic (as opposed to henotheistic — taking Yahweh to be their god and the most powerful.) There's a strong abstract and unificatory streak in Greek thought that would make the development of monotheistic ideas unsurprising, whether most people accepted them or not. But on the matter of translation, I fid it hard to imagine any of the classicists I know hedging their translations to make them acceptabe to wider Christian culture. On the contrary, if the usual translations were suspect, I'd expect this to be an active debate in the literature, and far as I know, it's not.

Burden of proof arguments can be tricky. Atheists often say that believers have the burden of proof, but at the least that depends on what's being asked. Is the claim that the believer is irrational or intellectually blameworthy if s/he doesn't meet this burden? As we'll see below, that's a lot less obvious than one might think. That said, I agree with my co-panelist that there's something off here. Saying just what may be a bit tricky, however. One view of knowledge is that it's justified true belief, where the justification is something that could be articulated. However, that view has come in for a good deal of criticism. The most relevant problem is that there seem to be cases of real knowledge where the knower couldn't articulate any justification. Animals plausibly know things. So do young children. For that matter, there seems to be a good deal of general knowledge that most of us possess, that really is knowledge, but that that most of us would be unable to justify. Reliabilists ...

I'd suggest that atheists have more or less the same reasons that theists caring about others, treating others well. Of course, there's a possible reply that I'd like to set aside: perhaps some theists are decent to others only because they're afraid God will punish them if they aren't. But I don't think most theists think that way. They think, for example, that cruelty is just wrong. Atheists generally think the same. Now it might seem that the theist has an advantage: the theist, it might seem can say why cruelty is wrong: it's wrong because God disapproves of it or because God commands us not to be cruel. But that by itself isn't very satisfying. Did God just arbitrarily decide that cruelty is wrong? What if he'd decided that it was right? Would that make it right? It's hard to see how. We're now in the territory of the so-called Euthyphro argument (named for a Platonic dialogue in which Socrates makes a similar point.) There's a lot of appeal to the idea that God would forbid...