Reddit mentions of Theism and Explanation (Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Religion)

Based on your post, I have a suspicion that you're not actually a "free thinker". Why? Because you've fallen for a marketing trick.

Back in the early 2000s, a few years after the 9/11 attacks when people were starting to use the internet much more frequently, a certain viewpoint regarding religion starting gaining popularity. This has been referred to as "new atheism". It used terms like "free thinker" and "rational" and "fallacies" and even "science" as cultural buzzwords to sell books and speaking events.

And now, over a decade later, you're looking at "A free-thinker's list of essential reads" which includes some extremely questionable books. The God Delusion is especially shit, and I say that as an atheist. Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris leave a lot to be desired.

In fact, I actually recommend that people who are interested in getting into philosophy of religion read The God Delusion. But not because it's good. Quite the opposite. It's the best book ever written for the purposes of practicing identification of poor reasoning. Seriously, there are so many flaws in it that explaining them all would take me dozens of max-length reddit comments.

If you want to be a "free thinker" regarding religious questions, you need to scrap that list and read actual philosophers. One of my favorite works of all time on the atheist side is Theism and Explanation by Gregory Dawes: https://www.amazon.com/Explanation-Routledge-Studies-Philosophy-Religion/dp/0415997380; and on the theist side, The Existence of God by Richard Swinburne: https://www.amazon.com/Existence-God-Richard-Swinburne/dp/0199271682.

Now, keep in mind that these are both academic works, and getting through them might be difficult if you're not familiar with philosophy of religion. But that's ok. Even if you don't "get" everything, they'll improve your thinking a great deal. And if you want more recommendations, PM me anytime. I am extremely well-read in philosophy of religion and can give you dozens and dozens of more things to read.

I am fascinated with both topics as well.

Recommendations on anthropology of religion:

• Recommendations by r/anthropology (includes primers)
  
• The Golden Bough
  
• Hero With A Thousand Faces
  
• Who Wrote The Bible?
  
  Recommendations on philosophy of religion:
  
  
• Blackwell Companion To Natural Theology
  
• Logic And Theism
  
• Theism And Explanation
  

Sorry, for some reason I didn't notice your reply.

In your blog, you don't make a combined argument. You only vaguely reference other arguments in answer to criticisms, but the criticisms aren't adequately addressed in the arguments you refer to.

Making one argument at a time should make things easier for you. If you can't even make one argument, why should I believe that you can make many? What's the point in coming to a debate forum if you just point to your website?

> What do you mean by 'natural processes that lean towards complexity'? Can you give me an example? The second law of thermodynamics would seem to suggest otherwise.

Universal processes forming in some way need not contradict the second law, even within our universe. If you consider natural forces outside our current universe, then that isn't even a concern. An example might be the discovery of more fundamental physical forces that act to constrain the other emergent laws in such a way as to lead to complexity. The more fundamental physics might be relatively free of specific universal constants, or "fine tuning".

It's easy to imagine that there is a more fundamental physics yet to be uncovered, that will unify the current forces of physics.

> Let's say that you walk into a casino, and somebody bets you that you cannot guess the number that an unknown number of dice will add up to, for a million dollars. You randomly guess 120...

But you have no reason to equate complexity with a very specific value like 120.

Let me put it this way. It seems like you're speaking about philosophical possibilities, rather than actual possibilities (or plausible differences that might have actually happened in our current reality).

If that's the case, then you have no reason to only assume the physical laws and universal constants that currently exist. It's possible that there are any number of physical laws for a possible universe, which include any number of possible universal constants. You should also take into account possible steady-state universes, and so on and so on.

You can only say that complexity is improbable by making these unfounded assumptions about known physics, and discarding other possibilities.

My argument about God not being a good explanation hasn't been addressed in your responses or your website. If I'm wrong, please show me where.

With regards to the multiverse, there are many different models, some are philosophical and some are based on actual physics. They all aim to explain reality as simply as possible. They could be considered plausible (but as yet unproven). The plausibility of some of these ideas are easily as independently supported as any conception of God is. Some of them can even be empirically tested.

 

I don't know if I can recommend these books, as I haven't read them myself yet. So take them or leave them I guess, but they are generally considered to be pretty good works of philosophy and they are on my reading list.

• Theism and Explanation, Gregory W. Dawes. This book is about God and similar explanations, and how they're not very good explanations.
  
  
• Arguing about Gods, Graham Oppy. This is kind of an overview of many arguments and rebuttals, including ontological and fine-tuning arguments.