video
Topic Series
Robin Collins
Sara Imari Walker on Physics, Emergence, and Life on Other Planets
Greg Epstein on Technology, Morality, and Non-Religion
David Papineau on Consciousness, Physics, & the Mind-Body Problem
Or Graur on the Big Bang and the Physics of Galaxies
Ned Block on Perception, Cognition, and Consciousness
Brian Swimme on Consciousness, Cultural Evolution, and the Noosphere
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Robin, if you were an atheist, if you defected to the dark side, what would be your best arguments?
- Robin Collins
- What I would do is first focus on the problem of evil. I think that has a lot of intuitive power. And I think there's a good answer to it, but still, I would press that argument. There's an all good, all powerful being. Why is there not only so much evil in the world, but some of the evil seems so pointless, it's hard for us to see any point to it. That's the first argument I would press.
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- What else?
- Robin Collins
- The second argument I would press is look at this whole hypothesis of there being this god is very puzzling. When you start thinking about the existence of this infinite being, this being who purportedly knows the future, who always exists or timelessly exists, it's very difficult to make that all fit together and not just simply be puzzled. So, if you're invoking that being as an explanation of the universe are you actually making progress? Are you just now increasing your puzzlement instead of reducing it? Maybe it would just simply be better to say the universe exists and stop there. Why add to your puzzle by invoking this being called God?
- Robert Lawrence Kuhn
- Any other reasons for atheism?
- Robin Collins
- No, I don't think there are anymore.