The Credibility of Religious Belief: Claims and Counter-Claims

Abstract

This chapter presents different arguments for and against God's existence. There are two widely held beliefs supporting the existence of God. According to the cosmological argument, the existence of the world in general is to be explained by a self-sufficient, eternal creator who brings the universe into being. The other is the design argument. It holds that the regular movement of the planets, the intricacy of body organs, and the ways in which species are well adapted to their environment all attest to a wisdom and design that have been superimposed upon the cosmos. Meanwhile, new atheism offers the following claims: the standard arguments for divine existence are weak and almost entirely lacking in validity; the increasingly successful explanatory power of the natural sciences renders theological explanation redundant; and the counter-evidence of evil tells decisively against any relevant form of theism.