Reddit reviews Arguing about Gods

Colin Howson – Objecting to God

George H. Smith – Atheism: The Case Against God

Graham Oppy – Arguing about Gods

Graham Oppy – The Best Argument Against God

Herman Philipse – God in the Age of Science

J. L. Mackie – The Miracle of Theism

Jordan Sobel – Logic and Theism

Nicholas Everitt – The Non-Existence of God

Richard Gale – On the Nature and Existence of God

Robin Le Poidevin – Arguing for Atheism

Andrew Melnyk – A Physicalist Manifesto

> I would like to see an atheist debate someone like Plantingna

It's not a debate, but if you're interested in a more philosophically-focused response to Plantinga's reformed epistemology, I'd recommend checking out Prof. Tyler Wunder's content. If you just want a brief overview, here's an interview with him covering the content of his dissertation critiquing Plantinga. The link on that site to his dissertation is dead, but I reached out to him via e-mail a while back and he sent it to me. I can forward you a download link if you find yourself interested.

Also, Michael Martin treats much of Plantinga's ideas in some depth in his book Atheism: A Philosophical Justification. There are plenty of atheist philosophers that are much more careful than Hitchens and co. if you look for them. I'm not interested in an extended dialogue on their arguments, but since you seemed intrigued by Rowe, I thought I'd point out some similar resources. Graham Oppy's Arguing About Gods was recommended to me along with the Michael Martin book, but I haven't checked it out yet. I've only read certain parts of Martin's book too (it's a long read if you were to go straight through).

But it has been shown to be the case. For example, see Oppy 2009.

Typically, the response to Leibnizia-style cosmological argument is to say that the PSR is false, and that the universe is a brute face.

Uhhhhhh....

Graham Oppy wrote one of the most brilliant books on atheism ever.

J.L. Mackie, probably one of the top atheist philosophers of the 20th Century, also wrote what's often considered to be the best book on atheism ever written.

The expertise is in refuting the arguments for God's existence, and then putting forth arguments that God cannot or is unlikely to exist.

I agree 100% about seeking out the best of each side. Too many people think philosophy of religion is some kind of tug of war, with any acknowledgement of an opponent's strength being too big a concession.

I'm with /u/ludi_literarum in that I think that this question is better dealt with in writing, so I'll start with some book recommendations; I think some of the best, most substantial arguments for theism can be found in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology and Aquinas. For the best atheist arguments, I always recommend The Miracle of Theism, Arguing About Gods, and Logic and Theism.

Of those on your list I have some experience of, the good:

1. William Lane Craig. The debate king, whether or not you think his arguments are sound. Always smart, organised, and prepared.

2. Matt Dilahunty. I don't believe I've ever seen Dilahunty in a debate context, trying to make a positive case for atheism to an audience, but I've seen quite a bit of The Atheist Experience. He listens patiently to anything that anybody has to say in support of anything supernatural, even when the caller is rude or their argument idiotic, then politely explains why he finds the argument wanting. You have to respect him.

3. Christopher Hitchens. Only ranks up here because of his wit and eloquence, not because I think highly of his arguments.

The bad:

4. Lawrence Krauss. He earns his spot down here for his main contribution to the theism debate, A Universe from Nothing. We all constantly see it appealed to as a solution to the problems of the cosmological argument, which it simply is not—for those who want details of this, see David Albert's review of the book in The New York Times. What does Krauss have to say about this review? Dr Albert "was a philosopher, not a physicist, so I discounted him." (16:20–16:35)

5. Sam Harris. I watched him debate William Lane Craig on whether there can be objective moral values apart from God. Craig tore him apart, largely because Harris chose to merely assert that Craig's interpretation of his book was wrong without explaining how and then waste all his time giving obviously canned speeches about how stupid it is to believe in God.

6. Richard Dawkins. His replies to famous theistic arguments in The God Delusion can be most charitably described as very inferior to what can be found in academic literature, and I think his "who designed the designer" argument shows a lack of appreciation of certain traditional attributes of God (as Dr Gary Gutting wrote about at length here).

First and foremost, I strongly recommend you cross-post this to /r/askphilosophy (and probably also /r/philosophyofreligion) since they'll be much more qualified than here to suggest topics and lesson-plans.

Second, you should probably include the Leibnizian cosmological argument alongside the Kalam, since they are sufficiently different. There's plenty of good material out there on this: Pruss' article for the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (this book is a very good resource, see here for more chapters) is pretty definitive, but both he and Richard Gale have written stuff on this.

Third, I think you should use different atheistic arguments. Drop Russell's teapot: especially given your expected audience you should stick to positive arguments against the existence of God. Russell's teapot you can work in as a side comment that argues that if the negative case (i.e. refuting theistic arguments) succeeds then we should be atheists, but other wise leave it be. Better topics I think would be the Argument from Non-Belief (see also here) and Hume's argument against belief in miracles (I have a bunch of resources on this I can send you, but the original argument in Of Miracles is pretty short and is free online). You might want to read one of Mackie's The Miracle of Theism, Martin's Atheism: A Philosophical Justification or Oppy's Arguing About Gods for a good source of atheistic critiques and arguments.

I have a subjective non-transferable experience of his existence. Faith is not belief without evidence. That would be arbitrary, like waking up one morning and exclaiming for no reason, "I have faith God exists!" No Christians do this. Their evidence is experiential and it varies.

As for conventional proofs with broader applications, I advocate the KCA alongside follow up argumentation.

You have to be careful what you read out on the interwebs when it comes to critiquing the argument. Most is written by amateur philosophers, as far as proffesional philosophers who've actually READ the work that they are critiquing. Such as, Wes Morriston, J. L. Mackie, Graham Oppy, also discussed by Oppy in. Though, even their published critiques are well, not good. Not going to go into detail atm.