Show notes
In this video, I respond to Cosmic Skeptic's video "Christianity's Biggest Problem."
Alex's original video: https://youtu.be/5KDnnp0sDkI
DESCRIPTION #1:
The example Grandin cites comes from a book on this, Antoinio R. Damasio "Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain." And she also cites for the chapter as a whole "Freeman, W., and J.W. Watts. 1950. 'Psychosurgery in the Treatment of Mental Disorders and Intractable Pain.' Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher."
Also, just as a general rule, if you just google leucotomies and pain you'll find all kinds of stuff on this connection between leucotomy patients and people reporting reduced suffering. They did leucotomies in the 50s and 60s and they were way weird.
DESCRIPTION #2:
“A hypothesis h suffers from probabilistic tension if and only if h is logically equivalent to some conjunctive hypothesis, h1& h2, such that either P(h1| h2) is [greatly lesser than] 1 or P(h2| h1) is [greatly lesser than] 1: that is, one conjunct of the hypothesis is very unlikely, conditioned on the other conjunct. Among other things, a hypothesis h that suffers from probabilistic tension will be very unlikely: since P(h) = P(h1& h2) = P(h1| h2) x P(h2) = P(h2| h1) x P(h1), it follows that if P(h1| h2) is [greatly lesser than] 1 or P(h2| h1) is [greatly lesser than] 1, then P(h) is [greatly lesser than] 1.” In our case, atheism represents h. If h is really the conjunction of Atheism & Evolution, as Alex assumes, then we can represent Atheism as h1 and Evolution as h2. Since the probability of Evolution on Atheism is very unlikely, the probability of h2 given h1 is also very unlikely. Following Collins, this leads us to conclude that the intrinsic probability of h is very unlikely.
DESCRIPTION #3:
BOOKS:
-Animal Suffering and the Darwinian Problem of Evil by John Schneider
-God, Evolution and Animal Suffering by Bethany Sollereder
-The Groaning of Creation: God, Evolution and the Problem of Evil by Christopher Southgate
-Animal Suffering and the Problem of Evil by Nicola Hoggard Creegan
-Thomism and the Problem of Animal Suffering by Kyle Keltz
DISSERTATIONS:
-The Problem of Evil and Animal Suffering: A Case Study by Faith Pawl
-All Creation Groans: A Theodicy for Suffering Animals by Matthew Douglass
OTHER RESOURCES:
-The Problem of Evil by Peter van Inwagen (has a chapter on animal pain)
-A Random-Based Theodicy for Evolutionary Evils by Josh Rasmussen and J. Wesling
-Certain global theodicies: e.g. skeptical theism, multiverse models, etc.
DESCRIPTION #4:
Why Didn't God Just Create Everyone in Heaven?? - https://youtu.be/kOmOLre6CyM
DESCRIPTION #5: http://dustincrummett.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/philosophy-of-religion-for-all-final-version-4-13-2019-1.pdf
DESCRIPTION #6:
There aren't a lot of arguments for the conclusion that animals are essentially non-rational, and the ones that exist are not very good.
Special thanks to Wade Tisthammer (@Maverick Christian), Justin Mooney, Joe Schmid (@Majesty of Reason), Josh Rasmussen (@Worldview Design), Dustin Crummett, & Liz Jackson (@PhiLizophy) for providing helpful comments on earlier drafts of the script.
Link to this YouTube Video:
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