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It's been a long time since I read The God Delusion, so my memory is hazy, but I read it after having read books like Nicholas Everitt's The Non-Existence of Go
by optionalsquid 4y ago
It's been a long time since I read The God Delusion, so my memory is hazy, but I read it after having read books like Nicholas Everitt's The Non-Existence of God and Michael Martin's Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, and I remember being disappointed with how comparatively weak Dawkins' treatment of the subject was. As LeroyRaz pointed out, these arguments are not new and a lot of back-and-forth has been (and is) happening, but from what I recall Dawkins only ever addressed weaker (layman's) versions of those arguments and it felt pretty obvious that he was writing about a subject far outside of his area of expertise
- paulryanrogers 4y agoWhat are the stronger arguments for a god then? Because having been raised in churches and studying under university trained apologists I've only encountered weak arguments. All relying on appeals to authority or unfalsifiable claims. Even the premise of a god strikes me as impossible and/or irrelevant given it must also exist outside the bounds of our experience.
- optionalsquid 4y agoMostly it's the same general arguments that Dawkins addresses, modified in various ways to address counter arguments, though I recall Plantinga in particular having some novel arguments that I believe were covered in Martin's book. Some of these were quite interesting, even if not convincing (to me). However, I couldn't give you the specifics as it has been a long time since I tried to engage with theistic apologetics. If you are interested then I'd suggest checking out the two books that I mentioned, as they cover the subject in depth.