Religion Helps Society | Richard Swinburne | Oxford Union

Richard Swinburne argues that religion helps society.

Filmed on Thursday 7th November 2013
MOTION: This House Believe That Religion Harms Society.
RESULT: Motion Carried.

STAY CONNECTED:

ABOUT RICHARD SWINBURNE:
Richard G. Swinburne is a British philosopher of religion. He is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Over the last 50 years Swinburne has been a very influential proponent of philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His philosophical contributions are primarily in philosophy of religion and philosophy of science. He aroused much discussion with his early work in the philosophy of religion, a trilogy of books consisting of The Coherence of Theism, The Existence of God, and Faith and Reason.

ABOUT THE OXFORD UNION SOCIETY:
The Union is the world's most prestigious debating society, with an unparalleled reputation for bringing international guests and speakers to Oxford. It has been established for 190 years, aiming to promote debate and discussion not just in Oxford University, but across the globe.

[JanSopkoDev]

This man's speech was an example of how religion in fact harms society. A person so highly educated being so biased to desperately try to prove existence of god. His whole speech is based on the premise that there is an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god, which he failed to prove.

[futilitarian]

Superb evidence.

For the opposition.

[croquet]

I mean no disrespect to the distinguished gentleman, but as an American I couldn't get over the fact that he seems to have wandered into the debating chamber directly from a Monty Python sketch.

[cmadel]

His argument was 1. Religion helps society because it teaches people the truth. 2. That truth is that God exists. 3. We can know that God exists because he is the best explanation of the universe existing at all and the best explanation of the universe being the way that it is.

[MrNckissfan]

He did nothing at all to help his side. Instead he had simply just given a sermon.

[cmadel]

I think Swinburne is the best philosopher for the last 500 years but I do feel like it would have been very hard to make sense of what he was arguing if the audience hadn't read his books.

[septomicron]

Powerful speech. Never before have I fallen asleep and thrown up at the same time. If I wasn't sitting upright, I'd be dead. That man is a battleship. He laid that room to waste. I'm surprised there wasn't a mosh pit after that massive triumph.

[luciusseneca]

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

[naufilmanasiya]

i really dont understand why god(the absolute power) needs people to prove his existance

[alistairwatt]

He went into great detail describing the attributes of his God, but he never gave any good reasons for why we should believe that this God _actually_ exists. It was like listening to a child talking about the powers of their favorite super hero.

[superveloce]

Some here do not understand Prof. Swinburne's position. His argument is very simple. He is arguing that if God exists, he necessarily would want good things for society. Prof. Swinburne is arguing that the knowledge of and relationship with God is itself a very good thing. In essence, that the basis of religion, Prof. Swinburne argues, is a very good thing. The rest of his speech are merely supporting premises for this argument.

Do I agree with him? No. Not exactly.

However, that is an issue for another debate entirely. I'm happy to discuss it further, if anyone is interested.

[byrdale]

"God can only do good" several times he says this. Why then did he (it (god)) create bad/evil? Oh and mosquitoes and Ebola and down’s syndrome and parasites and polio and typhoid and smallpox and syphilis and cholera and dengue fever etc etc. Oh and piles/haemorrhoids.

[xeoncat]

Leibniz argued (300 years ago) that assuming god exists, he cannot possibly be good and omnipotent at the same time. If he's good he'd want to remove all human evil and if he's omnipotent then he would do exactly that. That's something which can be immediately verified. the free will of humans would be irrelevant, because god wanting to do good, then would not give humans the power to do evil.
And Prof Swinburne certainly knows all this...

[Unknowntyper]

Which god? What religion. I hate how they link arms when opposed  by atheist rational arguments against to say "we out number you", when they al think each other are doomed to Hell.

[Graoutchmeuh]

2:24 aaaand he lost me.
It wasn't an amazing start, but assuming an omniscient, rational being would be good? That's stupid.
It would be perfectly rational for such a being to create our universe filled with as much pain and suffering as possible if he needed tortured souls for something.
For all we know God eats souls, and the pain inflicted on us is just like mayonnaise.

[buffgbob]

My favorite part is around 1min and 7:45. David Silverman looks like a buffoon - proud in his ignorance.  Made me crack a smile.  After all, has anyone seen any form of naturalism that doesn't rely on "brute facts" which are merely a nice way of saying "this has no explanation"?  But at least they get to piggy back on the prestige of the sciences before telling us that they don't know anything after all.

[ivtch]

One issue I have trouble with in Richard's reasoning is that God seeks the Good (God is goodness). When I look at the world around me, I see a lot of pain and suffering and death and it seems to me that this state of affairs has to exist for a sustainable ecosystem (recycling of matter) to be. It is basic and foundational to the running of our world. I would claim that if God is all-powerful, for our functioning world, then he is responsible for both good and bad.
Actually, this has left me in an ethical dilemma. If God is not pure goodness, then why should I (we) act morally?

[dr_jamie_ranger]

He's great at producing arguments, but the premises are completely unfounded.

[Bunnyness]

I highly respect Professor Swinburne, but I'm having difficulty understanding him and following his argument.  In fact, I'm not able to figure out what his argument is.  Maybe I'm not intellectual enough.  All I can say is that my faith is very simple:  I believe.

[mkmarak]

lol It's so funny to see people in the comment section think they're smarter than Richard Swinburne 🤦🏻‍♂️