The Rabbit in the Garden: A Skeptical Theist's Tale

Professor Hud Hudson discusses the problem of evil and skeptical theism in this talk. It was given in 2012 at the University of Alabama as part of the philosophy today lecture series.

#philosophy #atheism #theism

[Jaggerbush]

This was great because: topic - delivery - no music - no commercials - no cheesy jokes - perfectly dry.

[youssefismael]

Oh man, how did you do this for me. I saw this video a year ago once, it was wonderful. But when I tried to see it again using the link, it said it was removed. Since then I have been trying to find it again and never succeeded until today. It was renamed and uploaded again. Ughhh, worth every second of my search.

[richardgomes]

Atheists do not say that evil exists.
Good and evil are about judgement, under a certain set of arbitrary rules and values.
Good and evil are relative judgements, not absolute judgements.
The example of a cyclone killing thousands of people can be bad for people, but can be good for agriculture.
Compensating good: maybe your God is really interested on the well being of lettuce, instead of well being of people.
The point is: I can literally invent infinite arguments for compensating good, literally infinite arguments. But I cannot *demonstrate* a single one to be true and/or real.

[Danyel]

I didn't get the argument where he said that the burden of proof is on the atheist to prove the negative (lack of compensating good) instead of the theist to prove that there is one.

It is exactly the other way. If you want me to believe there is a cure for cancer, you need to show it to me, and not the other way around.

[dnlarts]

Hi everyone,
What did he mean at 8:26, that thesis is a substantive philosophical matter?

[brettdison]

Oops, I forgot to add *that* if we are to draw a clear comparison between between the Theist and Atheist, we have to provide that the Atheist doesn't believe that cancer exists, or that a cure is impossible. This is a basic exercise in the use of "substitution" in evaluating the logical merit of an argument: "like" must be substituted with "like". Your comment (though smart and thought provoking -- made me think) lacks the "like for like" quality required for substitution. Honestly, I swear that I am not picking a fight. Mine is a friendly counter argument -- in the best traditions of the discipline. :)

[peterg]

But why did you think you had rabbits in the garden in the first place? Burrows? Droppings? Teeth marks on the carrots? You can’t then try to make room for the hiddenness of God or the hiddenness of a complexity. We’re right back to Sagan’s invisible dragon.

My wife will ask why I didn’t mow the front lawn, and I will say I might have hit the rabbit. She will say there’s no rabbit there. And then I will say, well, you can’t rule it out.

[gonx]

a natural disaster cant be evil and an animal killing another animal cant be evil..

[kimmyswan]

It sounds like God is using its creation (us and other non-human animals) as a means to an end? If so, doesn’t this just make God the ultimate consequentialist?