This past weekend I attended the national meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. The keynote speakers were Sir Anthony Kenny and John Haldane (who will surely be sir'd one of these days). This was a very rewarding "British Invasion" and two such dignified figures brought an old-world feel to the affair.
I asked Sir Anthony what he thought were the best arguments on both sides of the God controversy, that is what are the best reasons to be a theist or an atheist respectively. His reply I found very interesting (and, as a theist, gratifying). Here's what he said.
The advantage that the theist has is that she can, and the atheist cannot, explain the origin of human language, the origin of life, and the origin of the universe. (Someone nearby said "Three strikes and you're out.") However, he said, he couldn't make sense of the notion of a bodiless mind due to certain things he accepted from Wittgenstein.
I was not the only one who thought that seemed a little thin and lacking as a counterbalance to the pro-theist considerations. Perhaps its a generational thing: Mackie seemed to keep coming back to that objection as well. At any rate, he said he just happened to have a forthcoming book _What I Believe_ where we can read the fuller account.
Thanks, Trent. That was very interesting. Especially in light of Kenny's mysterious de-conversion described in A Way from Rome.