EBOOK God in the Age of Science?:A Critique of Religious Reason

God in the Age of Science? is a critical examination of strategies for the        philosophical defence of religious belief. The main options may be presented as the        end nodes of a decision tree for religious believers. The faithful can interpret a        creedal statement (e.g. 'God exists') either as a truth claim, or otherwise. If it        is a truth claim, they can either be warranted to endorse it without evidence, or        not. Finally, if evidence is needed, should its evidential support beassessed by the        same logical criteria that we use in evaluating evidence in science, or not? Each of        these options has been defended by prominent analytic philosophers of religion.In        part I Herman Philipse assesses these options and argues that the most promising for        believers who want to be justified in accepting their creed in our scientific age is        the Bayesian cumulative case strategy developed by Richard Swinburne. Parts II and        III are devoted to an in-depth analysis of this case for theism. Using a 'strategy        of subsidiary arguments', Philipse concludes (1) that theism cannot be stated        meaningfully; (2) that if theism were meaningful, it would have no predictivepower        concerning existing evidence, so that Bayesian arguments cannot get started; and (3)        that if the Bayesian cumulative case strategy did work, one should conclude that        atheism is more probable than theism. Philipse provides a careful, rigorous, and        original critique of atheism in the worldtoday.