Philosophy professor Alvin Plantinga explains that the argument -- "If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-good, He would have created the best of all possible worlds" -- is not satisfactory at all.

"How, indeed, could one argue, from the existence of evil that it is unlikely God exists?" (Plantinga, 1974, 61). We have every reason to believe that "…all natural evils have perfectly natural causes," Plantinga quotes from Cornman and Lehrer; and therefore it is "…unreasonable to postulate some non-natural cause to explain their occurrences" (62).

Is Atheism really comforting?

McCloskey may be comforted with his beliefs, and a Christian will not and would not intrude on his comfort zone without just cause. But he is talking in circles when he speaks about the "self-respect" and "self-reliance" that comes with being part of atheism. Actually those phrases fit perfectly into the Christian theology as well. McCloskey's use of semantics and...
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