Episode 41 - Animal Suffering and Theology with Phil Halper

Doubts Aloud Podcast

Episode 41 – Show Notes
It is a delight for us to have a long chat with our friend ‘SkydivePhil’ - Phil Halper. He’s best known for his YouTube channel and has twice been on Unbelievable discussing cosmology and also, for his first appearance, animal suffering. Phil is a vegetarian and sees how the issue of animal suffering is a much more powerful argument against theism than is generally realised. It is that subject that we were keen to discuss, especially because Phil and some of his contacts have just published an important paper on the topic. The paper is not so much philosophy/theology but focuses most on the science of animal pain and suffering, asking the question of the degree to which animals suffer as we do when they experience pain. The conclusions from this are vast, but we stick in this episode to how it informs arguments against theism based on what we now know of animal suffering.
SkydivePhil’s Youtube channel is here
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtOgKmAM4MeFu-jd-HB3_cg
The best link for Phil’s paper is here, it is free to read for its first three months https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09515089.2021.1914829?src=&journalCode=cphp20
Within the SkydivePhil channel, we suggest you look under “Animal videos” and especially Phil’s discussion with Randal Rauser:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoRm8Rg4Lh0
Phil’s appearances on Unbelievable…..
On Animal Suffering, with Michael Murray:
https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Animal-suffering-and-God-Michael-Murray-vs-Phil-Harper
On Big Bang:
https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Has-the-Big-Bang-gone-bust-Phil-Harper-Jeff-Zweerink
On Multiverse:
https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Who-s-afraid-of-the-Multiverse-Jeff-Zweerink-Skydive-Phil
For Sethien cosmology see here (OT God is evil, despite creating the world. Gospel of Judas etc)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sethianism
The material that eventually led Phil into becoming vegetarian was from the philosopher Robert Nozick , it can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia#Moral_constraints_and_the_state
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