It’s true that a lot of people call themselves agnostics, which seems to indicate (1) not being completely convinced by any argument against theism while also (2) not having a commitment to any particular religion. However, I think the great majority of people who call themselves agnostics fall into one of these categories:
People who prefer to avoid too-committal terms like “atheist”, either because there’s a stigma attached to overt atheism where they are or because they think “atheist” implies absolute certainty.
People who haven’t really thought the matter through very much.
People who are agnostic about the existence of some sort of deity but strongly convinced that e.g. there is almost certainly no supremely good and powerful being who takes a personal interest in human affairs.
I would expect people in the first and third groups to share my opinion about arguments from evil, though the third lot would rightly observe that e.g. such arguments tell us nothing about superbeings who just don’t care about our affairs.
People in the second group might well not be very convinced by arguments from evil, but I would expect that if they gave serious consideration to such arguments they would typically see them as very strong.
“Everyone thinks there is a convincing argument”
That’s not quite what I’m saying. I’m saying that there are, in fact, arguments that I would expect to be very convincing if looked at seriously by a sizable majority of people not committed to the religions in question. Of course those who haven’t seriously considered such arguments will not yet be convinced.
Your own epistemic situation
I find it very interesting that you aren’t very convinced by arguments from evil despite having rejected Christianity, but I don’t think there’s anything further I can say without having any idea why it is that you aren’t convinced. You say it’s because there’s a particular answer you find reasonable, but I’ve no idea what that answer is :-).
You do mention Scott’s “Answer to Job”, which is very ingenious. It’s a good answer to arguments-from-evil that end “and therefore it is absolutely impossible that there is a benevolent god”, but I would consider such arguments overreaching even without that particular answer. Is it any good as an answer to “evidential” arguments that take the quantity and distribution of Bad Stuff in our world merely as evidence? Well, I guess that depends on (1) how likely Scott’s scenario is a priori and (2) how credible it is that our world is, so to speak, a random pick from all possible worlds where good outweighs bad, weighted by number of intelligent agents or something of the kind. To #1, I say: not terribly likely, because I am not convinced that good outweighs bad in our world. (Which is not at all the same thing as saying that many people in our world would rather die than live.) To #2, I say: not credible at all; I would expect a random observer from a multiverse containing all possible more-good-than-bad worlds to see something very very very different from what I see. (I suspect the great majority of observers in such worlds are something like Boltzmann brains.)
“Atheistic convictions are often the result of non-evidential commitments”
Oh, absolutely. I wasn’t meaning to make any comment on the relative merits of theists and atheists. I was just addressing an obvious argument against any claim that there’s good evidence against theism, namely that lots of apparently sensible people are theists. (I firmly agree that you likewise can’t reject the claim that there’s good evidence against atheism just because lots of apparently sensible people are atheists.)
(Highly intelligent converts like Leah Libresco and Ed Feser would be evidence against any claim that the only reason for not being convinced by atheistic arguments is prior religious commitment. But I have not been making that claim, at least not deliberately.)
Agnostics
It’s true that a lot of people call themselves agnostics, which seems to indicate (1) not being completely convinced by any argument against theism while also (2) not having a commitment to any particular religion. However, I think the great majority of people who call themselves agnostics fall into one of these categories:
People who prefer to avoid too-committal terms like “atheist”, either because there’s a stigma attached to overt atheism where they are or because they think “atheist” implies absolute certainty.
People who haven’t really thought the matter through very much.
People who are agnostic about the existence of some sort of deity but strongly convinced that e.g. there is almost certainly no supremely good and powerful being who takes a personal interest in human affairs.
I would expect people in the first and third groups to share my opinion about arguments from evil, though the third lot would rightly observe that e.g. such arguments tell us nothing about superbeings who just don’t care about our affairs.
People in the second group might well not be very convinced by arguments from evil, but I would expect that if they gave serious consideration to such arguments they would typically see them as very strong.
“Everyone thinks there is a convincing argument”
That’s not quite what I’m saying. I’m saying that there are, in fact, arguments that I would expect to be very convincing if looked at seriously by a sizable majority of people not committed to the religions in question. Of course those who haven’t seriously considered such arguments will not yet be convinced.
Your own epistemic situation
I find it very interesting that you aren’t very convinced by arguments from evil despite having rejected Christianity, but I don’t think there’s anything further I can say without having any idea why it is that you aren’t convinced. You say it’s because there’s a particular answer you find reasonable, but I’ve no idea what that answer is :-).
You do mention Scott’s “Answer to Job”, which is very ingenious. It’s a good answer to arguments-from-evil that end “and therefore it is absolutely impossible that there is a benevolent god”, but I would consider such arguments overreaching even without that particular answer. Is it any good as an answer to “evidential” arguments that take the quantity and distribution of Bad Stuff in our world merely as evidence? Well, I guess that depends on (1) how likely Scott’s scenario is a priori and (2) how credible it is that our world is, so to speak, a random pick from all possible worlds where good outweighs bad, weighted by number of intelligent agents or something of the kind. To #1, I say: not terribly likely, because I am not convinced that good outweighs bad in our world. (Which is not at all the same thing as saying that many people in our world would rather die than live.) To #2, I say: not credible at all; I would expect a random observer from a multiverse containing all possible more-good-than-bad worlds to see something very very very different from what I see. (I suspect the great majority of observers in such worlds are something like Boltzmann brains.)
“Atheistic convictions are often the result of non-evidential commitments”
Oh, absolutely. I wasn’t meaning to make any comment on the relative merits of theists and atheists. I was just addressing an obvious argument against any claim that there’s good evidence against theism, namely that lots of apparently sensible people are theists. (I firmly agree that you likewise can’t reject the claim that there’s good evidence against atheism just because lots of apparently sensible people are atheists.)
(Highly intelligent converts like Leah Libresco and Ed Feser would be evidence against any claim that the only reason for not being convinced by atheistic arguments is prior religious commitment. But I have not been making that claim, at least not deliberately.)