#89 Michael Huemer's New Argument for Atheism

Michael Huemer, philosopher at U.C. Boulder, joins me for a wide-ranging discussion of arguments for and against the existence of God, with special focus on his new argument for atheism: the impossibility of an infinite God. Check out Mike’s book, Knowledge, Value, and Reality: A Mostly Common Sense Guide to Philosophy.Video of this interview is available on YouTube.To support the channel, do please oh please consider donating, either via PayPal or Buy Me a Coffee.Follow me on X because you’re awesome.EPISODE CHAPTERS:00:00:00 Introduction00:01:42 Huemer’s research on consciousness00:05:42 Could LLMs be conscious?00:08:11 Physicalism and consciousness00:14:36 Why physicalism became so popular00:17:16 Metaphysics and scientific evidence00:21:01 Could God be empirically detected?00:23:37 Why Huemer is agnostic00:25:48 Philip Goff’s limited God00:27:23 Can a limited God explain evil?00:36:03 Divine psychology and skeptical theism00:38:37 Can theism make predictions?00:46:54 Scientific confirmation and theistic arguments00:51:59 Which theistic arguments fail?00:53:14 The ontological argument00:58:06 The modal ontological argument01:01:03 Necessary beings and modal intuitions01:07:23 The Kalam cosmological argument01:08:54 Could time have a beginning?01:12:22 Can God create time?01:18:22 Cosmology and the Big Bang01:23:48 Actual and potential infinities01:26:00 Huemer’s new argument for atheism01:29:28 Divine infinity and omniscience Get full access to Miles K. Donahue at mileskdonahue.substack.com/subscribe