Forget the theologians. if you want a real argument on the existence of God, turn to the trial lawyer. Vincent Bugliosi, prosecutor of Charles Manson and author o the riveting book Helter Skelter has written a new book, this one debating the existence of God. "If you're deeply religious," he said, "this isn't a book for you."

His main concern is why people must suffer under an all-knowing and loving god. "Christian theologians, among others, have formulated various theories to explain why there is evil and why terrible things happen to apparently good people. None satisfies Bugliosi."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bugliosi-20110417,0,1432458.story

Actually, if you are willing to grant him his premise that creating such a critter as man was a good thing in the first place (certainly disputable, however much its negation leads to a whole slew of other conundrums) , Liebniz makes a pretty subtle argument that God's doing the best he can, i.e. that this is "the best of all possible worlds."

Lawyers should stick to their knitting (logic chopping, politics and hard liquor) and let the theologians and philosophers worry about the mysterious ways of the gods.

Lucky, thanks for that interesting article. According to the article, Bugliosi defends a kind of old-school agnosticism by criticizing atheists with the "first cause" argument. But the "first cause" argument can itself be questioned because it leads to an infinite regress with the question "what created God?" or "what caused the first cause?" There are answers that logically and factually avoid the notion of "God", supernatural causes and the regress. http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/big-bang.html

"No one could reasonably accuse Bugliosi of lacking esteem for logic. His is the cool rationality of the law, a world defined by fact, not faith."

WHAT????????????!!!!

This is the same dude who believes in the Lone Gunman theory and wanted to put George W. Bush on trial for murder.

Let's keep things in perspective.

Gosh, it's not like the second gunman people have actually come up with any proof, and George Bush on trial? I think that's a good idea too!

He wanted to put Bush on trial for the deaths of every American soldier in Iraq after the Sadam government fell. Under that logic we could currently indict Obama.