From Chapter 5: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End

Let me state for the record what I’m not proposing. This will better clarify my position before I argue it, as sort of a preemptive strike against misguided caricatures of my position. First and most importantly, I’m not saying Philosophy proper is stupid or dead or unnecessary or that there has been no progress in that discipline. Massimo Pigliucci is addressing these questions in his book. Richard Carrier addressed these issues in a cursory fashion in a video. In it Carrier addressed the question “What is pseudo-philosophy?” It’s “Philosophy that relies on fallacious arguments to a conclusion, and/or relies on factually false or undemonstrated premises. And isn’t corrected when discovered.” Based on this accurate definition alone all supernaturalist philosophy is pseudo-philosophy. Religious philosophy is to philosophy what “creation science” is to science.

I’m not proposing atheist philosophers, or anyone else who specializes in a particular religion, should dismiss out-of-hand or ridicule philosophy of religion arguments. They can do so I’ll argue later, but I see no reason why anyone who specializes in a particular religion would do that regularly. Perhaps surprisingly, I’m not even proposing atheist philosophers should cease writing books on PoR or that they should cease all lectures or classes on such topics in the secular universities. I’m not suggesting everyone else should stop discussing the issues of the PoR, or writing books on it. I will however, be showing them all how to do it correctly from now on, if they wish to continue dealing with these issues at all. But if they do the philosophy or religion correctly it would no longer be considered the philosophy of religion, but something else. Finally, I’m not proposing that if students don’t agree with secular or atheist professors they should fail the classes. *Sheesh* Where do these objections come from?