One of the New Atheists (esp. Dawkins) would be fun – criticize their own works’ rigor to them. He’s such the poster-boy for the “movement”, yet so philosophically bad. I’d love to watch his fans’ heads explode. I doubt it could ever happen, though.

More realistically, Peter Kreeft (Boston College) would be interesting. He’s an expert on Aquinas, and you could discuss the relevance of Medieval philosophy in the modern world. We’ve exceeded their knowledge base in every area, so why use it except in a historical context? All the good bits I enjoy from it are usually from Classical antiquity, anyway, with Jesus sprinkled on it.

Also, try to get Bobby Pruitt (the pastor from the church to whom we submitted questions). Ask what his purpose was for asking for questions, then ask ones he never answered from the list we gave here. A softball interview, but it could prove entertaining. Does he know this is the site that found the submission box?

Two suggestions:

Richard Carrier – the resurrection of Jesus (didn’t see a interview with him here after a quick search)

Theodore Drange – Argument from unbelief and/or PoE.

-Neil Manson on the current state of the debate on the fine-tuning argument

Shelly Kagan (of WLC debate fame), he’s apparently a hardcore rule consequentialist so it would be cool to hear him talk about that.

WLC on the moral argument would be very fun and interesting if he were pressed on it in the right way. Certainly that’s an interview I would love to conduct, myself…

Seconding: Sober, Collins, Carrier, Feldman (could also talk about evidentialism), Ehrman, Singer

Eliezer Yudkowsky would be great on improving one’s own rationality. Robin Hanson too, though all his best stuff is on questioning the reasons people give for their behavior.

Also, Peter van Inwagen on metaphysics 101 and maybe also disagreement would be good. Though if you got him on, you’d have to try to steer him away from any rants on the evils of the Enlightenment.

Looking down your list of interviews, it might be good to revisit the connection between God and physics from the atheistic perspective. Likewise, I think an interview with any of the ‘new’ atheists would be fascinating, since a conversation with someone like yourself would reveal the depth of their views (are they shallow, or do they necessarily cut corners to appeal to a popular audience? to what extent are their views thought out?). An interview with Victor Stenger would kill two birds with one stone, and better yet, he would be uniquely positioned to give a broad brush justification of his fellows, having recently written a book called “The New Atheism”.

You should interview Mano Singham, a physicist who writes about atheism and other subjects related to reality on his blog.

On Youtube I stumbled across two talks by Andy Thomson (at the AA 2009 convention) on the evolutionary basis of religious belief and moral sentiment respectively. Thomson doesn’t crop up on a search of your site, but you must know of him. He might not be philosophically sophisticated enough for your taste, but you could engage him on whatever shortcomings you detect.

Victor Reppert on the Argument from Reason.
Paul Draper on the Problem of Evil.
Some ex-atheist/agnostic NT scholar like Craig Keener.
Richard Swinburne on Theism as an explanatory hypothesis.
Glenn Peoples on Materialist Christian Anthropology.
Charles Taliaferro, Stewart Goetz, John Foster or Dean Zimmerman on Substance Dualism.

Keith DeRose on religious epistemology and/or reasons for why God might allow evil (he’s writing a book on it).

I second Victor Reppert on the Argument from Reason. It would be very interesting to hear him argue that naturalism in principle cannot explain how reason is possible and hear Luke disagree and say that either a) we have a naturalistic explanation of reason or b) we don’t have one but maybe one will turn up in the future. Or something. I am of course guessing what Luke would say.

I second Paul Draper on anything, he’s very entertaining. Maybe his recommendation of agnosticism given Divine Hiddenness.

I second J.L. Schellenberg on Divine Hiddenness.

I also second Dean Zimmerman and want to add Ted Sider. I have heard that both are theists. Both are also hugely successful and highly respected philosophers. (They teach at Rutgers and NYU, respectively.) I would be interested in hearing the reasons for why they are theists and whether they think that atheists are irrational in their belief. Actually I would also be interested in hearing what Keith DeRose has to say about this as he is also a hugely successful and highly respected philosopher. (Currently at Yale.)

Eugenie Scott
PZ Myers
Sam Harris
Bart Ehrman

I already asked for Stephen Law, but in connection to his Evil God paper. Otherwise even a part of the list you have already looks pretty amazing.

Second Peter Kreeft, Brian Davies, Robin Collins and Neil Manson.
Alex Pruss on metaphysics and the PSR would also be great, just like Daniel Howard-Snyder on the problem of evil.

Quentin Smith – Atheistic cosmology, Kalam cosmological arguments for atheism, and the tenseless/block/eternalistic theory of time.

Daniel Dennet – How Darwinism changed the way we think, and his Multiple Drafts theory of consciousness.

Sam Harris – The nature of justified and unjustified belief, and neuroscientific perspectives on religious belief.

Sean Carrol – How the study of cosmology tends to lead to atheism.

Vic Stenger – God: The Failed Hypothesis

Austin Dacey – Ethics

Luke,

I would recommend David Eller, one of the contributors to the Christian Delusion. I don’t know if you have read his book Atheism Advanced but he has some excellent ideas on how Atheism needs to change in order to advance.

He also is an anthropologist and has some excellent theories on how belief in God and religion developed. He spent time doing field work among the aborigines of Australia

Seconding Richard Carrier on morality, Bart Ehrman on the mainstream view of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet.)

Nominating Pete Rollins (Irish theologian, wrote Fidelity Of Betrayal, Orthodox Heretic, etc) regarding his concept of “a/theism”. Also, Richard Beck (of experimentaltheology.blogspot.com) would be a fascinating interview, on a myriad of subjects, but particularly if you discussed William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience or the psychology of religion.

William lane craig would be awesome but unlikely.

please don`t interview sam harris! or if you do, don’t be friendly!

Dude, if you interview Carrier, please make the topic ancient science. His section in the Christian Delusion looks amazing.

William Lane Craig.

If that’s not an option then Dawkins.

I’m voting for Ehrman. He seems likely to do the show since he did that terrible interview you posted earlier from the atheist guy. That would be a major “get.”

WLC would be all-time classic considering how much time he gets on this blog.

Don Cupitt would be interesting. An Anglican priest that doesn’t believe.

I want to add my vote for John Loftus.

If you get WLC, it might be a good idea to give the readers of this blog a chance to submit some questions beforehand. It would be interesting to see how he interacts with some of the more sensible objections that come from the types of people that he normally doesn’t interact with (reasonably well informed laymen on the internet). And Luke would probably have a relatively good grasp of what would be the most likely follow-ups to his answers that the typical reader of this blog might have. So this would be the closest thing to an actual debate with WLC that many of the readers of this blog will ever have. (Not that I think the whole interview should be based on these questions, as that might make it a bit more hostile than Luke’s regular interviews.)

Someone not on the list:

Marlene Winell

She does a lot of clinical work with ex-fundamentalists trying to overcome the harmful effects of religion. She also has a self-help book on the subject.

John, I already listened to those and there were really good. I think a new interview is necessary because his book is likely to be much further along.

I’d love to see Richard Carrier appear on the show.

I’d like hear you interview Plantinga and discuss Reformed Epistemology and the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism.

I’d also like to hear you interview Graham Oppy on the arguments (especially those of Craig) and/or Richard Joyce or Sinnott-Armstrong on morality.

Lots of great ideas here. Enough names to last a few years! I’ll add:

Pascal Boyer, on the evolution of religion.
Scott Atran, on the evolution of religion.
Philip Kitcher, evolution and religion, future of faith
Plantinga, reformed epistemology and the evolutionary defeater of naturalism (go right to the hourse’s mouth)

The Reasonable Doubts podcast gang, particularly Luke Galen, psychology and religion

R. Jospeh Hoffman , biblical scholarship and CFI
Tim Callahan, biblical scholarship
Tom Rees (Epiphenom ), cultural causes of religion
Massimo Pigliucci, Philosphy of science, skepticism
Tom Clark, naturalism
Steven Pinker, decline of violence, how language affects our perception, etc,

Rebecca Goldstein, philosophy, Spinoza, her new novel

Robert Sapolsky, Neuroendocrinology and religion (he has a theory about Schizotypal personality disorders and shamen/priests/etc)

Add a vote to:

James Mcgrath (on biblical scholarship and also on liberal Christianity)
Richard Carrier, ancient science and early Christianity, his book Sense and Goodness… etc.
Austin Dacey
Peter Singer
Paul Draper
Ehrman (he’s great in interviews)
Andy Thompson
Victor Stenger

Tim McGrew on the historicity of the resurrection.
William Lane Craig on the relationship between actual infinities and God’s foreknowledge (this is how Wes Morriston critiqued him–basically, “if there are no actual infinites, and God knows the future, then does it follow that there is no infinite future for anyone?” I should think that Craig would have said that we humans become timeless when we get to heaven, or something like that, but instead he answered that the future is only potentially infinite, which made no sense to me).
Mike Rea on the contradictions of naturalism or on one of the big ideas of Christian theology (e.g., the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement…).
Mark Murphy on natural law theory.

Haecceitas,

I know that Craig thinks that God is timeless without creation and timeless with it.

As for humans being timeless, I admit I was thinking about Kant’s view of human beings, which is that they are noumenally timeless but phenomenally in time. That said, Kant didn’t believe in the resurrected physical body while Craig does, so you’re right, Craig can’t take Kant’s “people-are-timeless” option.

Paula Fredriksen would have an interesting faith journey, and a more skeptical stance than most on the historicity of the temple incident and Jesus’s trials, and the reasons for his execution. Also why Jesus is more than Paul the founder of Christianity.

Craig would be a great catch.

Gregory Dawes would get at the fatuity and emptiness of theistic accounts of the world and us.

Paul Draper on his new theory of intrinsic probability as well as evil.

Michael Huemer on Ethical Intuitionism.

Yujin Nagasawa, perhaps on his ‘A New Defence of Anselmian Theism’, and ‘New Waves in Philosophy of Religion’ (I’m sure he’d love to do it considering he linked to the podcast on the Prosblogion!)

Would also love to here someone explain and defend divine simplicity, perhaps Bill Vallicella.

Also surely Swinburne would be good!

(1) Brian Leiter on his forthcoming book Why Tolerate Religion? — “examining the nature of toleration and the nature of religion to see whether there is any principled reason for singling out religion (as against other matters of conscience) for toleration” — if not also on Nietzsche:

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/node/572/wip

(2) Thomas Nagel on naturalism and religion:

http://nyip.as.nyu.edu/object/nyip.science

(3) Another vote for Robin Hanson.

I don’t have time to go through the list to do seconding at the moment (the list does look pretty good though), but I just want to say that an interview with William Lane Craig on natural theology would be pretty boring. We all know what he’s going to say already. I agree with a few of the previous comments that if you get Craig, you should just have a nice focused discussion about a narrow topic. Maybe one particular philosophical argument for the premise that the universe began to exist. That seems fitting for your blog, given that you are doing this big Kalam project. You could also mention Morriston’s objection that he offered in a previous episode and see how Craig responds (maybe his response will have changed from what he said at their debate last March).

Oh, and one other thing. David Marshall (who still only has one vote) has told me that he would like to do an interview, so if you count his vote for himself that makes two :) He has debated Price on the Infidel Guy and he has critiqued some of Carrier’s work.

Paul Draper

Alexander Pruss on the PSR , Catholicism (he’s Catholic), and evolution and Christianity.

Ted Sider on theism and nihilism of material objects; Ted’s recent position to solve the antinomy of constitution is nihilism rather than four dimensionilism.

Bart Ehrman. Then get Robert Price on the phone so they can have a “scholar off.”

Ok, here’s what I recommend:

Brian Leiter on Nietzsche (maybe talk a little about both this topic and the other suggested topic)

I also believe the Paul Churchland idea is a great idea, as is probably his wife Patricia.(though one or the other and not both in all likelihood)

I would actually say that Eliezer Yudkowski would be better of a person for AI, transhumanism, and possibly also rationality as another relevant topic on the list. I think rationality alone could be boring, but AI seems fascinating, especially given how we think of ourselves, but I think he could be an interesting choice.

Robin Hanson on rationality and more importantly on signaling would be a good idea.

I agree with using John Loftus, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d do it for you because I think he respects you.

I agree with bringing in Susan Haack on evidence/epistemology. If you could get her to talk about legal theory a little, I’d like that, but that’s really kind of off topic for this blog so it is utterly unnecessary.

I’d also have Vic Stenger talk about cosmology and quantum consciousness as well as the other topic, but I agree with the choice.

I recommend Stephen Law, you could possibly touch on the Sye TenBruggencate issue.

I’d love to listen to Richard Carrier or Bart Ehrman so those seem like great choices.

I might also recommend Gene Witmer for his encounters with presuppositional apologetics. Talking about it and its problems is really helpful/insightful for those of us who encounter internet Calvinists. (Actually, any intelligent atheist with a good background on presuppositionalism would be good)

Gerd Ludemann or Dale Allison on the resurrection of Jesus.

Geza Vermes on the historical Jesus.

James Crossley on early Christianity.

Howard Van Till on his journey from Calvinism to freethought.

William Dever on the historical Israel.

I also like Marc Hauser’s approach to morality. It is similar to Chomsky’s approach to grammar and linguistics.

I also second Bryan’s recommendation of Scott Atran!

And yeah, if you could get William Lane Craig then *do* it.

I might also recommend Gene Witmer for his encounters with presuppositional apologetics.

Good call!

Luke,

Get NonStampCollector on the show if you can, that would be hilarious!

Zimmerman
William Hasker
Gale
Nagel
Collins

Richard Carrier – historicity of Jesus and/or why morality should be scientific.

Scott Atran – suicide terrorism.

Arif Ahmed – anything.

Bart Ehrman – Jesus.

Steven Pinker – anything.

Stephen Fry – general religion and atheism.

Sam Harris – his new book “The Moral Landscape.”

Christopher Hitchens – anything.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson – anything.

It’s interesting that there are very few women on the suggestions lists.  

You could interview Lydia McGrew. She’s coauthored papers with her husband, Tim McGrew, on the design argument. (Tim McGrew would be a good interview too.)

If you could get her, Marilyn McCord Adams would be an awesome interview.

Impressive list. I’m sure you can have these interviews done and ready to post within the next few months ;)

Hmmm… Keith DeRose will be at my school for a conference in a few days. Perhaps if I have an opportunity to corner him at the party and talk about religion I can mention the possibility of this sort of interview and see how he responds.

By the way, it’s a shame more people haven’t voted up Richard Grigg. I think that would be a very informative interview, as I found his book to be very good. But then again, I am sympathetic to radical theology like Bob Price is. Many atheists lump radical theology in with the rest and want to get rid of it all.

(I still recommend the dual-scholar interview/discussions, with the Carrier-Ehrman interview on myth and legend in the Gospels as my main recommendation. Of course, this might be difficult to arrange, but it would be worthwhile to hear that dialogue.)

I vote for Ed Feser, too. He’s an old school natural theologian.

I’m posting my recommendation of Philip Jenkins, a scholar of religious studies and expert on early and contemporary Christianity. I know that he is especially known for his writing on the pedophile priest phenomenon, the spread of Christianity in the global south, and the formation of orthodox Christian scriptures and doctrines. I studied American Catholicism under him, and he was very interesting and thoughtful. He shoots down a lot of common misconceptions about all kinds of things without coming across as a crank.

His website:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/jpj1/

Please count me as another vote for Yudkowsky on the 2 topics mentioned PLUS metaethics which he has a very useful view of that I mostly agree with.

Jesse Thorn would be a really interesting change of pace, for his “philosophy” on finding meaning and joy in life from an atheist belief stance. Also, if you aren’t a listener to his Jordan Jesse Go podcast, he has a nice approach to people of faith while taking strong moral stances that may differ with those people. Plus he lives in LA so maybe you could do a live interview.

Hi Luke,

As per your suggestion, my suggestions are:

Charles Taliaferro on dualism
Stewart Goetz on dualism
Charles Goodman on Buddhism

Dear Luke,

Have considered to interview the most technical contemporary philosophers of religion? I mean esp. Timothy McGrew (WMU), Michael Tooley (Boulder), James Franklin (UNSW), Alexander Pruss (Baylor), Richard Swinburne (Oxford), Eric Steinhart (Wm. Paterson University). I am most interested in Tim (at least because he’s the most well-read person in anti/apologetics that I can think of).

Trent Dougherty, especially after his recent post on the prosblogion: http://prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2010/05/naturalism-a-co.html

Sean Carroll on fine tuning.

Hitchens on politics and religion.

Greg Boyd on Open Theism
Andrew Sullivan on Homosexuality and Christianity
Keith Parsons on Atheism
Lee Strobel on apologetics
Fred Barnes (slacktivist blog) on The Left Behind series
Michael Shermer on skepticism

I meant to say Fred Clark NOT Fred Barnes

1. Richard Carrier
2. Peter Singer
3. Sam Harris

I second Trent Dougherty, he’s a fine philosopher, and also Alex Pruss, who’s just one of the best philosophers in Phil. of religion of the new generation.

And btw, I fully agree with MC, we’ve al heard the stuff of Ehrman, Carrier and Craig, we want something refreshing and new :-)

Nick Bostrom on fine tuning would be awesome!

Add another vote for Eliezer Yudkowsky. Besides the other topics, you could talk about is Aumann’s agreement theorem in the context of friendly atheism, metaethics, coherent extrapolated volition (and try to pin down its difference from desirism). I say this because his views on cryonics and rationality are pretty much well known to me.

Also, for the Yudkowsky fans in the audience, Eliezer has been writing a Harry Potter fanfic that may well be the best introduction to rationality yet. It has gotten over 4000 reviews in a bit over 3 months over at fanfiction.net

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
(http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality)

Loved your interviews so far Luke, thanks for all your hardwork setting them up and preparing them.

+1 for Victor Reppert, Plantinga, Singer, Peter Kreeft and Stephen Law on his interesting comments on an evil God. I think you should go for John Frame who is the leading presuppositionalist in the world right now, and if you can’t get him you could try Doug Wilson who is also a presuppositionalist. Wilson has a blog (http://www.dougwils.com/) and has debated Hitchens numerous times as well as Dan Barker. Also if you could find an atheist response to presuppositionalism that’d be great, as well as the argument from reason and Plantinga’s EEAN.

Another suggestion is J.P. Moreland, as there are endless things you could discuss with him as I’m sure you know.

Very handsome pic of you, Luke.

William Vallicella on his paradigm theory of existence.

Phil Zuckerman, author of Society Without God: What the least religious nations can tell us about contentment.

Also I’d recommend Elaine Pagels for a talk concerning the gnostic gospels, the book or revlation and the origins of the concept of the devil.

Ah, I think Krauss would be awesome. I vote for him on the Kalam.

I agree with several above commenters, I would love to see an interview with Lawrence Krauss on cosmology/the kalam.

Fred Phelps on his sexuality.

Mark Lilla and Robert Wright on intellectual histories of religion. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein on the impact of her fictional works.

Something on post-modern and continental philosophy please? pretty please?

Seriously, this is worrying me more then anything else.
I could say this in the name of all Atheists and caring people that believe in philosophy.

I think Schellenberg would be fascinating but I’d make the interview less about his early work on divine hiddenness or more about his recently completed trilogy on skepticism and imagination. Plus, as far as I can tell, no one has any audio on Schellenberg yet so you’d be doing the community a service.

How about interviewing someone like James Park or another philosopher that supports your view of love and relationships. I do not think this topic gets enough consideration.

Jesse Bering’s ‘folk psychology of souls’ with open peer commentary and author’s reply:

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/%7Ewegner/pdfs/Bering%20(2006)%20in%20BBS.pdf

His new book is to be published this year I think.

William Rowe, Gary Drescher, Kai Nielsen

Luke, will you still be doing CBPBD interviews this year?
The top 20 on that list almost all sound equally mouth watering, and it would be so great if you were able to get some of those!
Good luck with it all.

Luke, good stuff! Thanks for your reply.

Some philosopher’s that I would like to see are Michael Martin, Quentin Smith, William Rowe, etc.

For what it is worth, here are my thoughts on the matter. Of that list, here are the top 10 interviews I would mostly wish to listen to.

10. Bart Ehrman!
9. Pascal Boyer!
8. Patricia Churchland!
7. Eugenie Scott!
6. David Chamlers!
5. Daniel Dennett!
4. Quentin Smith!!
3. Sean Carroll!!
2. Elliot Sober!!!
1. Paul Draper!!!

I would also recommend the following:
Paul Davies (Time, A Defense of the Block Universe, God)

I would suggest avoiding:
Anything on substance dualism. I mean… really? Sorry but I just can’t SD seriously, the flaws and lack of evidence (not to mention strong arguments) are enough to leave the theory dead. Please talk to Dennett, Chalmers, and Churchland- and avoid the ghosts in the machine.