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Return of the Great Pumpkin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

KYLE SCOTT*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD, UK e-mail: kyle.scott@ed.ac.uk

Abstract

According to Alvin Plantinga there is no good reason to think that there is anything unacceptable about religious belief even if the believer cannot present evidence or arguments in support of her beliefs. One important challenge to this claim is the ‘Great Pumpkin’ objection. This objection is that Plantinga's arguments could be used to defend very strange beliefs such as belief in the Great Pumpkin. I describe this objection in more detail and then offer a solution to the problem by considering how the historical and social environment might provide favouring evidence for Christian beliefs.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

Plantinga, Alvin (1983) ‘Reason and belief in God’, in Plantinga, Alvin & Wolterstorff, Nicholas (eds) Faith and Rationality (Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press), 1693.Google Scholar
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