In two double-spaced pages or less, respond to ONE of the following two topics. Make sure you address all the questions raised in the topic you choose.

This is not a research paper, and you should not use any sources outside the readings covered in class and your own reasoning (in fact, it is important that most of your paper presents your own thoughts on the issues discussed).

In case you use some material from the Perry and Bratman textbook, the additional readings, or the class notes, make sure you reference them (the textbook page number or lecture date would suffice for this).

Topic A:

While walking down the hallway in the University's Biology Department, you come across an astonished professor who hugs you and then shouts: "There is a God! And I have the proof for this!" When you ask what his proof is, the professor takes a yellow leech-like fish out of his pocket and proclaims: "This is the Babel Fish, the most curious and amazing fish in the universe. The fact that the Babel Fish exists is a dead giveaway for God's existence." He then walks away without any further comment.

a) What kind of argument could the professor have in mind?

b) Suppose you are a determined atheist. What could a reply to the professor be? (For a further description of the Babel Fish, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babel_fish_(The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy)#Babel_fish.

For a short video describing the Babel fish, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ptQGX__rd0

Please do not base any argument on the fact that the Babel Fish does not exist. Just assume it does).

Topic B:

You are a faithful believer in God's existence and goodness. Your atheist friend Mortimer, who has been recently fired for a trivial reason, on the same day his car was vandalized and his phone stolen, meets up with you and claims that the existence of a supremely benevolent and omnipotent God is incompatible with the existence of evil people in the world.

You reply that the existence of moral evil is a consequence of the freedom of choice that God has given to all humans. We would not be free, you claim, if God made it impossible for us to choose to do evil. But, the fact that we actually make such choices is our fault
and not God's.

At this, Mortimer replies that there are many things that people are free to do, yet they never (or almost never) choose to do. For example, Mortimer could choose to spend the entire afternoon counting how many blades of grass his lawn has, out of his free will.

Yet, he would never do such a thing, and most other people would not choose to do so, either. Why, then, couldn't God make a world in which people are free to do evil and yet never (or, at least, almost never) choose to do evil? Does this not show that God is either not omnipotent or not supremely benevolent?

What is your answer to Mortimer's argument, in favor of God's omnipotence and benevolence?