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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]By denying the existence of God, you first must contemplate His existence. In order to be an atheist at all, a person must ask, "Is there God?", because a-theist is a negative answer, meaning "no God."[/quote]

Let me stop you right here.  Your framing is all off: [b] the default position is that God doesn't exist. [/b] Neither does Pippi Longstocking, Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny. (Not trying to be rude here; to the rationalist, they have equal claims to reality).

I'm here blithely living in the rational world, and someone comes by and says, "Why don't you believe in God?"  I'm not asking the question; you are.  It's perfectly reasonable to ask two things:  1) what do you even mean by "god", and 2) why one Earth should I.

Just for the sake of argument, what's the accepted word for "one who doesn't believe in alien abductions"?  "Atheist" begs the question in the same way.[/quote]

Let's explore this "default position."

I respect your personal default position is that God does not exist.  This position has been in the minority for all of humanity, but you would say that you are a rationalist, whilst most of humanity has been wishful thinkers, and that is fair enough.

Say that you are enjoying a good book in your air-conditioned living room when all of a sudden, a baseball comes crashing through your picture window, spraying glass everywhere.  Most human beings would immediately spring up, (maybe yell an expletive), and say, "Who did that?"

But perhaps your default position would kick in, and you would settle deeper into your chair and resume reading, because you had no need to seek out the cause of the baseball flying through your window.  You already knew there was no cause, could be no cause.  So no need to investigate.

In other words, if you were nonexistent, you would have the luxury of not contemplating your existence.  It is only because you are here that you are able to set your personal "default position" to "there is no cause to the effect that is my existence."

This can be expressed in the following maxim:

"Any demonstration of God's existence or non-existence must be of such a kind as to allow both for the existence of the demonstrator and for the possibility of demonstration."

Now, there could be other reasons for you to turn back to your book, rather than seek out the cause of the baseball in your living room.  You could be too busy reading your book to deal with it at the moment.  You could be afraid that someone is angry with you and wishes you harm.  You could be angry that you have to deal with such a nuisance at all.  I don't know.  But for someone as reasonable as you, you have to admit that a default position of "there is no cause at all to that baseball coming into my house" sounds silly.

This is what happens when "rationalists" deny that God is reasonable.  [/quote]

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