Reply to Why don't you believe in God?

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Why don't you believe in God?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][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 on 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?"

[/quote]

Let me just stop you here before we get too far down this road.  This another form of question-begging:  you are sneakily comparing a baseball with, what?  A rainbow?  The universe?  We know human beings make baseballs; they play baseball.  That's why a baseball through the window signifies human action.  The point of debate here is whether god exists, and if so, whether he "made" everything.  So again, all you're doing is working backwards with the tautology, "Things exist, therefore God."

There is considerable evidence for baseball.  There's evidence for boys.  The scenario of a ball being hit through my window is completely mundane.  What you're suggesting is that, should a branch come through my window, I immediately jump and shout, "Who did that!!?!".

What you want is for me to believe, in the absence of evidence, that this branch that came through my window was thrown there by hobgoblins, and that a majority vote of my neighbors should suffice to convince me.  No thanks.

Again, in the face of fantastic claims for which there is no evidence, skepticism is the default position.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics