Second response to criticism of "Is atheism viable?"
This article is my response to an atheist's response to my original paper, Is atheism Viable? The atheist's response was originally posted on the CARM discussion boards. I have copied it here so that I might respond. The atheists responses in brown. My comments are in green.
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In this thread I'm going to discuss the article "Is Atheism viable" by Matt Slick. The original article is in italics, with my commentary in standard text.
Atheism
is, essentially, a negative position. It is not believing in a god,
or actively believing there is no God, or choosing to not exercise
any belief or non-belief concerning God, etc. Which ever flavor is
given to atheism, it is a negative position.
In discussions with atheists, I don't hear any evidence for the
validity of atheism. There are no "proofs" that God does not exist
in atheist circles; at least, none that I have heard -- especially
since you can't prove a negative regarding God's existence. Of
course, that isn’t to say that atheists haven’t attempted to offer
some proofs that God does not exist. But their attempted proofs are
invariably insufficient. After all, how do you prove there is no God
in the universe? How do you prove that in all places and all times,
there is no God? You can't. Besides, if there were a proof of God’s
non-existence, then atheists would be continually using it. But we
don’t hear of any such commonly held proof supporting atheism or
denying God’s existence. The atheist position is very difficult, if
not impossible, to prove since it is an attempt to prove a negative.
Therefore, since there are no proofs for atheism’s truth and there
are no proofs that there is no God, the atheist must hold his
position by faith.
I
agree with everything up until the claim that the atheist must hold
his position by faith. I'm going to argue that a negative position
held in light of no positive evidence is not a position held by
faith. If someone said that there is a flying spaghetti monster on
the far side of the M33 galaxy, then I would say "Ok, show me
evidence. Until then, I'm going to just assume that you are wrong."
Is that really a faith based position? He made a claim with
absolutely no basis. If you start with no assumptions and only
accept that which you have evidence for, then I argue that your
positions are not based on faith.
An assumption is a position and his assumption is that there is no spaghetti monster -- to which I agree. Nevertheless, would he tell us that it might be possible that it exists even though there is no evidence to support it? Or would he assert that no such thing exists? Since he assumes that no such thing exists, then it is definitely a position he holds. Positions are held for reasons, not for "non-reasons." He is holding his position because he sees no evidence. And I assume that he believes no such evidence is forthcoming.The atheist position is one of "no God." Since this "no god" stance is essentially a position held based upon the supposed lack of evidence, it seems logical to conclude that it is a position held by faith. After all, it is certainly possible that there is evidence that the atheist has not yet seen which would conflict with his assumption.
Faith, however, is not something atheists like to claim as the basis of adhering to atheism. Therefore, atheists must go on the attack and negate any evidences presented for God’s existence in order to give intellectual credence to their position. If they can create an evidential vacuum in which no theistic argument can survive, their position can be seen as more intellectually viable. It is in the negation of theistic proofs and evidences that atheism brings its self-justification to self-proclaimed life.
There is,
however, only one way that atheism is intellectually defensible and
that is in the abstract realm of simple possibility. In other words,
it may be possible that there is no God. But, stating that something
is possible doesn't mean that it is a reality or that it is wise to
adopt the position. If I said it is possible that there is an ice
cream factory on Jupiter, does that make it intellectually
defensible or a position worth adopting merely because it is merely
a possibility? Not at all. So, simply claiming a possibility based
on nothing more than it being a possible option, no matter how
remote, is not sufficient grounds for atheists to claim viability in
their atheism. They must come up with more than "It is possible," or
"There is no evidence for God," otherwise, there really must be an
ice cream factory on Jupiter and the atheist should step up on the
band wagon and start defending the position that Jupiterian ice
cream exists.
This is the first time I've
ever seen the possibility argument turned on its head. I'm sure this
has been argued a thousand times before, but the burden of proof
lies on the ones making the positive assertions. With the ice cream
factory example, the person who claims that the ice cream factory
exists is making the positive argument. If that person can't show
any evidence for his assertion, then everyone can just assume that
he is wrong. In contrast, if somebody claims that there is no
evidence of an ice cream factory on Jupiter, and therefore there is
no reason to believe that it exists, then they are taking the
negative stance. That position is the most viable position until
somebody can provide positive evidence of the ice cream factory.
Without using this line of logic, people would be so gullible that
they would literally believe absolutely everything that they
couldn't disprove, which includes an infinity of beliefs. And then
you have to take into account how an infinite number of those
infinite beliefs are mutually exclusive. Is there an ice cream
factory there, or is it a sherbet factory? Maybe it's not a factory
at all, but instead it's a flying spaghetti monster. How do you know
which one to believe? There's no negative evidence for any of them,
so under the gullible mindset they are all equally viable. The point
is that for obvious reasons the burden of proof is on those who make
the positive assertion.
I would agree that there is a burden of proof that lies upon the one making the positive assertion. My argument, however, is that atheism is a positive assertion; that is, it is a position that atheists hold to and defend. this defense means they have a position, I believe, an opinion. The evidence that they hold to this position is found in the fact that they defend it to attacking theistic arguments, attempting to refute articles regarding atheism, etc. since the atheist is making a defense, he's defending a position. Can it be said that he is making a positive assertion? If not, why is he acting as though he is? That is the issue raised here.
At least
we Christians have evidences for God's existence such as fulfilled
biblical prophecy, Jesus' resurrection, the Transcendental Argument,
the entropy problem, etc. But there is another problem for
atheists. Refuting evidences for God’s existence does not prove
atheism true anymore than refuting an eyewitness testimony of a
marriage denies the reality of the marriage.
True, but if the only
reason for believing in that marriage in the first place WAS that
testimony, then once the testimony is refuted there is no reason
whatsoever to continue believing in it.
That seems logical. However, refutation is in the eye of the beholder. Something as simple as a marriage can normally be proven or disproven. But theistic arguments supporting God's existence are subject not only to rational analysis of the atheist, but also to is presuppositional bias. What one constitutes sufficient evidence, another may not.The point is, that we have evidences for God's existence as a listed above. But I do not believe the evidence is on the problem. I believe that the problem lies in the atheistic bias that prevents an objective analysis of that evidence.
Since
atheism cannot be proven and since disproving evidences for God does
not prove there is no God, atheists have a position that is
intellectually indefensible.
But as previously noted,
the burden of proof is not on the atheists. Their position doesn't
need to be defended.
That isn't the point here. The issue isn't us proving God exists (proof is different than persuasion). I tried to point out that since atheism cannot be proven to be true and since disproving evidences for God's existence not prove there is no God, the atheistic position is intellectually indefensible.
At best,
atheists can only say that there are no convincing evidences for God
so far presented. They cannot say there are no evidences for
God because the atheist cannot know all evidences that possibly
exist in the world. At best, the atheist can only say that the
evidence so far presented has been insufficient. This logically
means that there could be evidences presented in the future that
will suffice. The atheist must acknowledge that there may indeed be
a proof that has so far been undiscovered and that the existence of
God is possible. This would make the atheist more of an agnostic
since at best the atheist can only be skeptical of God’s existence.
This is the ice cream
factory on Jupiter argument again, just in a different form. Until
evidence is actually found, there's no reason to believe that it
exists. I'm not going to believe in an ice cream factory on Jupiter
just because it MIGHT exist. Similarly, I'm not going to believe in
an ice cream factory on Jupiter just because evidence that it exists
MIGHT exist.
Again, we deal with what is and is not sufficient evidence and those evidences are subject to atheistic presuppositions. The issue is not an ice cream factory on Jupiter. The point I was making was dealing with evidences for God of which such evidence exists (whether or not an atheist admits it). We have fulfilled prophecy in the Bible, eyewitness accounts of Jesus' resurrection, miracles, the transcendental argument, the argument from entropy, etc. However, to the best of my knowledge, we have absolutely no evidence for an ice cream factory on Jupiter. The difference between the two is the fact that there are many evidences put forth to support God's existence and there's absolutely none put forth for the evidence of an ice cream factory on Jupiter. Therefore, the comparison doesn't hold.
Also, agnosticism is the epistemological position that the truth of the existence or nonexistence of gods is inherently unknowable. Thus, agnoticism can overlap with both atheism and theism. I know many agnostic atheists. I also know many agnostic theists.
Agnosticism is an intellectual position. Of course, I disagree that God is inherently unknowable and I think the arguments to support the unknowability of God are inadequate.
This is
why atheists need to attack Christianity. It is because Christianity
makes very high claims concerning God’s existence which challenges
their atheism and pokes holes in their vacuum. They like the vacuum.
I can't speak for all
atheists, but I personally don't like the vacuum. I always prefer to
expand my knowledge rather than limit it. I would love if the
existence of God were proven to me, because that would expand my
knowledge.
Perhaps I spoke to generically. My experience with atheists has been overwhelming that they prefer the vacuum.
They like
having the universe with only one god in it: themselves.
Perhaps Mr. Slick should
add that atheists don't all think they are God to his "labeling
atheists" section in his "Mistakes Christians make when
dialoguing with Atheists" article.
Perhaps you are right.
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