Re: [asa] The theist challenge

I would cease to be a Christian if they could prove that Jesus' body was
still in Jerusalem and they found his tomb.

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Burgeson (ASA member)" <hossradbourne@gmail.com>
To: "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, November 28, 2008 8:48 PM
Subject: [asa] The theist challenge

> The following is copied from the blog I mentioned earlier today.
>
> http://www.daylightatheism.org/2008/11/a-clarification-on-the-theists-guide.html
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> In my Ebon Musings essay, "The Theist's Guide to Converting Atheists",
> I wrote that I would link to any theist who was willing to post a list
> of things they would accept as proof that atheism is true. That offer
> has been open since I first posted the essay in 2001; it is still open
> now and will remain open as long as practical.
>
> However, for me to consider your essay a valid answer to that
> challenge, it must answer the question I actually posed: What argument
> or observation could convince you to not believe in God? If what your
> essay argues is, "You could never persuade me to not believe in God
> and here's why," then you are not answering the question that I asked.
> I will not link to responses that do not give a legitimate answer to
> this question.
>
> In fact, responses of this nature emphasize my point rather than
> contradict it: for most theists, belief in God is an unfalsifiable
> construct bearing no relation to the facts of the world. That is what
> I wrote at the beginning of the Theist's Guide:
>
> Many theists, by their own admission, structure their beliefs so that
> no evidence could possibly disprove them. In short, they are
> closed-minded, and have been taught to be closed-minded.
>
> What this means is that, for me to account your answer valid, it must
> consist of something that we could, at least in principle, either
> agree upon or discover to be true. This rules out logical
> impossibilities, such as "I would become an atheist if I died and then
> discovered that there was no consciousness after death." (I've heard
> that one.) It also rules out counterfactual statements - saying that
> you would cease to believe in God only if the world was different than
> it is, for example, that you would become an atheist if there were no
> such thing as love or goodness. (I've heard both of those as well.)
>
> If all the items that would drive you to atheism are counterfactuals,
> i.e., things that we already know not to be true, then what you're
> essentially saying is that there are no possible discoveries that
> would make you an atheist, and you have again failed to respond to the
> point of the challenge. This would be like me saying, "The only
> possible thing that would make me believe in God would be if the world
> was a perfect paradise that contained no death, evil or suffering." I
> think most theists would consider this unfair, and rightfully so. I'm
> ruling out their answer from the start by making my belief contingent
> on something that we already know is not true.
>
> Now, if you're arguing that you would cease to believe in God if some
> particular, widely held proposition were falsified, that is a
> different matter. But in that case, I'd expect that you would
> supplement this answer by explaining what evidence would falsify the
> proposition in question. On the other hand, when someone says they'd
> be an atheist only if there was no love in the world, that's clearly
> not their intent. They're not imagining a discovery that might be made
> in this world, but speculating that they'd be an atheist in a
> different world altogether. I trust that the difference between those
> two things is clear.
>
>
> --
> Burgy
>
> www.burgy.50megs.com
>
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Received on Fri Nov 28 16:16:49 2008