I am an Atheist
While blog hopping recently, I stumbled across the Bad Idea Blog. On that blog was a link to a certain special post. Consider this a public and personal challenge and response to Charles Colson’s laughable post, and any and all people who make the same idiot arguments;
I call B.S. my fair and pug faced little friend. It is not us who have to introduce proof, you, as a man who must convince others of a positive, must have proof. Anecdotes aside, you cannot prove a negative. A negative is simply the negation of a positive. Demanding that an atheist prove a non-entity is a rhetorical red herring. Not to mention you make the logical fallacy of assuming that no negative evidence equates to a positive conclusion (that all conclusions have equal logical footing). I cannot disprove a thing until you provide proof. You assume your God exists and then evade reality by demanding that we allow equal footing for your petty bare-assertion as with our logically induced concepts!
The best that can be done is to demonstrate how your God is either a) in contradiction with the laws or reality. or b) self-contradictory. Both of these I can do upon request, but even then I am still negating common positive arguments for God. Of course, you Christians drop the ball and simply claim that he exists “outside” of existence. This is the rhetorical equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting “NAH-NAH-NAH-NAH CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!”
To be fair, I will accept that it is logically valid for you claim that your God exists based on non-non-proof… as soon as you “disprove” that I myself am not God!
Nice post! Charle Colson’s post is awful on all counts. You make great points, but I would suggest that you avoid name-calling because, as innocent as it may be, people will often use that to discredit you. For example, he might say, “I refuse to debate with someone who resorts to calling me names like ‘pug-faced’!” It’s a legitimate complaint that may be used to undermine your argument while supporting the conception that atheists are angry, spiteful people. On your blog I don’t see much harm in it, but as a tactical matter its probably best to avoid.
Also, I have a question about the third paragraph in your post. You said that “The best that can be done is to demonstrate how your God is either a) in contradiction with the laws of reality. or b) self-contradictory.” Do you think that this can be condensed to just “a”? I believe it can be because “b” is really just a form of “a”. (Any self-contradiction is a violation of the Law of Identity, which itself is a law of reality.)
On your point of civility; True, but I don’t have much hope in debating civilly with a man who does not think that I exist.
I suppose that b) is simply a manner of verifying or demonstrating a). I suppose b) is also of some help independently since Christians literally consider their God an floating abstraction. You are essentially right though.