Stephen Law

Here's a discussion I had last night with some US Christian Apologists, if you're interested. It was quite knock about. They really pushed the C.S. Lewis style moral argument.

In the second half of Craig’s latest "Reasonable Faith" podcast , he talks about how, he supposes, atheists know that God exists, despite the fact that they assert that they don’t. I’d previously said in a post that Craig’s view would seem to have the consequence that atheists are lying about that, then. Actually, maybe that doesn’t follow. In the podcast, Craig denies his view is that atheists are lying when they deny they know God exists. We should accept that denial. However, Craig’s explanations for why atheists are not, then, lying when they claim they don’t know when they do is not, I think, very convincing. First he draws an analogy with someone who tries to rationalize away or suppress what they know. His example is of a married man who has an affair. The human psyche is so capable of rationalization and suppressing things that we find uncomfortable that I think it's very plausible to think that an atheist could somehow suppress the knowledge of...

REVISED VERSION - in lght of your helpful comments, thanks. Some theists will be unmoved by the kinds of argument discussed in this and the previous chapter. They may say something like this: “The god that you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either! You are working with an outdated and unsophisticated conception of God. My understanding of God is different. When you say, “There is no such thing as God” I agree with you! For God is not a thing or entity that can be said to exist or not exist. Nor can God be categorized as belonging to this kind of thing or that kind of thing. I define God as something wholly other, something ineffable, unknowable, beyond our understanding. I cannot say what God is, only what he is not.” The view that God is unknowable is sometimes termed apophaticism. The apophatic view has its attractions, perhaps the most obvious being that, if you never actually make any positive claim about God, you can never be contradicted or proved wrong. Indeed, at first si...

[Bit of draft book for comment.] Some theists will be unmoved by the kinds of argument discussed in this and the previous chapter. They may say something like this: “The god that you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either! You are working with a very outdated and unsophisticated conception of god. My understanding of God is very different. When you say, “There is no such thing as God” I agree! God is not a thing or entity that can be said to exist. Nor can God be categorized as belonging to this kind of thing or that kind of thing. I define God as something wholly other, something necessarily unknowable, beyond our understanding. I cannot say what God is, only what he is not.” The view that God is necessarily unknowable is sometimes termed apophaticism. The apophatic view has its attractions, perhaps the most obvious being that, if you never actually make any positive claim about God, you can never be contradicted or proved wrong. Indeed, at first sight, apophaticism appears to ma...

Thanks to Steven Carr for the link. I will comment later...http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif At first I thought the Cardinal was just saying anyone who fails to consider the transcendent has an impoverished conception of what it is to be human. But at the end he is clear that those who fail to consider such bigger questions are themselves not fully human. Well, in a way, I would agree. The Cardinal's mistake, I think, is not in suggesting that someone who never thinks about the bigger questions is lacking in an important dimension of human existence - that may be true (it's a weaker claim than the Socratic assertion that the unexamined life is not even worth living) - but in supposing that atheists never think about such questions, and indeed have no time for them . This is the popular straw man fallacy endlessly wheeled out against atheists: they don't even ask such big questions, but just dismiss them as worthless. I have previously commented on it here (where I point...

(thanks to Josh Kutchinsky for this) Things are definitely changing over the pond....(source here ) ATHEISM: A POSITIVE PILLAR It’s not easy not believing in God in the USA. That’s why a group of non-believers is trying to shed the strident image of past atheists by promoting a better side of those sitting on religion’s sidelines. By Tom Krattenmaker Being an atheist is not easy in this age of great public religiosity in America. Not when the overwhelming majority of Americans profess some form of belief in God. Not when many believers equate non-belief with immorality. Not when more people would automatically disqualify an atheist for the presidency (53%, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll) than a gay candidate (43%), for example, or a Mormon (24%). (Alejandro Gonzalez / USA TODAY) Anti-atheism might have found its ugliest public expression during an episode in the Illinois Legislature this spring. As atheist activist Rob Sherman attempted to testify against a $1 million state grant...

I have just been reading Nicholas Lash's (a collegue at Heythrop) piece on the Impossibility of Atheism. I also read Denys Turner's thing (his inaugural Cambridge lecture) a while back in which he argues similarly. I will shortly write something on these two very influential pieces. But I am wondering, before I do, if either is available anywhere on the internet. Sam Norton - you know of any links? Also, Sam, I read the Lash book you recommended ( Believing Three Ways in One God ). I can't see how it helps with the problem of evil. You want to explain? The "Impossibility of Atheism" is chpt 2 of Theology for Pilgrims by Lash. The Denys Turner is "How to Be An Atheist" (2001), which is in a collection of his papers, I believe.

Conservapedia explains the causes of atheism ... in my case it was moral depravity rather than an absent or abusive father .

Thanks for all the entries to the "Atheism is a faith position too" competition. I have thought long and hard, and come up with the following decision. The winner is: Austin Cline , for this example from Rowan Williams and Cormac Murphy-O'Connor: Many secularist commentators argue that the growing role of faith in society represents a dangerous development. However, they fail to recognise that public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position. This is from the foreword of a report called "Doing God" available here . I went to the original source to check and I could not find a single argument in the entire document to support the contention that "public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position." As part of a public joint statement by the heads of the Catholic and Anglican churches in the UK, offered without any justification whatsoever, it scores very highly for being irritating, and gains some extra points for being slightly sinister! Austin...

Yes, it's the old mantra, "atheism is a faith position too". In “On a Mission”, Education Guardian , Tues May 8th, Joanna Moorhead quotes head teacher Terry Boatwright (head of a religious school) as saying "Even people who don't believe in God have a faith - they have faith that God doesn't exist. People say: How dare you push your faith at young people? But a head who doesn't believe is still a head with faith." So that's why it's ok for Boatwright to "push" his faith at kids. Jeez, "atheism is a faith position too" has really entered the zeitgeist. It seems to crop up almost weekly in the press now. Where's it coming from? See here , here and here for earlier discussion. The idea that science is also based on "faith" seems to be behind a lot of it (Juliana recently suggested this, I note). I think we should discuss that shortly... Who can find the most irritating, sinister or downright funny use of this...

Here is a Guardian Face to Faith Piece by Nicholas Buxton. It perpetuates a whole series of myths about atheism and the Enlightenment. Buxton is in fact more or less quoting from Rowan Williams' Dimbleby Lecture in which Williams claims that only a religious tradition makes "possible a real questioning of the immediate agenda of a society, the choices that are defined and managed for you by the market." Buxton would have us believe only the religious ever really question our shallow commercial culture. They alone are the "free thinkers". As an atheist philosopher who has spent half a lifetime asking such questions as whether there’s a God, whether life has meaning, what makes things right and wrong, whether there may be life after death, and whether there is anything beyond the material, I find it surprising that Buxton and the Archbishop would pretend that it’s only from the perspective of a religious tradition that such questions ever get asked. The great re...

Reasonableness is a matter of degree. Beliefs can be very reasonable (Japan exists), fairly reasonable (quarks exist), not unreasonable (there's intelligent life on other planets) or downright unreasonable (fairies exist). There's a scale of reasonableness, if you like, with very reasonable beliefs near the top and deeply unreasonable ones towards the bottom. Notice a belief can be very high up the scale, yet still be open to some doubt. And even when a belief is low down, we can still acknowledge the remote possibility it might be true. How reasonable is the belief that God exists? Atheists typically think it very unreasonable. Very low on the scale. But most religious people say it is at least not un reasonable (have you ever met a Christian who said "Hey, belief in God is no more reasonable than belief in fairies, but I believe it anyway!"?) They think their belief is at least halfway up the scale of reasonableness. Now, that their belief is downright unreasonabl...

Give a theist a good argument against their belief, and often they'll play the "faith" card. "Ah, well, theism is ultimately a faith position", they say. And then, very often, they add, "But of course atheism is a faith position too - you can't scientifically prove either , can you?" Here are a few examples. First, Alister McGrath in The Dawkins Delusion : There can be no question of scientific 'proof' of ultimate questions. Either we cannot answer them. or we must answer them on grounds other than the sciences. (p14) (I concede McGrath doesn't use the word "faith", but I think it's clear where he's going). Here's another example (not McGrath) I found on the internet (link now dead): (God’s) existence cannot be proved by physical means. However, neither can it be disproved. What does this mean? It means it takes complete and utter faith to believe there is a god (or gods) and complete and utter faith to believe t...