Sunday, July 04, 2010

The Question that Terrifies Atheists

This is another one of those Christian YouTube challenges with comments disabled. I wonder why they always disable comments? I guess they're afraid to hear real answers to their questions.

Anyway, the question is "What proof and evidence can you supply that proves atheism is accurate and correct?"

Oh the stupid, it hurts.

Let's ignore the redundant English and obvious lack of understanding of what "evidence" and "proof" are and address what he clearly means. This is the old "burden of proof" shuffle.

Ok, one more time. Atheism is simply the lack of belief. It is the null hypothesis. The burden of proof is on the Theist just like it's on anyone making a definitive positive assertion.

Now, that being said, let us consider the so-called flavors of Atheism. There is Weak Atheism, which is what I've described above. I am a Weak Atheist, along with probably 99% of anyone that claims to be an Atheist. Then there are the so-called Strong Atheists. Strong Atheists DO make a definitive positive assertion that there is no God and it is perfectly valid to challenge them to prove that statement.

Of course a Strong Atheist can't "prove" there is no God any more than a Theist can "prove" that there is. Outside the realm of mathematics it's pretty much impossible to "prove" anything.

The most one can do is present evidence that makes an assertion more probable.

Weak Atheists make no assertion, just like people that don't believe in purple unicorns or pink elephants make no assertion. The absence of belief is not an assertion beyond "I don't believe," which is a tautology and by definition true.

So I'm sorry, the question doesn't terrify me at all. It doesn't distress me in the least. It's not even a particularly difficult question, just a really DUMB one.

A far more terrifying question is "If there is no God, then why does anything exist?"

What makes this question terrifying is that the answer may well be "there is no reason."

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