Re: Evidence of God

Al Evan writes:

> Thanks for the in-depth explanation of the two trains of thought.  So, if
> I understand your explanation, an Atheist can say either of two things to
> an assertion that God exists: "I don't believe you!", meaning she don't
> believe the person making the assertion; or, she could say, "There is no
> God!" meaning, she don't believe a God exists.  However, in considering
> the first response-"I don't believe you!"  It has, as I see it, at least,
> two meanings:
>
> 1.  The speaker could be saying, "I don't believe the asserter
> personally"-i.e., the asserter is without credibility-not the assertion
> itself.  It says nothing about the assertion.
>
> 2.  The unbeliever don't believe the assertion itself: "I don't believe
> God exists."
>
> If consideration 1 is true, then, your argument says nothing about what an
> Atheist is or is not, since the statement, "I don't believe you!" has
> nothing to do with believing, or not believing, in God, but everything to
> do with the personality of the asserter.  

Possibly you have eliminated this particular predicate, yes, but you have
not exhausted all the possible cases.  You could have an atheist who thinks
there is not one soul with the credibility to determine God's existence, but
who acknowledges that there are lots of people who would be credible about
other things, but are making incredible claims when it comes to this one
thing.  Such would have nothing to do with the personality of the asserter,
everything to do with the assertion.  For example, I could describe to you
in detail the leprechauns inside of the planet Angus-McTavish, but you
probably wouldn't think that was very credible.  Nor would you likely think
it was believable coming from anybody else.  But if you really wanted to
show all those crazy McTavishites they are misguided, you would have to
scour the entire universe looking for the planet and its leprechauns, and
then convince all the Angushists you did look and came up with nothing.

> If, on the other hand, consideration 2 is true, then, what the atheist is
> saying is, "I don't believe God exists!"  But, this is the same thing as
> saying, "There is no God!"

They are not the same, as illustrated above.

> Therefore, as far as atheism is concerned, my argument that there is no
> such thing as an atheist who does not say, "I don't believe God exists!"
> still stands.  From you arguments I don't see any particular reason to
> change my mind.

http://www.bagpipes.freeuk.com/ should be very helpful for you.

-- 
"If an opponent rebuts a claim of irrelevance, the other party must reply to
the opponent's rebuttal of the claim." -- J.F. Till