Football and stamp-collecting.

"Although it is true that 'absence of belief' in supernatural agency is functionally equivalent to 'belief in the absence of supernatural agency', theists concentrate on the latter formulation in order to make atheism a positive as opposed to a privative thesis with regard to theistic-subject-matter-related matters; this is what makes theists think they are in  kind of belief football match, with opposing sets of beliefs vying for our allegiance. What is haappening is that the theists are rushing about the park kicking the ball, but the atheists are not playing. They are not even on the field; they are in the stands, arguing that this particular game should not be taking place at all.

The correct characterisation of the opposition between theism and atheism is therefore this: the theist has existential beliefs, metaphysical beliefs, of a certain distinctive kind; and the atheist does not share them, and therefore does not even begin to enter the domain of discourse in which these beliefs have their life and content. Rather to use a by now familiar simile, but it exactly captures the point - atheism is to theism as not-collecting stamps is to stamp collecting. Not collecting stamps is not a hobby. It says nothing about the non-stamp-collector's other hobbies or interests. It denotes only the open-ended and negative state of not-collecting-stamps. To think of non-stamp-collectors as theists think of atheists, stamp collectors would have to think that non-stamp-collectors  have stamp interests of (so to speak) a positively negative kind; that they share their own obsessions and interests about stamps but in reverse, for example in the form of hating stamps, deliberately doing stamp-related non-stamp-collecting things, and the like."  

from "The God Argument" by A C Grayling.

Through these Godless Eyes

 "You take your faith. I'll take my parachute. See you at the bottom of the cliff"

Herman Philipse on the Incoherence of 'God'.

“How can one meaningfully say that God listens to our prayers, loves us, speaks to us, answers (or does not answer our supplications, etcetera, if God is also assumed to be an incorporeal being? For the stipulation that God is an incorporeal being  annuls the very conditions for meaningfully applying psychological expressions to another entity, to wit, that this entity is able in principle to display forms of bodily behaviour which resemble patterns of human behaviour. In other words, the very attempt to give a meaning and a possible referent to the word ‘God’ as used in theism must fail, because this attempt is incoherent. . .

. . . If this is so, one might object, how are we to explain the fact that the word ‘God’ and sentences such as ‘God loves me’, appear to be used meaningfully in monotheistic language? But explaining this is not difficult. The religious uses of the putative proper name ‘God’ are parasitic upon, and resemble to a large extent, the ordinary uses of proper names and psychological  expressions for human beings. What religious believers fail to notice is that by substituting ‘God’ for an ordinary proper name in sentences such as ‘John loves me’, or ‘Paul will condemn him’, they cancel the conditions for using meaningfully the words ‘loves’ and ‘condemns’.

Monotheistic believers often are vaguely aware that the meaning of words eludes them when they utter sentences containing the word ‘God’. But they misinterpret this fact as symptomatic of the spiritual depth of religious discourse. They think that the profoundly mysterious nature of monotheistic language points to a transcendent reality, which cannot be grasped by us, limited human beings. In this case, however, the impression of profoundness is caused by a mere misuse of language. As Wittgenstein aptly remarked, ‘the problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the character of depth.”

Herman Philipse is a professor of philosophy at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. From 1986 until 2003, he taught at Leiden University, where he obtained his doctorate in 1983. 

The Incoherence of Believing in Something (but you aren't quite sure what).

Richard G Swinburne

In the opening lines of Swinburne's introduction to his book "The Coherence of Theism" he states that by a theist he understands a man who believes there "is something like a person without a body (i.e. a spirit) who is eternal, free, able to do anything, is perfectly good, is the proper object of human worship and obedience, the creator and sustainer of the universe."

This immediately begs the question of what, if anything, is "like a person without a body". This question-begging is only compounded by the additional qualifications that follow in the statement. 

A few lines down Swinburne also reveals his conclusion that "the question of coherence of belief that there is a god cannot be separated from the question of its truth".

So the void Swinburne opens up at the beginning of the introduction is later revealed to be bottomless at its end.

His book is 324 pages long. That's "Philosophy of Religion" for you. 

The Arrogance of Atheism

Theism: the belief that 13.7 billion years ago some atemporal, immaterial. but omnipotent, omniscient & omnipresent entity created a Universe of a 100 billion galaxies, containing 70 sextillion stars and 10^24 planets just so that after a time interval of 13.695 billion years a particular life-form could evolve on one of the planets to sing the praises of said entity. . 

Atheism: The belief that this is probably not true. 

Awkward questions for Theists - No.3

How do theists cope with the idea that they will never NOT exist?

Awkward questions for Theists - No.1

Awkward questions for Theists - No.2

Awkward questions for Theists - No.2

In its objective meaning, how is the expression "God created the Universe" distinguishable from "X created the Universe"?

Awkward questions for Theists - No.1

Advanced Circular Reasoning

Cognitive dissonance at its finest . . .

Note to the rationality-challenged . . .

A quick reminder to any of the great tribe of the 'rationality-challenged' who happen to light upon this blog:-

What goes on inside your head is only evidence for what goes on inside your head.

Jesus still loves you . . .

THEIST: "I just want you to know Jesus loves you."

ATHEIST: "Actually, you realize Jesus is a direct ripoff of Dionysus and many other mythological characters from earlier cultures, complete with virgin births (divine father / human mother), execution and resurrection on the third day, a 2nd coming prophecy, and miracles like turning water into wine. There's no hard, historical proof that he ever existed, and if there was in fact a Jesus of Nazareth, he lived and died an ordinary human."

THEIST: (uncomfortable pause) "Uh. Um. Jesus still loves you."

Captain Picard rejects Theism

The Armageddon that wasn't. PZ is angry . . . .

"Sure, everyone is laughing at Harold Camping now, except his followers, who are undeterred. But you're missing the real joke. Look at every Abrahamic religion, with their myths of prophets and favored peoples and fate. Look at the crazy conservative church in your town, that preaches homophobia and anti-science and supports Israel because of the Armageddon prophecy. Look at the liberal Christian church down the street from you that has the nice Vacation Bible School and puts on happy plays for the older kids, and also teaches that one day you will stand before a great god and be judged. Look at your family members who blithely believe in death as a mini-apocalypse, in which they will be magically translated into another realm, again to be judged.

It's the very same rot, the poison of religion that twists minds away from reality and fastens them on hellish bogeymen. They're demented fuckwits, every one, and the big lie rests right on the fundamental beliefs of supernaturalism and deities, not on the ephemera of one crank's bizarre interpretations."

Complete post here.

Atheism explained

"At least you can fucking die and leave North Korea."

Respect

A believer recently told me they "respect" my lack of faith. I was distinctly underwhelmed by this. For one thing it seemed slightly patronising; for another you can't choose to 'not believe', its just the default position for anyone who insists on credible evidence before accepting a proposition as true. It seems to put non-belief and belief on opposite sides of the same coin. Believers would like to think this, but they are in fact on different coins, one critical thought, the other unquestioning acceptance.

The Atheist Bus

I hope the bus is in time. Read Sam Harris; "Letter to a Christian Nation".