On Faith and Atheism
Yesterday, I was involved in a discussion with an atheist who insisted there was no god.
It began with a friend of mine posting this picture.
I replied with a comment but the relevant part of it was this
"..I can understand the sentiment. On the other side, Hitler said he was doing God's work".
I received a reply from second person who I didn't know, telling me that I just didn't get it, and "THERE IS NO GOD".
As far as I am aware, nobody has ever been able to prove there is no god or gods, it's an unfalsifiable hypothesis.
So
I asked for the proof of this statement, and I was directed to the same
graphic on facebook. I advised that this is merely someone's opinion
(no matter how tragic the circumstances) and it did not constitute
proof.
The responder then posted a graphic showing me
instructions on how to insert my opinion anally, and subsequent
statements made alluded to paedophile priests and that I was quote
"nowhere near an atheist"
So in response to these statements, let me make the following points.
Point One:
I
am an atheist. I have been doing videos regarding atheism for over four
years now. My religious affiliation is shown on my Facebook, and a
mouse click would have told you this information. Your assertion that I
am not is incorrect.
Point Two:
My statement "Hitler said
he was doing God's work" was attempting to illustrate just how
subjective proof of god's blessings are. The efficiency of the
extermination of Jews could quite easily be interpreted as a blessing by
'god' given to the third Reich.
Point Three
When I ask
for proof that there is no god, you failed to provide any. This
situation of no proof is likely to persist through until the end of time
unless we can find some way to put god in a test tube. As I stated
earlier, the concept of a god is an unfalsifiable hypothesis.
which brings me to point Four.
I
feel it necessary to bring to your attention the celestial teapot.
Bernard Russell stated " nobody can prove that there is not between the
Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but
nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in
practice. I think the Christian God just as unlikely." Please note, this
is not proof of a god (or teapot), it merely serves to show how
pointlessly impossible it is to disprove such a concept.
Point Five:
I'd
also like to mention the Spectrum of theist probability. The Dawkins
formulation ranges from (1) certainty about theism to (7) certainty of
there being no god or gods, with various graduations from one point to
the other. At the risk of running an 'appeal to authority' fallacy,
Richard Dawkins places himself at a 6 on the scale. In simple terms even
Richard Dawkins refuses to discount the miniscule chance of a god
existing, even if it is extremely remote.
Logic would dictate
that if something cannot be comprehensively disproven then there is some
chance of it occurring. My 'likelihood ranking" of a god of some sort
actually existing is that it is about as likely as a pink unicorn, a
leprechaun or ghost. They are things that I will live my life without
any deference to, as I have seen no evidence for them and I have no
reason to believe they exist.
I would contend however that a
statement of "There is no god" to be a faith based one, in so much as
there is no evidence to support it. It is an untenable position.
Video
can be seen here.
