Posted by Ir (Helen) on: 08.07.2006 /
I just looked this book up to see who wrote it - maybe I should have guessed it’s by Ray Comfort.
Here’s an excerpt from it:
Here’s a description of the book I found on an online Christian bookstore:
What book can you give to an atheist or agnostic that they will actually read and ‘enjoy’, but which damages their unbelief at the same? God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists by Ray Comfort is a humourous and very readable challenge to the average village atheist which contains a strong gospel presentation.
(What’s an ‘average village atheist’?)
I’d be interested to know whether your ‘unbelief is damaged’ after reading the excerpt. (Try not to damage anything else if you do read it ;))
Comment by: Karen
1Somehow, I have a feeling he means “average village idiot” …
;-)
Comment by: Siamang
2That passage linked to is something he says verbatim in the episode of Way of the Master that has the famous “Argumentum ad Banana-um.”
You know the one: A banana is like a Coke can, therefore God exists.
I can turn his argument around on him. Since he doesn’t know every person in the world, and he hasn’t heard all the arguments for atheism, he must therefore conclude that the statement “atheists don’t exist” is an absolute. There may be somewhere, someone perhaps far, far away, isolated in the outback, who has come up with a solid theological argument that disproves God.
What Comfort therefore is, by his own logic, is an “atheist agnostic”- one who claims he “doesn’t know” if atheists exist.
Comment by: Ir
3I hope not, Karen, but I see why you think that!
Comment by: Ir
4LOL Siamang :)
Nice job of turning his argument back on himself!
Comment by: jacob
5the problem with any of that discussion is that God does not come to his people in solid proof. God comes to us most often in spiritual truth. I know God exists because of what He and His Spirit have done in my heart. I cannot construct a perfect proof to prove or disprove God and that is a good deal of His wonder. Debating whether or not we can prove or disprove God’s existence is futile. We must talk about what we know to be true from personal experience, a great deal of it spiritual.
Comment by: Peter Walker
6I find statements like “atheists don’t exist” to be arrogant and ridiculous… though I know far more agnostics than atheists in my own life.
Conversely, I don’t know that I’ve EVER encountered Doubtless Faith. EVERY faith manifestation I have ever encountered has in some way been sprinkled with some doubt or difficulty in belief.
Perhaps we spend too much time trying to identify differences between belief and unbelief, instead of recongizing them as two particular areas of gradation on the same spectrum.
So as Jacob says, talking about solid “proof” or even solid “certainty” probably separates us unnecessarily in this conversation.
Comment by: Rorgg
7OK, I read the excerpt. And… huh?
There are two flavors of atheism: “Strong Atheism,” which is a categorical denial of the existance of all gods, and “Weak Atheism.”
Weak Atheism (”In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it’s reasonable to hold to a default position that no gods exist”) is actually a form of agnosticism. And the author has discovered this obvious fact. Maybe he found Wikipedia. He then states that Strong Atheists can’t hold their position logically, since it’s a question of absolute knowledge based on a lack of evidence.
So is Theism. Where does that leave him?
This relevatory piece of rhetoric is 90% of the excerpt. The remaining logic comes from:
- A bible passage, which obviously holds no argumentary relevance to either an atheist or agnostic;
- An unsupported comment that atheists/agnostics don’t believe in god because they realize if they “admitted it,” they wouldn’t like the consequence; and
- A story about Benito Mussolini (b. 1883) dying. Eventually. As opposed to the believers born in 1883 who are still around.
Comment by: Siamang
8He by omission denies the possibility that one can make a logical argument that some definitions of God (possibly some Christian definitions) don’t exist, without looking under every rock.
It’s the “square circle” argument. We know no square circles exist, and we don’t need to look at every circle in the universe to prove it.
It’s not my position, and I don’t argue from it. But interestingly he denies it mention. Certainly he is aware of it. But, of course to mention it would shatter his argument. And then he wouldn’t be able to prattle on so self-congratulatorially about the hairs on the back of a tibetan yak.