“A Christian and an Atheist” thoughts, Part 1
I was listening to the podcast “A Christian and an Atheist” on my way to work this morning, and I had a lot of thoughts about things which were said, but even more about things which were not said. In my next few posts, I’m going to go over some of those things. In this episode, Emery (an atheist), interviewed Pastor Scott Barger. They discussed a list of questions Barger had prepared for atheists.
The first question from Barger was how so many atheists could claim the knowledge that no god exists. He further claims that such people should more honestly refer to themselves as agnostics.
I have two main thoughts about this. The first one is that atheism is simply disbelief in any gods. The fact that some atheists will go further and claim that no gods exist is simply a matter of choice. This shows a misunderstanding of atheism, which was also hinted at when Barger refers to atheism as a “system” and to atheists as people who follow that system. For more on this, see my article “Everything You’ve Heard About Atheists is Wrong — Except one Thing.”
Secondly, the unstated implication of Scott Barger’s question is that people who claim that no god exists should be agnostics, because agnosticism allows for the question to remain open. Obviously, this sentiment stems from his belief in the existence of a god, and his desire for the rest of us to leave the possibility open in case we’re wrong. There are, however, two major flaws in this idea. First, an atheist is open to new information, and can be convinced of the existence of a god if the evidence is presented to us. Most of us will freely admit that. However, agnostics take the position that it’s impossible to know in either case. So while they would, in theory, be convinced as quickly as an atheist in the presence of evidence, their philosophy precludes even looking for such evidence, since they don’t believe there is any possibility of finding any for or against.
Also, and most importantly from a logical perspective, is the simple fact that leaving yourself open to the possibility that there may be a god does not mean that it is just as likely as the non-existence of a god. It’s not a 50-50 bet. Based upon the evidence we have, there is no reason or evidence which indicates that a god exists. That makes the bet more like 100-0 against than 50-50.
Full credit for civility goes to both Scott and Emery for this conversation. It was a respectful, non-combative conversation, which is rare between theists and non-theists. In fact, I don’t remember ever hearing a conversation in which points were made strongly by one side and conceded by the other. I can only hope that these concessions mean that our global conversation on these issues can begin to shed the tired old arguments which have long since been decided and discuss the core of the matter.
