Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Atheists don't have to prove anything

John Morales says:
For the umpteenth (plus one) time, atheists do not share any beliefs/opinions/traits other than a disbelief in gods.

There is no such thing as a communal "atheist worldview".

Different atheists will give different answers, because there is no such thing as atheist dogma.

Dr. Robert Morey writes:

My... problem with (George) Smith's definition (of atheism, in his book Atheism: The Case Against God [Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1979]) is how he can attempt to disprove the theistic proofs if he cannot make any assertion about anything. By what standards does he judge these proofs as invalid? On what basis and by what methods can he criticize the theistic proofs if he does not have his own belief system? Why does he have to appeal to such things as "logic" on page 61, and to "reason" on page 110? By doing this he is implying as his confession of faith, "I believe in logic. I believe in reason." He evidently asserts his belief in such things. When he says that every "advocate of reason must begin with an unequivocal condemnation of Christianity's brutal past" (p. 114), to make such moral judgments requires a prior commitment to ethical standards by which he can judge something. If he does not assert anything, however, he then cannot condemn anything.

-The New Atheism and the Erosion of Freedom (Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, 1986, p. 47-48)