"Atheism is Irrational"

From SkepticWiki

[edit] Definition

The argument that atheism is irrational depends on an attempt to equate disbelief in the unproven equally with belief in the unproven, as a form of faith.

[edit] Quotations

The following piece of Christian apologetics is a fair example of the genre:

"At the same time, it takes just as much faith to believe in atheism. To make the absolute statement “God does not exist!” is to make a claim of knowing absolutely everything there is to know about everything – and of having been everywhere in the universe there is to go – and having witnessed everything there is to be seen. Of course, no atheist would make these exact claims. However, that is essentially what they are claiming when they state that God does not exist. Atheists cannot prove that God does not, for example, live in the center of the sun, or beneath the clouds of Jupiter, or in some distant nebula. This cannot be proven, so it cannot be proven that God does not exist. It takes just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a theist."[1]

[edit] Discussion

There are two obvious errors here.

The first is that even if this argument applied to other entities, it could surely not apply to God, who is supposedly omnipresent, omniscient, and governor of the entire universe. It is of no use asking the atheist whether he has looked under the clouds of Jupiter for God: if God is meant to be everywhere, then the atheist need only point to one place where God is not in order to prove the nonexistence of God.

In the same way, if someone maintains that there are unicorns everywhere, it is sufficient to answer him by showing one place where unicorns are not: for example, your back yard; it is not necessary also to go to Jupiter and check that there are no unicorns there.

So this particular piece of apologetics involves imagining that the word "God" might apply to a small, local, secretive being which conceals itself under the clouds of Jupiter and leaves the Earth alone. Now it is very problematic to argue for the existence of God by allowing the definition of "God" to vary as you please. May the theist say to an atheist: "What if there is a God, and it's your left leg?" Should the atheist respond: "I see now that there might be a God, and it might be attached to my hipbone ... I repent my atheism!"

There is a similar problem, though not quite so absurd, if the Christian apologist imagines a shy little mini-God living on Jupiter. Suppose, for example, that atheists looked under the clouds of Jupiter, found some small local insignificant entity, and called it "God" ... is there any chance that theists would agree with them?

However, for the sake of saving our apologist's argument, let's suppose that we redefine the word "God" so broadly that it can apply to such an insignificant being. This brings us on to the second major problem in the theist argument.

It is true that no-one has looked below the clouds of Jupiter for such a trivial God. Nonetheless, it doesn't take as much faith to disbelieve in him as to believe in him. This can be seen by applying the same argument as quoted above to some other entity, such as Santa Claus. No-one, I think, would argue that it takes as much faith to disbelieve in Santa as to believe in him, on the grounds that the disbelievers haven't looked "beneath the clouds of Jupiter" to see if he's there. Nor would anyone say that someone who doubts the existence of Santa is "essentially claiming" to have looked there. Rather, it takes faith to believe in Santa, and no faith at all to doubt him.

Something has clearly gone amiss with the theist argument. The problem is that the believer is attempting to shift the Burden of Proof. It is clear that if someone claims something exists, the onus is on them to show that it does, whether the subject under dispute is God, the Invisible Pink Unicorn or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. We might, indeed, state as a general rule: if it requires faith to believe that something does exist, it is rational to believe that it does not.