Here is a summary of James Lazarus's Reconsidering Some Atheistic Arguments (C is for Claim):

  • C1: Religious language is meaningless.
    1. Unverifiable statements can be meaningful.
    2. Religious statements might be proven true later.
    3. Negative talk about God requires a positive coherent impression.
  • C2: The notion of God is incoherent.
    1. It is uncharitable not to limit omniscience to what is possible.
  • C3: Theism is an intrinsically worthless hypothesis.
    1. Einstein's God might not be so silly after all. Who knows?
  • C4: You cannot be reasonable and be a believer.
    1. The author knows "rational, reasonable, and intelligent" religionists.
  • C5: Theistic hypotheses are the opposite of scientific hypotheses.
    1. The God hypothesis is no stranger than some theoretical physics.
  • C6: The existence of God cannot provide us with any ethical obligations.
    1. Ethical obligation is source-independent.
  • C7: The Argument from Physical Minds is a good atheistic argument.
    1. There is no necessary metaphysical relationship between minds and brains.

And here are my thoughts:

  • C1.1: Good. Any statement thought to be meaningful by the person making it is meaningful to at least that person.
  • C1.2: Bad. Not everything is possible. Take God of the Bible for example. This concept is irreconcilable with reality because it contradicts itself in its very definition. So we either need a new definition (and, hence, a new Bible) or we need to stop lying to ourselves that a remote possibility for God's existence exists.
  • C1.3: Good. Negative talk about anything requires the "anything," so I agree with this insight and, in fact, made it recently here.
  • C2.1: Bad. Omniscience cannot be limited to what is possible because the very concept itself is impossible. No amount of limiting of power can retain the notion of having "all power" and remain internally coherent.
  • C3.1: Okay. Einstein's God was, according to Richard Dawkins, merely a poetic expression of nature's beauty and complexity. If a universal creative force(s) exists, we have no indication of it, but it is a possibility.
  • C4.1: Bad. Being reasonable in one area of life does not preclude being unreasonable in another. Then again, I have rarely if ever seen an atheistic argument claiming that all theists are always unreasonable, as if by a genetic predisposition. Moreover, arguments from personal experience do not generally make good objective arguments.
  • C5.1: Bad. That the God hypothesis is no stranger than some theoretical physics is not an argument intrinsically favoring God's possible existence.
  • C6.1: Okay. It is true that ethical obligation is source-independent.
  • C7.1: Bad. Parsimony. Minds derive from brains as far as we know and we can deeply affect consciousness by operating on the brain.

Good or bad, I am glad to see an atheist questioning classic atheistic arguments.