[that is the second time you have said something like this. i request, again, the link to exactly what harris is claiming]

Read Vox Day’s blog here: http://voxday.blogspot.com/2009/05/stanley-fish-discovers-atheists.html

[and, though of course you are under no obligation to answer my questions, i'll repeat: is your belief in your christian god challengeable, and if so, how?]

I wasn’t sure what you meant by this, so I looked up the definition of challengable. First definition I came across was this:

Adj. 1. challengeable - capable of being challenged

So, since I regularly engage in discussions about my worldview on OLO, I would suggest that my worldview is being challenged and so yes, my worldview is challengable.

Oliver,

[You are a member of a non-murderous congregation, who do not act like historical Christians].

You are, I assume, a non violent atheist, who does not act like some historical atheists who killed hundreds of millions of people. I am a member of a non murderous congregation indeed, and I do not act like some historical Christians who killed relatively tiny amounts of people.

[Moreover, Christians are fallible and by extension your ministers merely preach a possibly]

I would suggest that everything is a possibility. We do not know the truth for certain. We could be part of a massive computer simulation by a mad scientist. The external world as we know it might not even exist. It’s pointless debating semantics about what a possibility is. At the end of the day if someone believes something to be true they are well within their rights to claim that it is true. Furthermore, if they believe something to be true which affects other people, they have a responsibility to share it with other people.

[Theism and atheism are two unreasonable sides of the same coin.]

So you view theism as unreasonable, and atheism as unreasonable. What are we left with- agnosticism of the highest order- we cannot know and there’s no point trying? Is that your position

trav, thanks for the link to that blogpost. in brief:

the post links to a survey on sam harris's website. there is no indication of who was selected to be surveyed, or how. in the survey, the following question was asked:

"The widespread belief that a personal God exists suggests that God actually exists"

about 90% of (presumably self-declared) atheists "strongly disagree", and (P S-D) christians are pretty evenly split from strong disagreement to strong agreement.

the post makes the conclusion (which you echo):

"the scientific evidence shows that it is Christians who are the more open-minded."

*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%

trav, if you cannot already appreciate the poverty of this "scientific evidence", i doubt very much that anything i might say here will convince you. i'm sorry, but this "evidence" is simply laughable.

as is the whole post. what is most striking is the hostility to science and scientists, schizophrenically combined with cartoon appeals to science.

trav, i gave you more credit. i now know better. i don't think your beliefs are in fact challengeable, in any meaningful sense of the word. that's fine: all it means is that i simply don't care what you believe.

A most interesting and informative link, thank you Trav.

I read the article that claimed that atheists "assert their beliefs far more rigidly and dogmatically than Christians", and the comments that followed. Quite enlightening.

The question posed was, as bushbasher pointed out, perfectly skewed to get the answer required.

"The widespread belief that a personal God exists suggests that God actually exists"

The idea being that if enough people believe something, it must be true.

On that basis, a survey of four-year-old girls would prove conclusively that fairies exist, I suppose.

But my gratitude stems mainly from finding this absolute gem amongst the comments that followed the piece, from someone calling himself John Quincy Public.

"For my own presuppositions I'm inclined to say that I'm little interested in a popularity contest of opinions as proxy to fact amongst a sample consisting of animals that regularly anthropomorphize, name, and converse with their genitals. To me this seems a shaky foundation for forming opinions or a system of governance. Moistened bints lobbing scimitars would have more rationality in my view."

My hat is doffed to you, Mr Public.

"So you view theism as unreasonable, and atheism as unreasonable. What are we left with- agnosticism of the highest order- we cannot know and there’s no point trying? Is that your position." - Trav

No we test propositions.

Yet, propositions are tenative and should be exposed to testing. I have read the Bible to try an falsify the idea that god does not exist. Christianity doesn't stand out from the produce of the god factories (Wells) of 600 BCE - 600 CE. Besides that which you call Christianity is not the Church of the early believers anyway.

A good research program starts with trying to disprove that which one is trying to prove. If the null hypthesis fails onlt then does one then consider the alternative hypothesis. A really good Christian would try to disprove the existence of god.

Do you understand what philosphers mean about the white swans?

Trav,

"The wide spread belief in a Personal God suggests that God actually exists" - Harris cited Vox Popoli

Strongly disagree is the logical answer. God exists or does not exist regardless of what humans think.

It is ridiculous to suggest that god exists because people believe in God. Because millions of children believe in Santa Clause that does bring a real Santa Clause into existence. Likewise, "The wide spread belief in Zeus the God suggests that Zeus actually exists," does not mean Zeus actually exists.

BB, I had to chuckle to myself when I read this....

[trav, i gave you more credit. i now know better. i don't think your beliefs are in fact challengeable, in any meaningful sense of the word. that's fine: all it means is that i simply don't care what you believe.]

I strongly doubt you cared before, so how can you care any less now!?

Oliver and Pericles, you've both missed Vox Day's point entirely. The proposition was not "The wide spread belief in a Personal God SHOWS that God actually exists" or PROVES that he exists. It said "suggests".

I looked up the white swans thing on wiki, so now I'm aware of it but as I said, just had a quick skim on wiki.

I don't see how the concept of God is actually falsifiable. In the same way that fairies are not. However, there is clearly much more "evidence for" or "factors which suggest" the existence of an eternal, theistic God compared to the existence of fairies.

However, the christian religion itself is clearly falsifiable. Vox Day gives a few suggestions on page 139 of The Irrational Atheist:

- The elimination of the Jewish people would falsify both God’s promise to Abraham and the eschatological events prophesied in the Book of Revelation.
- The discovery of Jesus Christ’s crucified skeleton.
- The linguistic unification of humanity.
- An external recording of the history of the human race provided by aliens, as proposed by science fiction authors Arthur C. Clarke and James P. Hogan.
- The end of war and/or poverty.
- Functional immortality technology.