”...you would be obliged, as a fisher of men, to let the world in on these facts that you have obtained. Particularly if you are the only one in possession of them …Mankind will never be the same.”

Don’t be silly. I’d be surprised if the vast majority of humankind haven’t been religious.

“I think your (accidental?) word-switch (assuming it wasn’t an accident) ...”

You are still going on about that?

”Firstly, “reason” ...we can see that it never is when it comes to religion: something used to fill an emotional or intellectual void or as a crutch when we feel our lives have hit rock-bottom.”

All I see is people convert to atheism when they worry about the burden of carrying the cross. I’ve never seen anyone come into religion in the circumstances you outlined. My experience has been either family or reasoning. Although I have heard pentecostal pastors claiming to have had that type of experience. I generously left open the issue of whether or not it was just a good story.

”Secondly, Lewis’s definition of faith could apply to a lot of things. It could even apply to explicit atheism and we know that atheism is not a faith.”

I don't know where to look... there is a secular system of belief that holds onto some pretty implausible things by blind faith. Why do you think the term "secular fundamentalist" now gets used. There are atheists with a type of faith even if atheism perse isn't necessarily a faith.

That can be contrasted with atheism in the broad sense. Take Pericles. He is an atheist but doesn't seem to hold blind faith just an opinion based on his call of things (or so my experience has indicated).

”I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what Lewis had to say though. His false trichotomy of Jesus ...doesn’t say much for his reasoning skills considering he left out the most obvious, rational and likely possibility: legend.”

Lewis was a clever learned man. I’m sure he wasn’t ignorant of the fact that a legend explanation is implausible.

mjpb, (and Philo),
You might remember that I have been an enthusiastic reader of your posts and polemics on this OLO. So I thought you could be interested in the book I recently came accross:

FAITH AND ITS CRITICS: A Conversation by David Ferguson (OUP 2009) 195pp, USD 25.25 or EUR 20.99 (paperbacjk to appear in May 2011 for EUR 11.99). I have just ordered the book via amazon.com but you can read the Intro online. Some quotes:

" …the work of the new atheists is intensely interesting; the range of questions and subjects raised are of concern to every person ...Perhaps the most important reason for a theological study of atheism is that it may have something salutary to teach us who remain committed to faith. Of course, this is far removed from the intention of the new atheists, who advocate the abandonment of religion rather than its renovation. Yet the consideration of the most powerful challenges that can be leveled against religion may itself enable a clearer and more chastened perception of what it is one believes and to which one is committed. ... There are times and places where silence and scepticism serve us better than the passionate certainties that may later appear misplaced and even harmful. ... (I) plea for a coalition of humanists and believers who can together find ways of working for common goals even amidst significant intellectual disagreement …"

This seems to agree with the atheist Jürgen Habermass' plea (http://www.signandsight.com/features/1714.html) though - I hope - easier to understand.

”Just take, for example, the many theists on OLO who ... their fingers in their ears singing: “La, la, la... I can’t here you.””

?

“No, not “appearing like a genuine mistake”...

This isn’t the first time you’ve tried this tactic either... http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3814#93594 “

It looks like a genuine mistake to me for the reasons I pointed out and of course it was. Why didn't you go back further and check it properly? Yes the head topic is the Church but I was responding to a belief comment. It was your mistake:

Pelican“Beats me particularly given religion bases itself on the belief that human beings are nothing more than sinners, and if this is so why not allow 'evil' women to be preachers. They could do no worse than the male sinners,some may even do better in providing comfort and guidance to others.”
mjpb”Beats me too as does the relevance of those opinions. I thought you were discussing the Catholic Church. Those assertions are quite contrary to Catholic belief.”
AJPhillips” I’ll ignore the subtle and deliberate switch from “Catholic Church” to “Catholic belief” and simply state: By their deeds ye shall know them.”
mjpb you linked to:” Sophistry on my part no doubt in switching to belief. I can type that I believed that I was replying to something that referred to belief but who would believe me?”

“But you can’t even mention why your reason once accepted it. That’s the whole point here.”

I explained to you over and over why I wasn’t getting heavily into the discussion until I had time or at least until I can kid myself that I have. I’m going to clap if you eventually get it.

“Pointing out sophistry is a passing observation, not my rationalisation”

It is a rationalization. You are trying to rationalize your belief that theists have no argument and it is convenient to adopt a sophistry McCarthyism approach to help you feel comfortable with that belief.

Right now I’m feeling a word limit and serious time stress but I haven’t finished for today.

AJ Phillips,

”Evasive maneuver for what? What kind of evidence would disprove something that didn’t exist? What part of “the onus is on the believer to provide the evidence” do you not understand?”

I wasn’t saying that you were being evasive. I was saying that you uncritically adopted an evasive maneouver because you are overcritical of theists but undercritical of atheist propaganda. You failed to think it through.

They are evading the need to defend their weak argument by trying to pretend that only theists have to prove their point. Perhaps it is sophistry?

Burden of proof is from Roman law and is used in our legal system. It is established by rules that vary throughout legal systems. In civil law in Australia it typically falls upon the plaintiff as it does in a more convoluted way in criminal law. It is a procedural concept not a matter of logic and it doesn’t automatically fall on someone making a grammatically positive statement. Quite often they can be translated to negative statements. Further, to be taken seriously many negative statements eg. "there are no atoms" require evidence while there corresponding positive statement would not.

Burden of proof in an argument is largely independent of the question of what evidence is required to rationally believe any of the positions. Suppose in the atom example the negative attracted the burden. That doesn’t mean it is rational to believe electrons exist without ever having encountered evidence.

Of course even if the burden of proof fell on theists (which there is no reason to believe) it doesn’t mean that athests can rationally have a belief that there is no God or other divine reality without evidence.

Ultimately the honest approach is that if disagreeing participants in an informal discussion of a controversial topic are expected to be taken seriously they must all bear the burden to provide support for their claims. That athiest porn writers try to pretend otherwise says more about their argument than any real burden of proof.

AJ Phillips,

“If I claim that unicorns exist, does it then become your responsibility to prove me wrong?”

These rhetorically most effective defences aren’t legitimate.

The creators typically believe that there is no evidence for unicorns so therefore the absence of evidence is evidence of absence and that can be overgeneralised via extending the absence of evidence to an absence of strong evidence for theism. They are typically aware of weak evidence like fine tuning of physical laws and constants, religious experience, etc.

In reality there are numerous examples like theism where people might not accept evidence as strong yet that doesn’t logically mean that believing something is ridiculous. For example the idea that earthworms have a primitive form of consciousness. Many consciousness researchers believe that without strong evidence. Many physicists believe in things like string theory or parallel universes without strong evidence. If the absence of strong evidence made it ridiculous to believe those things we could pronounce those beliefs must be false and as absurd as unicorns.

Further, if you substitute the boundary between conscious and non-conscious creatures is above the level of earthworms for the proposition that earthworms have a primitive form of consciousness that type of reasoning would prove that both contradictory statements are false. (Reductio ad absurdum)

”There’s nothing wrong with certainty about demonstrable positions, “

True but I don’t see the relevance and further:

"The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt."

“and it’s not arrogance when an unfounded belief system, with no legitimacy due to the total lack of evidence, has proven itself to be dangerous, even to the point of apocalyptically dangerous.”

When was it proved? I keep reading that it doesn’t need to be proved. I’m particularly interested in the “proven itself to be dangerous” bit. The track record of atheist societies isn’t good.

AJ Phillips,

”Yes, and as we are demonstrating now, that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to be certain about after hundreds and hundreds of years of religion and still not a shred of proof.”

That is your (rather extreme) opinion but he says that it isn’t appropriate to have arrogant certitude on the big questions and that is exactly what he is demonstrating.

<<To dismiss the beliefs of the majority of the world’s population with pejorative comparison is arrogant in the extreme and it is hard to see how it would make sense if he wasn’t also expressing certitude.>>

”Again, it’s not arrogant if it’s demonstrable. People interpret their holy books however they want to, which is no different to interpreting chicken entrails.”

That seems a rather misleading exaggeration when most people are constrained in how they interpret their Holy Books either formally or informally. As a throw away insult it would pass but as an argument that saying it is no different to interpreting chicken entrails isn’t arrogant it is rather wanting.

Even if people really did interpret holy books however they want to; High Court judges interpreted laws any way they wanted to during the Barwick era but if you said what they were doing was no different to interpreting chicken entrails somehow I think people would consider it arrogant.

”We can be certain about certain things while maintaining a more humble attitude of doubt when dealing with situations that could cost lives...”

You might consider that the other side should be humble. That is probably human nature. However I’m just pointing out the contradiction.

”So again, no contradiction.”

With your expressed opinion or his?

”It’s not extreme when the following paragraphs provide a good case as to why.”

Are you serious?

”It’s not extreme when it can be demonstrated.”

When will that happen?

”No, he is not saying theism is bad because extremism is.“

“True devils of extremism” may follow on from a previous comment where he gives other reasons rather than being self contained. It is ambiguous but I’ll concede that one.