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I grew up atheist for 16 years. I had always kept an open mind towards religion, but never really felt a need to believe in it. My sister started going to a Wednesday night children's program at a church. Eventually, I was dragged into a Christmas Eve service. Scoffing, I reluctantly went, assuming that this was going to be a load of crap, but when I went, I felt something. Something that I've never felt before. I felt a sense of empowerment and a sense of calling. Jesus called upon my soul, just like he did with his disciples. he wanted me to follow him. Now, my life is being lived for Christ. He died on the cross for my sins, and the sins of everyone who believes in him. He was beaten, brutalized, struck with a whip 39 times, made to carry a cross up to the stage of his death. This I believe to be true, and I can never repay him for what he has done.
I still have my struggles with Christianity, but I've found this bit of information most useful. Religion is not comprehensible in the human mind, because we cannot comprehend the idea of a perfect and supreme being, a God, but we can believe it in our heart, and that's the idea of faith. Faith is, even though everything rides against me believing in Jesus, I still believe in him because I know that it's true in my heart. I invite my fellow Brothers and sisters of the LORD to talk about how Jesus has helped you in your life. No atheists and no insults please
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Just came across this interview with Al Plantinga on the irrationality of atheism. Plantinga is one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century, and it's a really fun read with lots of points to consider
The arguments in that link unfortunately fall down when you additionally consider that there are infinite possible number of Gods, and you can't worship them all, even the ones you know about.
Is Atheism Irrational?
An all-encompassing Atheist is irrational, but not a predominant Atheist. I forget what kind of scale we are talking about, but a full 7 means "100% unlikely that a deity or intelligent superpower exists". But many renowned people, including the Richard Dawkins they reference, calls himself a 6, which is "very likely there is no deity, but there is a slight possibly there may be one".
I myself am a 6, and I wanna add onto that description, which is "which encompasses a form highly unlikely to what we know or think".
Quotes from the interview provided by Moe:
(I take atheism to be the belief that there is no such person as the God of the theistic religions.)
Atheism is not a positive statement, it is the lack of belief in a deity. Can one call the lack of a statement irrational?
No one thinks there is good evidence for the proposition that there are an even number of stars; but also, no one thinks the right conclusion to draw is that there are an uneven number of stars. The right conclusion would instead be agnosticism.
Not a good example in my opinion. Atheism is not about saying there is an uneven number of stars; two different theists would make the case of an even and uneven number of stars respectively, while the atheist would say there is no evidence for either claim.
There is plenty of evidence against teapotism. So if, Ã la Russell, theism is like teapotism, the atheist, to be justified, would (like the a-teapotist) have to have powerful evidence against theism.
Good point; though I feel that the position "I only believe it if I see it", or if there is enough evidence for it, should also be a viable option.
The point here is that the theistic claim implies something out of the ordinary; like the orbiting teapot. So while solid counter arguments make the atheist position even more believable (ahah), if the theist is unable to provide evidence for their claim the atheist is not irrational in not accepting the claim.
I should make clear first that I donât think arguments are needed for rational belief in God.
I'm unsure here... does he really claim that rational belief in god does not need arguments, while rational lack of belief in god does?
One presently rather popular argument: fine-tuning.
I disagree. It may only seem very appealing and logic to think that the fine-tuning of the universe to our condition is divine; but that's looking at it from the wrong side. Life is fine-tuned to the conditions in this universe, not the inverse.
As a justification of atheism, this is pretty lame. We no longer need the moon to explain or account for lunacy; it hardly follows that belief in the nonexistence of the moon (a-moonism?) is justified.
While it is true that not needing god to explain the world does not mean there is no god at all. However it does still mean that we can rule out specific religions whose creation myths disagree with current scientific knowledge.
Indeed, if theism is true, then very likely there is something like the sensus divinitatis. So claiming that the only sensible ground for belief in God is the explanatory quality of such belief is substantially equivalent to assuming atheism.
I don't think I quite follow him there. Person 1 claiming to have sensus divinitatis does not make person 2 irrational for not having it. Care to brighten up my light?
Thomas Nagel, a terrific philosopher and an unusually perceptive atheist, says he simply doesnât want there to be any such person as God.
Now that's a horrible reason for being atheist...
Presumably this belief would have to be a material structure in my brain, say a collection of neurons that sends electrical impulses to other such structures as well as to nerves and muscles, and receives electrical impulses from other structures.
My intuition is that reality is more complex than that, and here's why: a belief is likely not a finite material entity as he proposes. Why do you believe that there is a beer in the fridge? Not because such a neural complex suddenly formed out of the blue, as he seems to imply (which btw would pretty much contradict evolution); it comes by experience and knowledge. You know that a fridge cools down objects in it, and you know by experience that people like to put beer in their fridge.
Because if this belief â" this structure â" had a totally different content (even, say, if it was a belief that there is no beer in the fridge) but had the same neurophysiological properties, it would still have caused that same action of going to the fridge.
There's a huge hole in this argument: what if a different content necessarily comes with a different electrophysiological property? The content would have to be material, so you cannot change a material structure without changing its influence on other material structures.
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This interview is really interesting, but in the end I have to disagree with him: atheism has definitely the potential to be a rational position, more than theism in my opinion; and materialism is compatible with evolution.
This is some great stuff. I'm really happy with these responses so far. One thing to keep in mind, though: this is an interview and not a proper philosophical argument. There are some arguments on offer, but there's just not the room to fully develop them. Al is a brilliant philosopher and one of my personal heroes, so I'd like to work to defend him as much as I can.
The arguments in that link unfortunately fall down when you additionally consider that there are infinite possible number of Gods, and you can't worship them all, even the ones you know about.
This is a great point, but it's not quite what Plantinga is arguing here. We have to keep in mind the distinction between being a theist and being religious. It's only the latter that would require worship. But even the claim that one should be a theist is stronger than what Plantinga is arguing for. He says several times that agnosticism is more motivated (or more rational) than atheism.
Atheism is not a positive statement, it is the lack of belief in a deity. Can one call the lack of a statement irrational?
A lack of belief would track to (strong) agnosticism. After all, these are people who withhold belief in a deity. So there's a failure to believe in a deity, but there's a strong belief that there is no deity - and that's atheism.
Not a good example in my opinion. Atheism is not about saying there is an uneven number of stars; two different theists would make the case of an even and uneven number of stars respectively, while the atheist would say there is no evidence for either claim.
I see why you want to take this line. But I'm thinking your response here is motivated by your position on what an atheist does or does not believe. But if you're unsatisfied, there are other ways to run Plantinga's point here.
Good point; though I feel that the position "I only believe it if I see it", or if there is enough evidence for it, should also be a viable option.
Very well said. However the point here is much more delicate than the article suggests. Since it's not all that critical to the argument on offer, I won't belabour the point here (though feel free to bring it back up!).
I'm unsure here... does he really claim that rational belief in god does not need arguments, while rational lack of belief in god does?
Plantinga talks quite a bit about this sensus divinitatis - a feeling of a divine presence. (Interestingly this sensation has been replicated in clinical studies by introducing the brain to strong electromagnetic fields.) This is something that Plantinga takes seriously and suggests that such a sense is to be expected if there is a God. Like our other perceptions, we don't need argumentation for rational belief in those things. If I see a barn in front of me, it's rational to believe that there's a barn in front of me. No argumentation is really needed here.
I disagree. It may only seem very appealing and logic to think that the fine-tuning of the universe to our condition is divine; but that's looking at it from the wrong side. Life is fine-tuned to the conditions in this universe, not the inverse.
I personally completely agree with you here. But there's an argument along these lines that develops what's called the Merchant's Thumb Principal. Suppose you're buying a rug and the merchant holds it up for you to inspect. It look fine so you buy it. When you get home, you realise there's a hole in the rug and the merchant's thumb was covering it up. This is so improbable that it can't be an accident - it cries for an explanation. In the same way, our universe has a number of factors that are way more improbable. And in the same way this cries for an explanation.
I don't think I quite follow him there. Person 1 claiming to have sensus divinitatis does not make person 2 irrational for not having it. Care to brighten up my light?
This quote was probably taken out of context. Plantinga (rightly) wants to avoid God of the gaps arguments. He's just saying that there are other good reasons to believe in God other than using Him as an explanation. But Plantinga doesn't need this stronger point - all he needs is the point that agnosticism is more motivated than atheism.
There's a huge hole in this argument: what if a different content necessarily comes with a different electrophysiological property? The content would have to be material, so you cannot change a material structure without changing its influence on other material structures.
These are some complex issues in the philosophy of mind. This is already a really long post, so I don't want to go into them just yet. Actually, the compatibility of materialism with evolution would warrant a thread of its own. Feel free to ask me on my profile, or perhaps we could start a new thread with this topic. This stuff doesn't really affect the atheist position, however, since atheists don't have to be materialists to begin with.
Why is Plantinga putting pantheism and other deistic faiths in with atheism?
Why is he regarding all atheism as gnostic atheism?
He clearly missed the entire purpose of Russel's tea pot analogy. In fact, he's got the entire argument back to front: The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; and this applies as much to evidence against as it does to evidence for a belief.
He states that there are "at least a couple dozen arguments for theism", but where are they? Why should we assume that one "argument" is equally as valid as any other "argument"?
The only example he cited was a watchmaker argument grounded on the assumption that universal constants are just arbitrary values in the absence of divine intervention. The scenarios he mentions, "if the force of the Big Bang had been different by one part in 10 to the 60th..." and "[if] the ratio of the gravitational force to the force driving the expansion of the universe [...] had been even slightly different...", are the logical equivalent of a story told by an intoxicated Baron Munchhausen.
He later tries his own reductio ad absurdum, but fails miserably because he's trying to refute a refutation of his own argument. Id est, we no longer need to invoke the moon for lunacy, so we have no reason to believe in the moon. In trying to side-step his previous blunder, he's stumbled into two more; the erroneous conclusion that atheists have no other grounds for argument, and the erroneous conclusion that God of the gaps â¡ God in general.
His next statement is an appeal to the masses, finishing off with a circular argument; "if theism is true, then [...] claiming that the only sensible ground for belief in God is the explanatory quality of such belief is substantially equivalent to assuming atheism."
He then assumes that materialism is impossible to truly believe simply because he can't believe it, and goes on to explain this in terms that very neatly and effectively validate materialism. The "content" of a belief is the neurophysiological mechanism, but he does not seem to understand this. He either regards having a belief as flinging an instruction manual at a control panel, or assumes that a human being can only have one possible reason to perform an action. This reduces his remaining argument to little more than nonsensical gibberish.
His description of Thomas Nagel as an "unusually perceptive" atheist did not escape me, either.
A lack of belief would track to (strong) agnosticism. After all, these are people who withhold belief in a deity. So there's a failure to believe in a deity, but there's a strong belief that there is no deity - and that's atheism.
I would like to challenge the legitimity of the term agnosticism. I'm sure you're familiar with this diagram:
In defense of this, whether or not you think there may or may not be something out there, ultimately belief is either possessed or not. Doubts cannot possibly be taken as positive belief, therefore are a lack of belief. This counts among atheism because a-theism is just the lack of belief. Though I concede that using agnosticism can be a handy tool for some arguments, I'm not sure if it's really justifiable.
I see why you want to take this line. But I'm thinking your response here is motivated by your position on what an atheist does or does not believe. But if you're unsatisfied, there are other ways to run Plantinga's point here.
My point simply is that atheism, while being a position, is like a blank sheet so-to-say. We are all born atheists (and by that I'm not implying that toddlers claim there is no god; they simply don't possess the concept of deity, which to me is equal to atheism). My problem with Plantiga's exemple is that it uses a claim and a counter-claim, which as you say does not correlate to how I see theists and atheists. If you have a better example, feel free.
Plantinga talks quite a bit about this sensus divinitatis - a feeling of a divine presence. (Interestingly this sensation has been replicated in clinical studies by introducing the brain to strong electromagnetic fields.) This is something that Plantinga takes seriously and suggests that such a sense is to be expected if there is a God. Like our other perceptions, we don't need argumentation for rational belief in those things. If I see a barn in front of me, it's rational to believe that there's a barn in front of me. No argumentation is really needed here.
I understand. But as you said, and I've heard about that too, such a feeling can be induced artificially. And then there's another problem with senses: illusions. Of course we won't get into a brain-in-a-jar debate here, but I'd still like to mention pareidolia, since it is frequently linked with supernatural topics.
I personally completely agree with you here. But there's an argument along these lines that develops what's called the Merchant's Thumb Principal. Suppose you're buying a rug and the merchant holds it up for you to inspect. It look fine so you buy it. When you get home, you realise there's a hole in the rug and the merchant's thumb was covering it up. This is so improbable that it can't be an accident - it cries for an explanation. In the same way, our universe has a number of factors that are way more improbable. And in the same way this cries for an explanation.
I understand that there has to be an explanation, and I want answers too. But claiming divine intervention based on improbability is irrational. One, improbability is not impossibility, and when considering the size of the universe, probabilities get a whole new dimension. Second, there are often factors we don't suspect/know of, which leads to misinterpretation of probabilities. Best example is life; one might think that it is unique, but I remember a quote of some astrobiologist that goes something like "life is not a miracle unique to Earth, but a chemical inevitability occuring elsewhere in the universe". So yes, there is ultimately an explanation to everything, but that is no argument for theism.
These are some complex issues in the philosophy of mind. This is already a really long post, so I don't want to go into them just yet. Actually, the compatibility of materialism with evolution would warrant a thread of its own. Feel free to ask me on my profile, or perhaps we could start a new thread with this topic. This stuff doesn't really affect the atheist position, however, since atheists don't have to be materialists to begin with.
If others are interested in such a thread, we should try it. Otherwise I'll get back to you with this sometime
A lack of belief would track to (strong) agnosticism. After all, these are people who withhold belief in a deity. So there's a failure to believe in a deity, but there's a strong belief that there is no deity - and that's atheism.
This has been a fundamental flaw in the view of atheism since the inception of the term. While atheism can include positive belief in a god not existing, it's not necessarily limited to this. This flaw stems back to a time when it was believed that someone couldn't lack belief in a god but had to actively reject the concept. This idea may stem even further back to the etymology of the term where it was used as more of an insult thrown at one theist to another for not believing in their particular god.
No one thinks there is good evidence for the proposition that there are an even number of stars; but also, no one thinks the right conclusion to draw is that there are an uneven number of stars. The right conclusion would instead be agnosticism.
I would like to reply to this point with the gumball analogy.
"Let's say that we have a giant jar full of gumballs. We have no knowledge of how many gumballs are actually in the jar. There are two people looking at the jar. Let's call them Tom and Adam. Tom says to Adam, "There are an odd number of gumballs in the jar!" To which Adam replies, "I don't believe you because you have no way of knowing that." Now, by rejecting Tom's claim that there is an odd number in the jar, Adam is not asserting that the number is even. He is simply asserting that even tho there are only two mutually exclusive possibilities, you can not assert either because there is no way of knowing by simply looking at the jar. Therefore, you must take the default position and withhold belief in either direction.
The basic premises of the above analogies applies to God claims as well. Theists are claiming that there is a God and atheists feel that they have not met their burden of proof and must therefore withhold belief. Then, since no proof for God exists, we go about living our lives as if there is no God. Everyone does this with just about every mythical creature or God except the one that they believe in. No one feels the need to prove that fairies, or big foot, or Zeus, or Thor don't exist. They simply withhold belief because there is no proof. Other Atheists and I simply apply this to one more God than most theists do." - evolvingstardust78.blogspot.com
While this form of atheism is reliant on agnosticism (lack of knowledge) it is still influencing the belief or lack there of, which is where atheism and theism falls. The lack of knowledge that something is X, is a good reason not to accept X until such evidence can be presented that either supports or refutes the claim. Just as we don't need to accept the claim that there are an even number of stars, that there is an uneven number of gumballs or that God exists. Would I have good grounds for accepting any of these claims as true without evidence?
I will read through the rest of this link later, but so far it seems Plantinga's argument starts off with the premise that strawmans the position many atheists hold.
Getting back to the article, sorry for the triple post. I was hoping someone would post between now and then.
I disagree: Clearly we have a great deal of evidence against teapotism. For example, as far as we know, the only way a teapot could have gotten into orbit around the sun would be if some country with sufficiently developed space-shot capabilities had shot this pot into orbit. No country with such capabilities is sufficiently frivolous to waste its resources by trying to send a teapot into orbit. Furthermore, if some country had done so, it would have been all over the news; we would certainly have heard about it. But we havenât. And so on. There is plenty of evidence against teapotism. So if, Ã la Russell, theism is like teapotism, the atheist, to be justified, would (like the a-teapotist) have to have powerful evidence against theism.
I would disagree with his disagreement here. There are any number of additional factors that could make said teapot an unfalsifiable claim. Every much like what we get from theism. However using his own line of reasoning so far as we know there is no intelligent agent that didn't require a prior process of development and didn't emerge as an end result of the development of the universe and so on. If we wish to claim God as a special case, we could just as easily claim the teapot as a special case for it's existence.
The so-called âproblem of evilâ would presumably be the strongest (and maybe the only) evidence against theism. It does indeed have some strength; it makes sense to think that the probability of theism, given the existence of all the suffering and evil our world contains, is fairly low.
No, it doesn't. What the problem of evil does is offer an argument against specific brands of theism, not theism in general. For instance the problem of evil is perfectly compatible with the existence of an uncaring or malicious deity.
I should make clear first that I donât think arguments are needed for rational belief in God. In this regard belief in God is like belief in other minds, or belief in the past. Belief in God is grounded in experience, or in the sensus divinitatis, John Calvinâs term for an inborn inclination to form beliefs about God in a wide variety of circumstances.
There are explanations for such a sense besides that of there actually being a god. Moegreche, you mentioned this sense being induced by electromagnetic fields. The experiences people had actually differed in many cases, some just experienced more of an out of body sense while others had the feeling of another presence in the room. It were those who were predisposed to a go belief who experienced would they would describe as the presence of a god. We see a similar phenomena with the exposure of electromagnetic or infrasound and people reporting the existence of a ghost in the area. When the groups of people were brought through without the prior claim of a ghost they just got funny feelings when exposed. Those predisposed to believing in the existence of ghosts, reported ghost activity.
For further objections to sensus divinitatis I will divert you to Iron Chariots.
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Sensus_divinitatis
One presently rather popular argument: fine-tuning. Scientists tell us that there are many properties our universe displays such that if they were even slightly different from what they are in fact, life, or at least our kind of life, would not be possible. The universe seems to be fine-tuned for life.
First I would disagree that 99.99999...% of it will kill our kind of life, including places right here on Earth that this universe is fine tuned for life. It would seem all we have is life fitting the mold it was placed in rather than the other way around. There is even the argument that this isn't the only universe (which we recently have gained the first evidence for) and that other universes could have formed differently, just as other planets formed differently with our forming in a way that allowed life to merge. It's just this argument on a grander scale.
Another possibility is that given all the physical properties that would form a universe would be that a universe couldn't form any other way but how it did. Setting aside the speculation and hypotheses, it really relies on a god of the gaps argument. Essentially stating that we don't know why the universe is the way it is, therefore god.
I will skip over his justification for torturing another being (Jesus) as it seems to come off as a bit preachy and off the point. I'm also trying to avoid arguing against any specific religious belief and focusing on the argument for theism over atheism.
Some atheists seem to think that a sufficient reason for atheism is the fact (as they say) that we no longer need God to explain natural phenomena â" lightning and thunder for example. We now have science.
As a justification of atheism, this is pretty lame. We no longer need the moon to explain or account for lunacy; it hardly follows that belief in the nonexistence of the moon (a-moonism?) is justified. A-moonism on this ground would be sensible only if the sole ground for belief in the existence of the moon was its explanatory power with respect to lunacy. (And even so, the justified attitude would be agnosticism with respect to the moon, not a-moonism.) The same thing goes with belief in God: Atheism on this sort of basis would be justified only if the explanatory power of theism were the only reason for belief in God. And even then, agnosticism would be the justified attitude, not atheism.
This whole statement made me facepalm. First off I have to start by completely agreeing with HahiHa on this point.
"While it is true that not needing god to explain the world does not mean there is no god at all. However it does still mean that we can rule out specific religions whose creation myths disagree with current scientific knowledge."
But I would like to get a bit more into this part. "A-moonism on this ground would be sensible only if the sole ground for belief in the existence of the moon was its explanatory power with respect to lunacy. (And even so, the justified attitude would be agnosticism with respect to the moon, not a-moonism.)"
For an analogy of a god this is all we have to really go on for one's existence s the explanatory power in respect of what any deity has done. This seems to go back to his strawman argument of what an atheist is. As noted earlier, ones lack of knowledge (agnosticism) can be grounds of a lack of belief (atheism).
Though I have to wonder if everything we have found the answer to has thus far turned out to be, not god, where should that leave the belief that one exists? Using such an argument we could just as easily justify belief in anything, even though what has been attributed to it turned out to not be it.
I'm not even sure I'm fully getting across everything I want on this point.
"The most important ground of belief is probably not philosophical argument but religious experience. Many people of very many different cultures have thought themselves in experiential touch with a being worthy of worship. They believe that there is such a person, but not because of the explanatory prowess of such belief. Or maybe there is something like Calvinâs sensus divinitatis. Indeed, if theism is true, then very likely there is something like the sensus divinitatis. So claiming that the only sensible ground for belief in God is the explanatory quality of such belief is substantially equivalent to assuming atheism."
Even something like a sensus divinitatis would still fall under the grounds of explanatory quality. Some people have this funny feeling of something, therefore god. This also seems to ignore the total subjectivity of the process and implies everyone is having the same experiences, while what we see are people coming up with completely different claims.
Thomas Nagel, a terrific philosopher and an unusually perceptive atheist, says he simply doesnât want there to be any such person as God.
I'm going to have a permanent red hand print across my face by the end of this interview aren't I? There are plenty of things that many atheists would rather not be real, that doesn't mean that we just stop believing in them and pretend it isn't so it goes away. This argument seems to sort of get into what this parody touches on.
Atheists Just Want to Sin
Well, if there are only material entities, then atheism certainly follows. But there is a really serious problem for materialism: It canât be sensibly believed, at least if, like most materialists, you also believe that humans are the product of evolution.
Yep I'm going to have a permanent red hand print across my face before this is over. Did he just deny evolution? Anyway I will move on it the explanation.
I canât give a complete statement of the argument here â" for that see Chapter 10 of âWhere the Conflict Really Lies.â But, roughly, hereâs why. First, if materialism is true, human beings, naturally enough, are material objects. Now what, from this point of view, would a belief be? My belief that Marcel Proust is more subtle that Louis LâAmour, for example? Presumably this belief would have to be a material structure in my brain, say a collection of neurons that sends electrical impulses to other such structures as well as to nerves and muscles, and receives electrical impulses from other structures.
But in addition to such neurophysiological properties, this structure, if it is a belief, would also have to have a content: It would have, say, to be the belief that Proust is more subtle than LâAmour.
I really don't have the energy or the desire to go looking up his citation right now, so I will just stick to the part he explains. This seems to be just conflating concepts here. Having something that exists in reliance to physical properties is by no means in conflict with materialism. At any rate the claim isn't that god is just some concept, idea or some other sort of abstraction. Often (especially in this case) it's that it's a non physical being/s of some sort that exists entirely independent of anything physical.
Reading further down I'm even more convinced he is conflating how god is immaterial.
GG: So your claim is that if materialism is true, evolution doesnât lead to most of our beliefs being true.
AP: Right. In fact, given materialism and evolution, it follows that our belief-producing faculties are not reliable.
Hereâs why. If a belief is as likely to be false as to be true, weâd have to say the probability that any particular belief is true is about 50 percent.
Almost true. We can have faulty beliefs as a result of evolutionary providing an evolutionary advantage. Such as the example of running away when we think their might be a predator near by, even if there isn't. You have a better survival advantage to get away when a predator doesn't exist and be wrong then to be wrong about sticking around when their is. However not all beliefs are equal as this guy seems to be implying here. For instance if I actually saw a predator my belief that I should get away would be on far stronger footing than if I hadn't.
Plantinga is one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20th century
I would not have guessed that from this interview. From this alone he sounds more like he is on par with the week sauce philosophers such as the likes of William Lane Craig.
The universe seems to be fine-tuned for life.
Right, so how come most planets are wholly unsuitable for life. Due to the universe being an infinite space, probability dictates at least one planet can have life.
Due to the universe being an infinite space, probability dictates at least one planet can have life.
Infinite space, or infinite number of systems, is not an observed fact. But if there was an infinite number of planets, probability would dictate an infinite number of planets able to sustain life.
Infinite space, or infinite number of systems, is not an observed fact. But if there was an infinite number of planets, probability would dictate an infinite number of planets able to sustain life.
Having thought about this, I decided not to think about infinity anymore. It's weird.
Moving back to Russell's Teapot, and applying it to, say, Christianity, the reasoning is that we should believe the words of a book written two thousand years ago by some men who met some men who were mates with a man who claimed he was from the teapot. Even at the time, when the existence of a teapot was widely accepted, he was not widely believed.
I can't stress enough that the teapot is being horribly misrepresented in the interview.
Russellâs idea, I take it, is we donât really have any evidence against teapotism, but we donât need any; the absence of evidence is evidence of absence, and is enough to support a-teapotism. We donât need any positive evidence against it to be justified in a-teapotism; and perhaps the same is true of theism.
Russell's idea is that we don't need to provide evidence against a claim that has no sufficient supporting evidence. In other words, absence of evidence begets absence of counter-evidence. This is why it is analogous to theism.
... we would certainly have heard about [such a teapot]. But we havenât. And so on. There is plenty of evidence against teapotism. So if, Ã la Russell, theism is like teapotism, the atheist, to be justified, would (like the a-teapotist) have to have powerful evidence against theism.
Apparently trying to turn the analogy he did not understand against itself, Plantinga here uses absence of evidence (for the teapot) as evidence of its absence and asserts that like evidence is required of atheists. He is therefore passing the burden-of-proof hot potato around in the very same way that Russell had shown to be unreasonable. If that weren't enough, after accepting absence of evidence for the one, he cannot rightly reject absence of evidence for the other. By his own reasoning, atheists have more justification than a-teapotists, because an orbital teapot can be accomplished easily with current human technology.
These are all some really well though out and compelling criticisms of Plantinga's position. In his defence, I would like to reiterate that none of this constitutes a proper philosophical argument. Al is a brilliant, charitable, and kind philosopher who has made a tremendous impact in his field. But at the end of the day, I have to completely agree with you guys. I genuinely have nothing to offer in his defence. His stuff on the how physicalism (materialism) doesn't motivate atheism, however, is incredibly interesting on its own. If anyone is interested we could start a thread on this alone.
I do, however, want to further explore one point that Plantinga made regarding the problem of evil. What I'd like to do is present an argument that's up for refutation. The first person to successfully refute (by my assessment) the argument would earn themselves a merit. Just a fun little contest if anyone is interested. (There's a selfish element here too because I find this to be a compelling response to the problem of evil - one which I've developed.)
It may be necessary to first solve the problem of coming to a workable agreed-upon definition of evil.
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