Wanted: An Atheist

Andrew the Atheist will return after these commercial messages.

Andrew the Atheist will return when Tim decides to consider Andrew's position, and not simply re-state his own position, after Andrew has shown it to be flawed. If Tim wants to ignore Andrew's rebuttals, then there is no reason for Andrew to continue this exchange.

Atheists Cannot Prove Their Position

Neither of us has posted anything in over a month!  First, sincere apologies.  Second, I have been waiting for Andrew to post something (in my mind, it was his turn), but since he has failed to do so, here I go.

Andrew and fellow atheists, I herein argue that atheism is a false position. Atheists claim that, "God does not exist."  Yet, such a statement is not provable. You can provide no affirmative evidence for your position. 

Andrew, you have repeatedly argued that there is a dragon in your pants.  You may note that I have never made the affirmative argument that there is not a dragon in your pants. I do indeed doubt that you have a dragon in your pants, and I believe such an argument is specious, and disingenuous; however, I have never categorically said that a dragon does not exist in your pants.  I could not do so, absent being present, having you drop your pants, and seeing that no such dragon exists.

In the dragon example, you are making an empirical claim. In other words, your claim that there is a dragon in your pants is easily provable or disprovable by empirical data.  But theists do not make empirical claims about the existence of God.  God cannot be proven or disproven through the use of empirical data. 

You atheists put much stock in science. Yet, science does not really have anything to say about the existence of God.  When we say that God exists, unlike when you say your dragon exists, we are NOT making an empirical argument.  We believe that God is a spirit, and cannot be detected via the five senses.  Thus, He cannot be disproven by relying on the five senses.

Atheism, therefore, is an untennable position because the atheist cannot prove a negative statement.

I am sure you atheists at this point are chomping at the bit to say that we theists also cannot prove the affirmative statement that, "God exists".  Certainly, I would agree that God cannot be proven via the scientific method.   Nevertheless, while we cannot prove that God exists using science, we do have good reasons to believe that He does exist.

For example, we have already discussed that God is the best explanation for the existence of our universe.  I do not believe, Andrew, that you have come close to refuting this argument, and all you do is say that it is an old argument.  Yes, it is an old argument because it makes sense.

I have also made the argument that God is the best explanation for the existence of objective moral values.  I believe that atheists are required to be moral relativists because they have no explanation for where moral absolutes came from.  At a first glance, you may be fine with being a moral relativists, but moral relativism is a mess when closely examined.  No, the best explanation for a moral system that works is God.

There are more arguments for the proposition that God exists.  In my next post, I will present a "new" one that I recently read about.  

The point, however, of this post is that atheists really cannot legitimately argue that, "God does not exist."  Instead of simply trying to tear down our position, I would like to see you try an offer an affirmative argument for your position. I do not believe it is possible.