The Argument From Nonbelief

[Caeristhiona]

Spiffy article...though I am not sure I understand why questioning the reasonableness of an atheist's disbelief is so very debilitating to their arguments. But then, I am sick and exhausted, so I may have just misunderstood the article. :o) All around, very cool and helpful. My hat is off to the dude.

[Symphony X]

12-19-2003 @ 01:27 PM post located here
Kyle:
Well, perhaps you could offer your own form of the argument from nonbelief? I assure you that it was not my intention to set up a strawman, and I am not convinced that I have. I would like to see your own formulation, if that's alright.

After examining your presentation more closely, I was incorrect. You have formulated the ANB correctly. Your presentation is an alternative version of Philip Kuchar's:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...uchar/anb.html

Thus, you have not set up a strawman in this instance (with Drange, you have, but I will get to that later). However, you have failed to actually refute the argument.

First, you claim to have refuted part 4 (reasonable nonbelief occurs). Your refutation? Nothing more than a personal opinion and stating that it's "possible" that reasonable nonbelief does not actually occur.

It doesn't matter if it's "possible" that reasonable nonbelief does not occur. It's also possible that an invisible pink unicorn lives in the sky and leaves no trace of its existence. We're not concerned with what is possible...we're concerned with what is probable.

For you to successfully refute point #4, you need to demonstrate that reasonable nonbelief is either impossible, or at least highly improbable. For if there is only one human being on this planet who has reasonable nonbelief, then the ANB stands.

You then create a red herring by claiming that the ANB can never be considered evidence to another person, and is thus useless to disprove the existence of God to another person. First, whether the ANB can be considered evidence to another person is irrelevant to point #4, and thus it is a distraction from the true issue at hand and is a red herring.

Second, you made a claim that you cannot support and have no evidence for. You claimed that the ANB can never be considered evidence by another person. How do you know this? Because it's not considered evidence by you? How do you know that there is not at least one believer out there, who, after carefully reading the argument, might at least being to question the existence of God and start to seek out further evidence?

Even if the ANB cannot be considered evidence by another person, it's irrelevant. Claiming that the ANB is useless in disproving the existence of God to another person does nothing to actually refute the ANB. It is simply a red herring presented by you. It doesn't matter how many people can or cannot be convinced by the ANB. The ability of an argument to convince someone else has no relation to its validity. For you to successfully refute the ANB, you need to successfully refute its premises.

You then go on to list some reasons why you think that nonbelief may be unreasonable. The only thing that you've done is list some, not all, reasons why unbelief might occur. You've given no evidence that these are all the reasons for nonbelief. Thus, you have provided no evidence that ALL nonbelief is unreasonable.

In fact, your reasons probably apply to only a minority of atheists. Go over to the message board at infidels.org and read the testimonies of why people converted to atheism, and you would find that most of them have nothing to do with the reasons you've presented. Again, you've presented no hard, factual evidence that these are all the reasons for nonbelief. You've done nothing more than offer your opinion on why nonbelief occurs. So, you have failed to refute premise #4.

You also failed to refute premise #3. You offered up nothing more than personal conjecture on why you thought God might allow reasonable nonbelief. You then take this conjecture, and, in a non-sequitur, make it mean that reasonable nonbelief will never occur throughout an individual's lifetime. Certainly, the reasons you gave may be reasons why God might allow temporary nonbelief. But giving possible reasons why God might allow temporary reasonable nonbelief is not evidence that all reasonable nonbelief is temporary. You offered no evidence that all reasonable nonbelief is temporary, other than stating that it was so. For you to refute premise #3, you have to prove that all reasonable nonbelief is truly temporary.

So, until you actually provide hard evidence (not personal conjecture) refuting both premise 3 and 4, you have done nothing to refute the ANB.

Well, this assumes that every single person on the planet is capable of being convinced to follow God freely in any way whatsoever.

You don't need to assume that every single person is capable of that. Even if every person is not like that, there will surely be a large number of people who can be convinced. Yet they are not.

For example, I know what it would take for God to convince me that he exists and I should follow the Christian god. The things I would need would not be a violation of anybody's free will. Yet, these things have not happened. So there is one person that could be saved, yet is not because God isn't trying hard enough.

However, my minor objections to A(1) were by no means my main objection to the Argument from Nonbelief as presented by Drange. In fact, I state so in my article:

"Of course, Drange could see the above as mere nitpicking. The fact of the matter is, he may claim, that the above would cause a significant portion of the population to accept repentance. Although I do not necessarily think that is true, I will go ahead and agree with that claim for the sake of argument."

You claim that I have presented a strawman, yet it seems that you may be guilty of the very thing you charge. My main objections to the Argument from Nonbelief have not even been challenged, so it seems as though my overall conclusion is still quite justified.

Your conclusion is not justified because you only dealt with a small portion of Drange's argument, and then proceeded to declare that you had successfully refuted Drange. The part that you dealt with, you didn't actually deal with what Drange was saying, and thus you beat up a strawman. First, you quote Drange:

Even direct implantation of belief into a person's mind need not interfere with his/her free will. If that person were to want true beliefs and not care how the beliefs are obtained, then for God to directly implant true beliefs into his/her mind would not interfere with, but would rather comply with, the person's free will

Then you go on to say:

In any case, forcing someone to love you is perhaps the most flagrant and obvious violation one can think of. If that doesn’t qualify as interfering with free will, then I don’t know what does.

But in the quotation, Drange said nothing about loving god. He was talking about belief. You could easily believe in God and not love him. You could easily know he exists and have it not be a violation of your free will. The implantation of a gene that causes you to know that God exists would be no different from the other instincts that we all have...the desire for sex, the need to eat when we our hungry, the natural reflex an infant has to suckle, etc. For example, having the desire for sex is not a violation of my free will, because I could easily choose not to have it even if the desire is there.

So, no, you have not refuted Drange's argument.

[Symphony X]

12-20-2003 @ 02:09 PM post located here
old_believer:

For rationality to be reliable it needs an objective criterion. Christianity has one. Atheism does not.

There is nothing more subjective than an "invisible" force that supposedly rules the universe. And since so many Christians disagree on many things (hence the many denominations), this is even more evidence that Christianity does not have a true objective criterion.

On the whole, your argument seems to be a version of the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (the TAG)...basically, the viewpoint that logic cannot exist without God. However, this argument has been thoroughly refuted a number of times. Here are some articles by Michael Martin that refute the TAG:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...induction.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...tin/logic.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...ame/tang2.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...rame/tang.html

[Caeristhiona]

There is nothing more subjective than an "invisible" force that supposedly rules the universe. And since so many Christians disagree on many things (hence the many denominations), this is even more evidence that Christianity does not have a true objective criterion.

I think, maybe, the reference was to the Bible, which is extremely objective, seeing as the various denominations haven't yet made changes to that.

[Symphony X]

Today @ 07:10 AM post located here
Caeristhiona:



I think, maybe, the reference was to the Bible, which is extremely objective, seeing as the various denominations haven't yet made changes to that.

The Bible is hardly objective either, given that it is full of contradictions, both contradictions with itself and contradictions with actual history, and that no one seems to agree on how it should be interpreted.

[Kyle]

Symphony X-

First, you claim to have refuted part 4 (reasonable nonbelief occurs). Your refutation? Nothing more than a personal opinion and stating that it's "possible" that reasonable nonbelief does not actually occur.

Yes, but these claims were merely used to set up my later objection to the ANB, which I will defend below.

You then create a red herring by claiming that the ANB can never be considered evidence to another person, and is thus useless to disprove the existence of God to another person. First, whether the ANB can be considered evidence to another person is irrelevant to point #4, and thus it is a distraction from the true issue at hand and is a red herring.

It is not a red herring at all- I was merely pointing out the lack of an epistemic basis for even discussing #4 positively or negatively. I simply claimed that I am in no position to discuss whether or not someone else's nonbelief is reasonable. How could I have such knowledge? But, if #4 is unable to be either confirmed or unconfirmed, then the ANB fails. This is because the atheist who promotes the ANB shoulders the burden of proof. The atheist is unable to make his case if he cannot demonstrate the actual existence of reasonable nonbelief.

Second, you made a claim that you cannot support and have no evidence for. You claimed that the ANB can never be considered evidence by another person. How do you know this?

I mentioned my reason in the original article:

What should I do when another individual claims that the evidence isn’t obvious to them? Is there any way I can know whether or not the individual is truly reasonable in his nonbelief? Of course not, because I would need to be them in order to understand their thought processes.

Therefore, I stated that the ANB can never (or, perhaps I should say "should" never) be considered evidence to another individual because no individual can ever be aware of another person's thought processes.

Consider this scenario- suppose that you claim that you have not been provided with enough evidence for God's existence. Is there any way for me to prove you wrong? Of course not, I am not aware of your thought processes.

Now suppose the tables are turned. Let's say I claim that God has provided me with a personal experience of Him, and therefore you should believe that He exists. Should you be convinced by this argument? Of course not- for I could merely be deluded or confused. But, if you force me to believe you when you claim that God has not provided you with enough evidence, then why should you assume I am mistaken when I say that I have a personal experience of God?

You see, you are simply in no place to judge my claim to have a personal experience, and I am in no place to judge whether or not you have reasonable nonbelief. Therefore, I should not be convinced of atheism based on your testimony the same way you should not be convinced of Christianity based on mine.

How do you know that there is not at least one believer out there, who, after carefully reading the argument, might at least being to question the existence of God and start to seek out further evidence?

Another person may very well be swayed by the Argument from Nonbelief. I will admit that it has much polemical force. The real question, however, is whether or not the ANB should be considered evidence against God's existence. Based on my objections, it seems that the answer to this question is that it should not.

You then go on to list some reasons why you think that nonbelief may be unreasonable.

What would you have me do? What else should a Christian do in response to the ANB. You make it sound like it's a bad thing that I merely claim that some of the reasons may cause unbelief. Would you rather me be dogmatic about it?

The only thing that you've done is list some, not all, reasons why unbelief might occur. You've given no evidence that these are all the reasons for nonbelief. Thus, you have provided no evidence that ALL nonbelief is unreasonable.

Consider the ridiculous burden you put on me. I am supposed to provide evidence that ALL nonbelief is unreasonable? How would I go about doing this, even theoretically?

In any case, you are clearly wrong about the burden of proof here. All I need to do is show that it is reasonable to suppose that all unbelief is unreasonable. By providing multiple reasons for nonbelief, I have at least shown that it is reasonable to assume that nonbelief is always unreasonable (especially considering my other arguments against the ANB). However, you object to that claim when you continue:

In fact, your reasons probably apply to only a minority of atheists. Go over to the message board at infidels.org and read the testimonies of why people converted to atheism, and you would find that most of them have nothing to do with the reasons you've presented.

Do you actually expect the atheists at infidels.org to cite "Pride" or "Anger", etc., as their reasons for rejecting Christianity? Of course not!

You also failed to refute premise #3. You offered up nothing more than personal conjecture on why you thought God might allow reasonable nonbelief.

Well, "personal conjecture" is about all we can use when dealing with the ANB. A rational evaluation of it simply revolves around finding out whose "conjectures" are more reasonable.

For you to refute premise #3, you have to prove that all reasonable nonbelief is truly temporary.

Not true. You, as the one supporting the ANB, are required to demonstrate that the ANB is probable or at least reasonable. I am only required to show that it is somewhat plausible to assume that it is false. (Otherwise, consider how impossible it would be for me to provide evidence that ALL reasonable nonbelief is temporary. It's impossible even to identify reasonable nonbelief in the first place, so I don't see how I could identify "temporary reasonable nonbelief". Clearly, the burden of proof is on you as the one supporting the argument.)

But in the quotation, Drange said nothing about loving god. He was talking about belief.

True, I should not use words so fluently. But, as I point out in my article, it is unlikely that God is concerned with mere "belief". In any case, it seems like it would still be a violation of free will even if it was mere belief. Consider your example:

For example, having the desire for sex is not a violation of my free will, because I could easily choose not to have it even if the desire is there.

Ironically, this is very similar to the scenario with Christianity. For, according to Christianity, God has provided us all with a tendency to believe- we all know it "in our hearts". However, we have the freedom to choose to reject this for whatever reason. And that, I suppose, is what people do when they reject Christianity.

[Symphony X]

Yesterday @ 03:31 PM post located here
Kyle:

You see, you are simply in no place to judge my claim to have a personal experience, and I am in no place to judge whether or not you have reasonable nonbelief. Therefore, I should not be convinced of atheism based on your testimony the same way you should not be convinced of Christianity based on mine.

But this IS a red herring. Whether or not you are convinced of atheism, based on my testimony, has no bearing on the validity of the ANB. Even if the ANB failed to convince every single person on this earth, it would still not mean that it's not valid. It would mean that it's not useful for convincing anyone, but the usefulness of an argument in convincing people has no bearing on the arguments validity.

Consider the ridiculous burden you put on me. I am supposed to provide evidence that ALL nonbelief is unreasonable? How would I go about doing this, even theoretically?

You would need to provide some evidence to indicate that reasonable nonbelief is IMPROBABLE. You must show that the reasons that you gave are more probable than alternative examples of reasonable nonbelief (an example of which I will give you in a bit).

In any case, you are clearly wrong about the burden of proof here. All I need to do is show that it is reasonable to suppose that all unbelief is unreasonable.

But you have done nothing of the sort. Providing multiple reasons for nonbelief does nothing but give some reasons as to why some nonbelief might occur. You have not given any reasons as to why these reasons are more probable than other reasons. It is merely speculation on your part, and speculation cannot be used to falsify a premise of an argument.

By
providing multiple reasons for nonbelief, I have at least shown that it is reasonable to assume that nonbelief is always unreasonable

You have not shown that it is reasonable to assume that it's always unreasonable. You've only shown that it's reasonable to assume it's sometimes unreasonable. Even of the reasons you presented, you have failed to show why they are unreasonable. In fact, at least one of the reasons you've presented is quite reasonable.

"The wish to disregard theistic morality" can be quite reasonable, given that the entire basis of theistic morality is based on one principle...might makes right. However, one can have purely rational objections to this principle, objections that have nothing to do with simply "not wanting to follow God's orders." Instead, they are intellectual objections to the idea that God's orders must be followed simply because of his power over us. If whatever God wills is good because of his power over us, then, by logical conclusion, whatever a parent does to a child is good, including physical or psychological abuse, because the parent is more powerful than the child.

Also, there is nothing unreasonable about the expectations that you claim are ridiculous. For example, you claim that the expectation that God will come down and have a chat is ridiculous. However, in the Bible, God spoke to people all of the time on a regular basis. If it was reasonable for him to speak to people then, then it is reasonable for him to speak to people now.

There is nothing unreasonable about the evidence that is required by many atheists. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you were to claim that you went to the grocery store and bought food yesterday, I would require very little evidence for such a claim (I would actually accept it at face value) since it is a regular occurrence that happens to many people. However, if you were to claim that you went to the grocery store and saw a sasquatch there, that is an extraordinary claim, and the evidence required to support it would be more than just your word that it happened.

The claim that there is a supernatural being, more complex than the complex universe yet invisible to all of us, is about as extraordinary of a claim as that there's an invisible pink unicorn in the sky. Both of these claims require extraordinary amounts of evidence.

In fact, contrary to your claim, many atheists require the exact same amount of evidence for God that they would need for other things, and that includes me. I am an ex-Christian, and, during my Christian days, I began to have some questions with the Christian belief system. So, I approached the problem as any scientist would....you develop a hypothesis, and then test that hypothesis by attempting to falsify it. In my case, the hypothesis was that Christianity is representative of the truth and the Christian god is the true god. If that hypothesis is true, then a number of predictions would be made, such as:

1. The Bible would be historically accurate in every way since it is the word of God
2. The Bible would be free of contradictions

etc.

I began to test these parts by attempting to confirm or falsify these predictions. I read the best arguments for Christianity and its truth by the best Christian apologists, and then read counter-arguments. I examined documented history and compared it to biblical history. I read biblical criticisms and the Christian responses to it. Basically, if Christianity was representative of the truth, then the Christian apologists should present better, more logical arguments then their opponents, and their predictions should hold true. However, I found out that the apologists failed miserably. The predictions were easily falsified. The arguments by the non-believers were more logical and not full of holes like the arguments by the apologists. I saw errors in the thought process of the apologists, which I did not see in their opponents. I found that the only way the apologists could deal with the criticisms was through the use of all sorts of wild ad hoc explanations that were highly improbable, and would have required me to basically be intellectually dishonest with myself. So, I rejected Christianity. I rejected it based on a very methodical, scientific-like approach....hence, reasonable nonbelief.

Now, you might state that I somehow had some preconceived biases or anger against God or something else that I'm not telling you. However, you would simply be setting up a nonfalsifiable hypothesis (more on this later).

When I rejected Christianity, I did not become atheist right away. I became more of a deist. However, with deism I still saw problems intellectually. Eventually, atheism was the only hypothesis that fit all of the "data" which is why I accepted it.

In science, a theory is a model that explains some type of observed phenomena. Predictions are made from the model, and they are confirmed or falsified. If the predictions are falsified, then the theory must be modified to meet the new predictions, or completely thrown out. I found that Christianity, as a model, failed to explain all the data from the real world. Atheism for me was the only view that fit, and thus, my nonbelief is perfectly reasonable.

Later on in your discussion, you falsify your own argument, because you then claim that reasonable nonbelief can occur, but it's temporary. Temporary or not, you contradicted yourself, because first you claim that there is no reasonable nonbelief, but then you go on to assert that temporary reasonable nonbelief can occur. If temporary reasonable nonbelief occurs, then reasonable nonbelief occurs, period, and premise #4 is supported. However, if premise #4 is false and reasonable nonbelief does not occur, then your argument against premise #3 fails, because it is dependent on the existence of temporary reasonable nonbelief. Basically, by accepting the concept of temporary reasonable nonbelief, then you must accept that some nonbelief is reasonable.

The whole concept of "temporary reasonable nonbelief" creates even more problems for your argument, particularly for the "free will" defense. The problem is as follows. If God cannot interfere with the free will of humans, then he can have no way of controlling when I die, because my death can occur at the hands of other humans. For example, a murderer could walk into my house at this moment and kill me, and God would not be able to control it, because God will not interfere with the murderer's free will. Or, I could go out and drive in my car, and someone else could get drunk (by their own free will) and kill me on the road. In any case, I could easily die before I've been given the opportunity for my reasonable nonbelief to be abolished.

Now, if God is able to provide me with enough evidence before I die, then that indicates that he has control over when I die. However, if God has control over when I die, this indicates he has control over other people's free will. And if he has control over other people's free will, then there would be nothing wrong with God implanting a "love" gene and getting people to love him that way.

However, if God has no control over when I die, then he may not get the chance to provide me enough evidence before I die, and thus temporary reasonable nonbelief does not exist. No matter how you look at it, your argument creates many difficult logical hurdles.

Do you actually expect the atheists at infidels.org to cite "Pride" or "Anger", etc., as their reasons for rejecting Christianity? Of course not!

You've set up a non-falsifiable hypothesis.

Basically, if I were to present ANY testimonial of an atheist to you that fit the idea of reasonable non-belief, you would automatically resort to stating what you did above..."well, of course I wouldn't expect them to admit that pride and anger are their reasons for rejecting Christianity!"

You have hypothesized that anger and pride are main reasons for rejecting Christianity, and anything that doesn't fit this hypothesis, you hand-wave away with an ad hoc explanation by claiming that the atheist isn't really presenting their true reasons. No testimonial will ever work for you because you will always respond that the true motivations are not being presented. Therefore, you've created a non-falsifiable hypothesis, which is a fallacy.

Non-falsifiable hypotheses are found frequently in the realm of pseudoscience. For example, a lot of well-controlled research has been unable to support the existence of ESP. What is the response of ESP-believers? "The researchers don't have enough faith in ESP which is why they aren't getting any results." Thus, no matter how many well-designed studies fail to show the existence of ESP, believers will resort to this response, creating a non-falsifiable hypothesis that ESP is a real phenomenon.

Ironically, this is very similar to the scenario with Christianity. For, according to Christianity, God has provided us all with a tendency to believe- we all know it "in our hearts". However, we have the freedom to choose to reject this for whatever reason. And that, I suppose, is what people do when they reject Christianity.

I have met many people who never "knew it in their heart" that Christianity was representative of the truth.

[Kyle]

But this IS a red herring. Whether or not you are convinced of atheism, based on my testimony, has no bearing on the validity of the ANB.

Still, you miss the point. I don't care whether or not people are convinced by your testimony. I care about whether or not they are EPISTEMICALLY JUSTIFIED in converting due to your testimony. The plain old fact of the matter is that they are not justified in doing so, in the same way that an atheist is not justified in becoming a Christian merely because a friend of his/hers offers their own testimony.

You would need to provide some evidence to indicate that reasonable nonbelief is IMPROBABLE. You must show that the reasons that you gave are more probable than alternative examples of reasonable nonbelief (an example of which I will give you in a bit).

Right, this would be a much more acceptable challenge. I want to point one thing out though.

My argument has two main points. My FIRST point is this-

1. Due to the inability of another person to experience another individual's thought processes, one is unjustified, even in principle, in being an atheist OR a Christian based on testimony alone.

That is my most important point. It is a fairly strong claim- obviously if I am right about point 1 then the ANB is completely refuted. Now, I offered a SECOND point later in the article, to wit:

2. There are a variety of factors which could be responsible for nonbelief which cause that nonbelief to be unreasonable, and it is plausible that there is little or no actually reasonable nonbelief in the world.

It is important to realize that point 2 is completely independent of point 1- such that even if you thoroughly smashed point 2, then the ANB would still be refuted by point 1. So far, your only argument against point 1 is that "whether or not an argument is convincing is irrelevant to whether or not the argument is valid." That's true, but as I have pointed out your argument does not address the point. For, my argument is not that the ANB fails because it doesn't convince anybody. Rather, my argument is that the ANB fails because it is invalid for another person to formulate a belief based on another's personal testimony alone. Therefore, the ANB SHOULDN'T convince anyone, wholly apart from the fact of whether or not it actually does. Obviously, persons can still be convinced by a faulty argument, and I feel that anybody who is convinced by the ANB is convinced by a bad argument, plain and simple.

But you have done nothing of the sort. Providing multiple reasons for nonbelief does nothing but give some reasons as to why some nonbelief might occur. You have not given any reasons as to why these reasons are more probable than other reasons. It is merely speculation on your part, and speculation cannot be used to falsify a premise of an argument.

Well, firstly there really is no reason for me to defend my factors to the degree you require, because Point 2 does not even have to be successful for the overall refutation of the ANB to be successful. In any case, I don't quite understand how I am supposed to give reasons for why the factors I mentioned are likely to apply to a large number of atheists. What sort of evidence do you want. The speculations are quite reasonable. Consider the factors I mention all fall under these 6 basic concepts:

1. Bias
2. Pride
3. Anger
4. Unrealistic Expectations
5. Immorality
6. Laziness

Now, are you going to tell me that these are uncommon ailments of human beings? It seems to me that these are all very reasonable suppositions. If not, why not?

"The wish to disregard theistic morality" can be quite reasonable, given that the entire basis of theistic morality is based on one principle...might makes right.

This is an entirely questionable interpretation of theistic morality, but even if it isn't you simply miss the point. Under the worldview of Christianity, certain things like lust, pre-marital sex, and blasphemy are considered evil even though secular persons may not think so. But if those secular persons don't look at the evidence fairly because they don't WANT to be morally responsible for those kinds of activities, then they are being unreasonable with regard to their belief.

Also, there is nothing unreasonable about the expectations that you claim are ridiculous. For example, you claim that the expectation that God will come down and have a chat is ridiculous. However, in the Bible, God spoke to people all of the time on a regular basis. If it was reasonable for him to speak to people then, then it is reasonable for him to speak to people now.

Just because God has spoken to persons in the past does not mean that such a revelation should be the standard for belief. It was "reasonable" for God to speak to them, but it is not "reasonable" for every Joe Shmoe to demand a personal visit.

There is nothing unreasonable about the evidence that is required by many atheists. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Perhaps so, but you would first have to show that the existence of God is somehow "extraordinary" in the same way that the sighting of Sasquatch is. It must first be realized that God, if He exists, is an entity that exists outside of the physical universe which we inhabit. But, we have no experience of anything outside the physical universe, so that we don't have any standard of evidence to evaluate the existence of God in that realm.

But this is just nitpicking- let us suppose that God's existence really is extraordinary. Should we then expect God to have a chat with us in order to believe? That is not necessarily the case. If an abundance of evidence for Sasquatch were to be compiled (and to withstand scrutiny) then it would be reasonable to suppose that Sasquatch really exists. [I realize that you believe that the evidence for the existence of God is nonexistent, but that is not the point. I am only discussing this as a potential factor that could influence belief in some persons.]

In fact, contrary to your claim, many atheists require the exact same amount of evidence for God that they would need for other things, and that includes me.

Wait a second- how is your claim contrary to mine. If you recall, my statement was:

Many times atheists suppose God should write "Jesus Christ lives. Repent and be saved!" on the moon. They may expect God to come down and have a chat. In both situations, the expectation of evidence is much too high.

That statement in no way conflicts with your claim that "many atheists require the exact same amount of evidence for God than they would need for other things". In fact, I agree with your statement. My argument is simply that SOME atheists (or perhaps "many") have unreasonable expectations of evidence for God's existence.

So, I rejected Christianity. I rejected it based on a very methodical, scientific-like approach....hence, reasonable nonbelief.

Now, you might state that I somehow had some preconceived biases or anger against God or something else that I'm not telling you. However, you would simply be setting up a nonfalsifiable hypothesis

I certainly wouldn't claim that you had preconceived biases, etc.- as it would be entirely unfair for me to psychologize you. All I would say is that it is possible that you have unreasonable underlying reasons for your nonbelief. Or, it is possible that your unbelief is currently reasonable but will be found by you to be unreasonable at some other point in time. Since both options are very possible, it is foolish for me to discard my own belief in God based on your personal testimony.

Later on in your discussion, you falsify your own argument, because you then claim that reasonable nonbelief can occur, but it's temporary. Temporary or not, you contradicted yourself, because first you claim that there is no reasonable nonbelief, but then you go on to assert that temporary reasonable nonbelief can occur.

If you read my article carefully, you will see that in no place do I actually dogmatically claim that there is no reasonable nonbelief. All I claim is that it is possible that such is the case. Then, later on in the article, I claim that temporary reasonable nonbelief MAY exist. Therefore, I do not falsify my own argument.

Basically, my overall argument against the ANB is that

1. Reasonable nonbelief either does not exist or is minimal

then there is:

2. Any reasonable nonbelief which may remain is not unfair because God will at some point in the individual's life provide sufficient evidence.

If God cannot interfere with the free will of humans, then he can have no way of controlling when I die, because my death can occur at the hands of other humans. For example, a murderer could walk into my house at this moment and kill me, and God would not be able to control it, because God will not interfere with the murderer's free will. Or, I could go out and drive in my car, and someone else could get drunk (by their own free will) and kill me on the road. In any case, I could easily die before I've been given the opportunity for my reasonable nonbelief to be abolished.

There are two problems with this argument. First of all, God's gift of free will does not mean that He can never interfere with the affairs of humans. Second of all, God could provide the evidence for His existence before a person's death (He would know right when to provide it for He would know when the person will die).

Basically, if I were to present ANY testimonial of an atheist to you that fit the idea of reasonable non-belief, you would automatically resort to stating what you did above..."well, of course I wouldn't expect them to admit that pride and anger are their reasons for rejecting Christianity!"

Non-falsifiable or not, it is nonetheless true. And, in any case, it is not important to my argument that I am able to "answer" all those atheist testimonies. Should you have to "answer" all of the personal experience testimonies of Christians?

Seriously, how are you going to go about refuting the Christian testimonies? You could claim that they are delusional- but then I could claim the same thing about the atheists. You could claim that they are not using their rational faculties- but then I could turn around and claim the same thing about the atheists. That's why it is utterly useless to "argue" about personal testimonies. Personal testimonies cannot be fairly used as evidence in favor of the ANB, one way or the other.

No testimonial will ever work for you because you will always respond that the true motivations are not being presented.

Precisely- no testimonial will ever work because testimonies are ineffective as evidence. You would have to resort to the same ad hoc rationalizations to discount theistic testimonies as well.

Sincerely,

Kyle.