{"id":4438,"date":"2014-04-28T06:01:57","date_gmt":"2014-04-28T05:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theskepticalzone.com\/wp\/?p=4438"},"modified":"2014-05-13T17:30:55","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T16:30:55","slug":"eric-anderson-and-the-tired-old-you-dont-know-god-argument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/theskepticalzone.com\/wp\/eric-anderson-and-the-tired-old-you-dont-know-god-argument\/","title":{"rendered":"Eric Anderson and the tired old &lsquo;you don&rsquo;t know God&rsquo; argument"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At UD, Eric Anderson has a new OP entitled<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uncommondescent.com\/philosophy\/no-one-knows-the-mind-of-god-except-the-committed-atheist\/\"><b>No-one Knows the Mind of God\u2026 Except the Committed Atheist<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the same argument we\u2019ve heard so many times before.\u00a0 Here are a few excerpts:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Coyne\u2019s thinks he finds \u201cstrong evidence for no God.\u201d\u00a0 Yet his argument, when we cut through the clutter, is essentially as follows:<\/p>\n<p>1. God, if He existed, would be like X.<\/p>\n<p>2. Evidence shows God is not like X.<\/p>\n<p>3. Therefore, God does not exist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This exchange highlights the fact that the anti-religious zealot so often approaches the matter with a very concrete God in mind, a concept of how they think God should be (if only there were such a being).\u00a0 Then when the facts don\u2019t seem to align with that superficial and hypothetical image they have created in their own minds, they proclaim that God must not exist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>No-one seems so cock-sure of exactly what God is like, exactly what God\u2019s characteristics are, exactly how to understand God, than the anti-religious zealot.\u00a0 He is convinced he knows just how God is and how God should act in particular situations . . . if, of course, such a being existed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>None of this is correct, of course. As atheists, we don\u2019t have any particular idea of what a nonexistent God must be like.\u00a0 Instead, we play <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VoP1E9J4jpg\">Whack A Mole<\/a> with whatever gods the theists come up with.<\/p>\n<p>In his essay, Coyne was addressing the Abrahamic God worshipped by billions of people.\u00a0 You\u2019ll hear this God described as omnipotent and perfectly loving, and Coyne, like many of us, sees belief in such a God as absurd.\u00a0 The world, and the Bible itself, are not compatible with such a view of God.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is not with what <i>atheists<\/i> say about God. It\u2019s what <i>believers<\/i> say about God that clashes with the evidence.<\/p>\n<p>IDers, for all their bluster about \u201cfollowing the evidence where it leads\u201d, are notoriously reluctant to do so when it comes to God.<\/p>\n<p>Eric Anderson has swung and missed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At UD, Eric Anderson has a new OP entitled No-one Knows the Mind of God\u2026 Except the Committed Atheist It\u2019s the same argument we\u2019ve heard so many times before.\u00a0 Here are a few excerpts:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metaphysics","category-theism-and-atheism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theskepticalzone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/theskepticalzone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/theskepticalzone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theskepticalzone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theskepticalzone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/theskepticalzone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4438\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theskepticalzone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theskepticalzone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theskepticalzone.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}