Tooth Fairy Bullshit

[Neo-Scholastic]

...I don't feel like wading through the dog pile that is this thread to find it. If you post it again, or a link, I'd actually be interested in reading it.

Here is the full post: http://atheistforums.org/thread-47154-po...pid1491166

Here is a basic summary without the hyperbole:

In propositions taking the form of ‘X exists’, the various entities or agents filling the role of X may fall into different categories of being. Here are some examples:

P1: The Tooth Fairy exists.
P2: Time exists.
P3: Numbers exist.
P4: Truth exists.
P5: Possibilities exist.

In P1, if a tooth fairy exists, it would be a particular concrete substance. Now when some skeptics insist with complete certainty that there is no evidence for X they are specifically asking for a sample of or an isolated observable effect of X. To the extent that any of P2-P5 might exist, not one of them could exist in the same way P1 could. By that skeptic’s criteria for proof, no one could justify belief in any of the subjects of P2-P5. And yet serious scholars regularly debate the ontological status of time, numbers, truth, and possibilities. Moreover, some of those propositions are arguably properly basic, meaning someone is justified in believing they are true in the absence of defeaters.

IF god exists, then he exists in ways similar those kinds of things found in P2-P5 and it is complete nonsense to insist that he exist in the same way as P1. As such it is unreasonable and obnoxious to demand that theists produce such evidence or to make that comparison during a debate with a theist to suggest that belief in God is ridiculous. I could quote example after example of AF members doing just that. And it is dishonest for anyone to pretend that that doesn’t regularly happen on AF.