(July 8, 2012 at 3:46 am)CliveStaples Wrote: Well, consider the following argument:
1) Being a reasonable person entails exhibiting a certain, proper amount of humility about what we can know.
2) Atheism necessarily entails exhibiting an improper amount of humility about what we can know.
3) Therefore, atheism entails not being a reasonable person.
This argument is valid.
It seems to me that under this kind of an argument, asserting that atheism necessarily entails a lack of humility could be both not ad hominem and not a strawman/red herring.
I reject your second premise. Atheism does NOT entail what can be known,it entails what is believed.
I don't have to claim to know, with absolute certainty, that a god or gods do not exist. My simple absence of belief in their existence defines me as an atheist.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
