(April 22, 2013 at 5:39 pm)Dawud Wrote: If you were to logically necessitate that there were no teapot then surely you would believe there was no teapot? Are you telling me you would have no belief about the teapot in this situation? Like if someone said to you - "Do you believe there is no teapot" you would say "I don't believe anything about that teapot"....
I'd say that's strange...
So you don't have any beliefs about God? You don't believe it's imaginary? So you accept the possibility (though maybe slight) that God exists?
There are 2 truth claims regarding the existence of the teapot, or a god.
The first is that it exists. The other is that it does not exist.
If someone claims a god exists, when an atheist responds, "I don't believe you". This position of the lack of belief in a god or a teapot, does not necessitate having the inverse belief.
Here's an example. Lets say there's a contest to guess how many gumballs there are in a large jar. Closest wins. If someone claims that there is an even number of gumballs, without having any sort of evidence, and I say, "I don't believe you". That doesn't mean I now believe there is an odd number of gumballs in the jar. I withhold belief on either possibility until there is supporting evidence.
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.
