Atheist billboards in Atlanta

[everythingafter]

Creationists and atheists have a lot in common:

Most dont know what they are talking about. (For a creationist, it is science, for an atheist it is theology)

I think many atheist know quite a lot about theology (if that's even an intellectual pursuit), and have subsequently rejected it.

Both think world would be better without X (For a creationist, evolution, for an atheist, God)

But this statement presupposes that evolution actually does exist, for, if the scientific theory of evolution didn't exist, they wouldn't be concerned about the it. If believers are so sure a god hung the stars and heavens, why do they bother themselves with trying to argue against evolution with intelligent design? Agreed, some believers who don't bother with higher questions, don't bother with evolution, but I'm talking about supposedly learned theologians, and it seems to me that if you have to bring intelligent design into the equation, then you have already granted a point or two toward evolution by natural selection.

Both try to persuade people with ignoance (Refuting evolution is a prime example. The God Dellusion is another)

But Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and has spent the good part of his life studying why we are here, whereas believers offer the rather lazy conclusion that it must have just been God.

Both are asking the other side for 'evidence'

The onus is on believers to provide evidence for fantastical claims that break the laws of nature. Believers have no evidence and no way to argue anything because when their straw arguments break down, they have nothing other than the notion that it's a matter of faith. And even theologian Denys Turner admitted as much in The Atheist Tapes.

When asked in the video: "Why do we need to go back to Bethlehem in order to worship the extraordinary majesty of their being anything at all," Turner said, "I'm not sure that I would actually succeed in getting a philosophical argument going, which demonstrated that this fact that there is anything at all is in the way of being a gift of a loving God. I think that that would have to be revealed, to be believed."

And if you watch the entire exchange between Turner and Jonathan Miller (about 30 minutes), Turner's response to questions seems quite muddled and nebulous, and he seems to concede in the final quote that the entire crux of why he believes hinges not on any evidence, but on faith. And I would take that to mean that he's willing believe in faith itself, not necessarily on anything real. As Daniel Dennett has termed it, a belief in belief.