Atheism and the existence of peanut butter
September 7, 2021 at 7:35 pm
(This post was last modified: September 7, 2021 at 8:05 pm by R00tKiT.)
Hey there,
When I first became interested in the questions of theology, God's existence, etc. I used to hold the atheist position in high regard, it looked like a very logical position to endorse when one isn't convinced of some particular account of God. I started to become highly suspicious of that when I discovered that all the big objections to theism simply fail miserably.
A better way to show why these objections are really bad is to apply them to anything, to show that anything can't exist. So, let's rule out the existence of peanut butter;
Argument from the diversity of peanuts:
P1: There are many subspecies/types of peanuts. Each type has particular properties, a different taste, a different pod structure and variable seed sizes
P2: Peanut butter is so sweet that its sweetness should uniformly have the same miraculous taste for all mankind
C: peanut butter can't exist because it's incoherent
Argument from peanut evil :
P1: An ensnared fawn caught wildfire, the fawn is burned to death, it must have suffered heavily
P2: Something that tastes as sweet as peanut butter wouldn't let a fawn suffer, this food is too sweet to coexist with evil
C: peanut butter can't exist because of evil
Argument from peanut butter's hiddenness:
P1: Peanut butter isn't available in my local area.
P2: Peanut butter is so sweet that it wouldn't leave someone in my area who craves for it unsatisfied
C: peanut butter isn't that sweet after all
As you can see, these ridiculous arguments hardly differ from the objections we hear often aimed at undermining theism. Arguing from evil is by definition arguing from ignorance, when philosophers endorsing atheism became aware of that, they came up with an ad-hoc distinction between justified evil and unnecessary evil, which is, again, another fat fallacy of arguing from ignorance, because they can't prove that some instance of evil is unnecessary without begging the question. The issue of hiddenness is very similar because it presupposes that there can't be any good reason for God not directly revealing Himself to our senses. Finally, religious diversity is probably the most ridiculous of all three, simply because many conflicting accounts of the divine doesn't mean that they are all false, nor does it undermine any of God's properties.
All this simply means that atheology fails, whereas theology provides many compelling arguments/reasons to believe in God. Theism is the only acceptable worldview. QED.
When I first became interested in the questions of theology, God's existence, etc. I used to hold the atheist position in high regard, it looked like a very logical position to endorse when one isn't convinced of some particular account of God. I started to become highly suspicious of that when I discovered that all the big objections to theism simply fail miserably.
A better way to show why these objections are really bad is to apply them to anything, to show that anything can't exist. So, let's rule out the existence of peanut butter;
Argument from the diversity of peanuts:
P1: There are many subspecies/types of peanuts. Each type has particular properties, a different taste, a different pod structure and variable seed sizes
P2: Peanut butter is so sweet that its sweetness should uniformly have the same miraculous taste for all mankind
C: peanut butter can't exist because it's incoherent
Argument from peanut evil :
P1: An ensnared fawn caught wildfire, the fawn is burned to death, it must have suffered heavily
P2: Something that tastes as sweet as peanut butter wouldn't let a fawn suffer, this food is too sweet to coexist with evil
C: peanut butter can't exist because of evil
Argument from peanut butter's hiddenness:
P1: Peanut butter isn't available in my local area.
P2: Peanut butter is so sweet that it wouldn't leave someone in my area who craves for it unsatisfied
C: peanut butter isn't that sweet after all
As you can see, these ridiculous arguments hardly differ from the objections we hear often aimed at undermining theism. Arguing from evil is by definition arguing from ignorance, when philosophers endorsing atheism became aware of that, they came up with an ad-hoc distinction between justified evil and unnecessary evil, which is, again, another fat fallacy of arguing from ignorance, because they can't prove that some instance of evil is unnecessary without begging the question. The issue of hiddenness is very similar because it presupposes that there can't be any good reason for God not directly revealing Himself to our senses. Finally, religious diversity is probably the most ridiculous of all three, simply because many conflicting accounts of the divine doesn't mean that they are all false, nor does it undermine any of God's properties.
All this simply means that atheology fails, whereas theology provides many compelling arguments/reasons to believe in God. Theism is the only acceptable worldview. QED.
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