Faith, no more
One of the recurring
arguments theists use is 'We have faith'. This is a strange,
seemingly unassailable position. The word 'faith' means 'to believe
without evidence'. The point is that 'the absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence'.
This may sound convincing, to some, at first glance (and second, and third), but if examined closely, the argument fails utterly.
First of all, if there is no evidence, why should one religion be chosen over any other religion? In other words, maybe a deity exists, but how can anybody claim its name is Yahweh, Jehovah , Allah or Vishnu (let alone, Zeus, Thor or Ra...). To have faith in the deity of someone’s parents, or of their own choosing, seems to be quite arbitrary.
Secondly, and this is the main issue, there is evidence to the contrary. The 'holy' books (Torah, Bible, Koran or Bhagavad Gita) all contain creation stories that are in conflict with current scientific knowledge... Genesis is wrong about …
This may sound convincing, to some, at first glance (and second, and third), but if examined closely, the argument fails utterly.
First of all, if there is no evidence, why should one religion be chosen over any other religion? In other words, maybe a deity exists, but how can anybody claim its name is Yahweh, Jehovah , Allah or Vishnu (let alone, Zeus, Thor or Ra...). To have faith in the deity of someone’s parents, or of their own choosing, seems to be quite arbitrary.
Secondly, and this is the main issue, there is evidence to the contrary. The 'holy' books (Torah, Bible, Koran or Bhagavad Gita) all contain creation stories that are in conflict with current scientific knowledge... Genesis is wrong about …