Stealing from god: why atheists need god to make their case

Here, I wrote a post as a response to the claim by Turek that evil disproves atheism. He has written, so I read, several books on apologetics. One of the lairs for Jesus is encouraging you heathens to read the book. He tells us, and here am putting the cart before the proverbial horse,

A word to unbelievers, this is a book you must read. It will rightfully challenge your worldview and hopefully push you to reconsider your atheistic presuppositions.

Yours truly is not going to read the book. I have more interesting things to read at the moment that am not going to waste time ploughing through apologetics. Only a god made by men would need men to get his word across. So am not interested in Turek’s god. Don’t misunderstand me, I have no belief in any god existing.

I find believers a strange lot. Here he tells us

about how we do not necessarily need to be an expert in every field of study in order to acknowledge when there is a problem with a particular worldview

and just yesterday, on a site where JZ and I have since been denied access, I was told I have to read hermeneuitics to not see the sacrifice of Jephthah daughter as abhorrent. He insists if I could just read one scholar[ his recommended scholar], then the god of OT would be presented to me in a new light. Here Turek tells us it isn’t important. How convenient!

He tells an analogy of a building inspector, but as is common with apologists, they conveniently ignore what is important. When he says

The inspector didn’t need to understand the detailed workmanship of each of those specialists in order to spot a fatal flaw in the foundation. In fact, if there were a fatal flaw in the foundation, it wouldn’t matter how good the workmanship was above it – the entire structure would soon collapse”

he is ignoring to mention the inspector had to know something about foundations or else who would be useless on this site. He might not know how to build but as a building inspector he would be a fraud if he didn’t understand the components of the building and if the apologists this reflects deep thinking, I know why I am not going to read the book.

In giving back to society, we enumerated some questions atheism can’t answer. When Turek and his followers write there are categories of reality atheism can’t answer, I must ask which categories did it seek to answer in the first place.

He accuses the atheist of the following C.R.I.M.E.S

That the atheist doubts the law of causality. Who does? The theist makes a special pleading in this law when he argues everything is caused but his god is uncaused. Who here is doubting?

Turek in his reason chapter manages to show that if atheism is true, all arguments for anything fail. How would this be? Is he arguing that if atheism is true, the only true statement will be that atheism is true and all other false?

I hope those of you who will read the book will tell me how in the chapter in information and intentionality, he explains why any god is necessary.

It is not enough to say there are objective moral values/ standards without giving a description of what these are. If anything, Pigluicci argues there could be a third way. And here is an interesting debate to consider.

There is a mountain of literature on evil and  I don’t think Turek will have anything substantive to say given the video we linked in an earlier post.

To claim we can’t do science effectively if atheism is true is asinine. No scientist goes to his desk and prays that his results maybe anything else other than as they are. I don’t know how many theists would continue to see their doctors if for every ailment, the prescription would be to recite three Hail Mary’s, and apostles creed.

If the review we are looking at gives a brief synopsis of the book, I urge believers and non believers alike not to read it. They will be wasting their time. They could spend that time being kind to one another. Leave gods alone.