When engaging your typical internet village atheist, the Christian apologist seldom encounters rational discussion. To use a common expression, I have found that these professing atheists are control freaks. Not only do they insist that their worldview is superior to ours because atheism, they are hostile to our presentations of reason.
Atheists and other anti-creationists attempt to justify their worldviews and morality by attacking God and simultaneously saying they “lack belief” in his existence and creation. Evidence for his existence is rejected based on their materialistic presuppositions, not because of flaws in our logic or the evidence. The use of presuppositional apologetics is something that really puts burrs under their saddles because we give critiques of their worldviews, expose flaws in their epistemology, point out logical fallacies, and especially because we stand on the authority of God’s Word.
— Piltdown Superman, Biblical Creation and Evangelism, Confronting Atheistic Worldviews, August 21, 2019
This is one of those articles that makes me reflect. As an atheist am I a control freak, am I hostile to reason, do I attack ‘god’ by denying its existence?
Well, I’ve reflected, and I’m reasonably confident that I can counter every point this guy makes, especially after reading the actual article. He actually engages in exactly the things he accuses atheists of doing. He criticises us for not being able to deal with his “critiques of their worldviews, expose flaws in their epistemology, point out logical fallacies…”. In reality he hides behind his blog because, of course, he cannot do any of these things. Time and again I engage fundamentalists, here occasionally but more elsewhere, and never, ever, do they make sense, never mind ‘expose flaws’.
Believers of the preachy evangelical type have fallen victim to a viral conviction that everything simply human must be co-opted and redefined by ‘God’. The very definitions of our words are subject to the virus and become infected with belief-babble. The king goes parading along in his birthday suit and all the ‘faithful’, those who have chosen to be disloyal to themselves, proclaim joy and delight at the wonderful robes of the king.
GeoffT in my fundie days I thought the same as him. Now I realize we were projecting @ssh*les.
This felliw’s argument is based on presuppositions that there is a God, and not just any God, his definition and concept of a God. And his proof is Bible, which is supposedly authored by his God.
Many Christian apologists railing against atheists say that we “hate god” or “attack god”. I don’t hate or attack deities, any of them, the ones worshipped by modern people or those long list from ancient cultures. I just don’t believe any of the gods actually exist beyond legend and fiction. I do get angry when fundamentalist religious people try to characterize me in false ways and try to attribute my motives to the framework of their particular religious beliefs.
I know a lot of religious and nonreligious people who are control freaks. The trait isn’t confined to atheists (hello legalistic religious folks, I am talking about you).
How can you “stand on the authority of God’s word” if you’re an apologist seeking to prove the authority of God’s word? Seems an ineffective strategy to me.
This reminds me of the routine the comedian Steve Martin did when he babbled big words to prove how smart and educated he is. This is pure gibberish.