You Gotta Have Faith
Recently Steven Den Beste had an interesting series of posts on atheism. Here, here, and here. Yes they're lengthy but if they weren't it wouldn't be Den Beste would it? What I found compelling was that while Den Beste describes himself as an atheist he believes that it is not possible to disprove the existence of God anymore than it is possible for a believer to prove that God does exist. I find this sort of atheism refreshing for in the past when I've had discussions about religion with atheists or agnostics I've usually found myself being asked to prove that God exists as if I could just walk over to a chalkboard, scratch out a few theorems, and win them over. When the discussion boiled down to the root cause of my beliefs and faith was my explanation I usually got the "that's what you always say" response as if us true believers were expected to come up with better talking points after all these years. Den Beste acknowledges that his atheistic beliefs are just as much based on "faith" as are someone's who believes that God exists.
What was missed in Den Beste's discussions was that, in fact, one man has proved quite conclusively that God does not exist. He just needed to get that crayon removed from his brain first:
Homer: Hey, Flanders, heading for church? Well, I thought I
could save you a little time.
Ned: Oooh, found a new shortcut.
Homer: Better. I was working on a flat tax proposal and I
accidentally proved there's no God. [shows Flanders a
sheet of paper with complex figuring on it]
Ned: [flustered] We'll just see about that. [reads the paper]
Uh-oh. Well, maybe he made a mistake. [checks it again]
Nope, it's airtight. Can't let this little doozy get out.
[uses a lighter to burn the "proof"]
[in the background, Homer puts more copies of his no-God
paper on the windshields of nearby cars]
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