Is the material universe the atheist’s God?
A: The atheist is, like any thinking person, in awe of the cosmos – what is known and what is yet to be discovered. But the universe is not his god. He has no god. The universe is innocent of its own existence, let alone of ours. Such acceptance is the basis of atheistic humility and the reason most atheists support scientific and scholarly quest for answers that will enrich humankind.
/////////////////////What about Pascal's Wager?
A: The French philosopher Blaise Pascal is popularly quoted by Christian theists when they argue against atheism. In a nutshell, Pascal said: Believe in God and you stand to gain everything. If you’re wrong in that belief, you lose nothing. Heads you win, tails you don’t lose.
There are two problems with this gambit. Firstly, you cannot with honesty choose to believe. You either do or you don’t. Secondly, which god is Pascal talking about? Who’s to say the theist (insert a religion here) has chosen to believe in the real one?
Think on this: If you are a monotheist (say a Jew, a Christian, a Moslem), you believe in one god. You disbelieve in the hundreds and thousands of other gods worshipped in the world today and in the past. The atheist merely believes in one god less.
Another philosopher, Epicurus, writing 300 years before the alleged birth of the Christian's Jesus Christ, composed what is known as the ‘Epicurean Paradox’. It is more likely to be quoted by atheists than the flawed Pascal’s Wager:
Is God all-powerful but unable to stop evil?
Then God is not omnipotent.
Is God all-powerful but not willing to stop evil?
Then God is malevolent.
Is God all-powerful and all-good?
Then whence enter evil?
Is God weak and unable to stop evil?
Then why call him God?
/////////////////////////////////DIVYA=DIVINE
///////////////////////////////
No comments:
Post a Comment