The Objection to Theism: There is no evidence to support Christian Theism over and against any other brand

1. First - caveats - I hold atheists to the same standard that they seek to hold me - that they understand the implications of their position.
2. The De Jure objection - Evidence for existence... a belief in on “theistic presupposition” is no more or less warranted than belief in any other.
a. Evidence - It is agreed that the fact of a Supreme Being cannot be conclusive established, nor given such evidential support from the facts of nature, that the evidence cannot be interpreted according to an atheistic perspective.
b. The idea of warrant -
i. Warrant for believing in a paradigm is not necessarily identical with the concept of evidence
ii. Evidence can provide warrant for believing, but warrant goes beyond evidence
iii. If evidence is inconclusive, one way or the other, as is the case with the physical, empirical facts of this universe, then warrant for believing one set of interpretations over another may legitimately be established from the relative value of the end toward which those interpretations tend.

iv. In other words, if one paradigm produces a “better” goal or other such end and does not deal with the evidence in any less a fashion than its opposite, then there is “warrant” for choosing that one over the other.

c. Though I am a Christian Theist, the place to start this discussion is not with Christian Theism vs. Atheism, but Theism vs. Atheism.
i. Christian Theism is warranted from within the Theist paradigm

ii. It is arrived at a posteriori not a priori

d. Therefore - the statement about whether or not one theistic presupposition (FSM or the Christian God) has any more evidence to support it than the other falls short of the basic question.

e. The correct question is - does the theistic assumption have any more or any less evidence to support it than the atheistic assumption. The answer is “no.”
i. Whatever arguments state that any one Theistic assumption is epistemologically equivalent to another applies equally to the Atheistic assumption.

ii. Hence you would have to admit that your FSM construct is just as much an argument against your atheist presupposition as it is the Christian Theist one.

f. Therefore - de jure - according to strict principles of logic - the argument as phrased is not an argument against the Theist position at all because it applies equally to the Atheist position.

g. However... it might be rephrased in this way...
i. There is no justification, no net advantage to believing in theism...
ii. Now we are no longer speaking of evidence but warrant for belief based on the qualitative distinctions between the two.

iii. Thus - de jure - one might say that it is irrational to adopt Theism because Atheism is so inherently superior in the advantages that it has over the Theistic position.

3. Summary - What I have maintained is that this  is not a valid objection.
b. It may very well be true that there is no physical evidence which supports or denies the existence of any theistic presupposition over another - hence, any supernatural  construct on the grounds of pure logic alone, could be advanced...
c. However, warrant for belief (de jure) is not tied exclusively to the idea of physical evidence, but rather extends to the logical implications of such a belief
d. The logical implications of a proposed supernatural construct would certainly be open to discussion as opposed to other Theistic and Atheistic presuppositions.
e. Further, an objection that one supernatural construct not being any more or less valid than other Theistic positions applies equally to the Atheistic position. So, unless one wishes to argue that neither Theism nor Atheism is de jure valid, then entire argument fails in the manner proposed.

Comments

[Gadfly]

Thanks for the comment.

I see that you are at home with the ultimate reality being nothingness & death, the insignificance of human life compared to any other life, the conviction that there is no right and wrong beyond the personal preferences of the currently powerful opinion makers, and all of the other ramifications of your position.

I, of course differ, but I respect anyone who carries out the implications of their presuppositions to their consistent ends.

It is interesting that you mentioned the effect that the abusers of religion have had on "kind hearted atheists". Perhaps there might be a similar effect on "kind-hearted" Theists by the abusers of Atheism (Stalin, Pol Pot, etc.)

Thanks for the comment. I will be posting another piece associated with this one, shortly.

[Svenalike.co.uk]

Thanks for this interesting and even handed theological insight.
As a now "devout" anti-thiest, I have come to the conclusion that all the primitive AND recently invented religions say more about human ego and greed than any spititual or supernatural explaination for the existance of the univers and more particularly, our own feable breed of mutant naked apes.
Religions were invented in less enlightened times to provide answers to major questions like where did we come from?, and why are we here?
It was understandable to attribute creation to an almighty supernatural force in a time when very few people travelled further than a days walk and it was "obvious" that the earth was flat and the "heavens" moved around it, the oceans and mountains were permanent and all the miriad creatures were fixed in their permanent state with humanity at it's supremacy.
We now understand that we inhabit a spec of dust circling a grain of sand within all the deserts and of earth and beyond and are the result of over 600,000,000 years of random chance and coincidence among the heaving mountains and continually shifting continents. We are no more permanent than the many ape and hominid branches that bacame extinct along the way to the random lucky genes and freaky mutations among our direct and indirect ansestors that have lead to our current and still mutating and evolving form.
There is too much current hard evidence of where we came from and no need or requirement for any super natural intervention to achieve this particular stage in the earths journey from formation to the univers's ultimate state of entropy.
The aquisition of huge wealth by organised religion and it's persecution and slaughter of followers of other "brands" of myth and legend worshipers is enough to discourage most kind hearted athieist / humanists and the acceptance that this short exisitance is all we have makes us far more concerned about our fellow creatures and the value of each and every human life.