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Originally Posted by mercuryrising  Ironically, I agree with you. But then, I haven't come across any proof of an objective reality. If there is such a place, I guess God can exist there. It's kind of like fairies can exist in fairyland.
I think a better question might be, is the concept of God useful? I think most atheists are really saying, "The concept I have of God is not useful, so I don't believe in God." Fair enough. |
Really? I could swear most atheists are saying something pretty radically different. And this isn't a result of my own paradigm, I'm just reporting the metaphysical claims of others. They'd say that God is not in their ontology (their list of things that exist) in the real, mind-independent world (we get specific like that because we're philosophers). They'd definitely tell you it's not a matter of God being useful or not useful. I say this because God could still exist and not be useful to them, because I don't see the world radically changing as a result of the check switching from the "no" column to the "yes" column on God.
I know the debate itself is between objective and subjective realities, and I'm not coming down on either side. But to presuppose that most atheists (who, usually, have given this debate a lot of thought) come down on the subjective side is just naive. Consider how many of them are scientists, philosophers and other thinkers. They do believe in a mind-independent reality, even if you think that's incoherent.