arguments for atheism

20+ Questions for Theists

(This post was last edited on 21-Jun-12, by reorganizing the list into a more logical sequence. I apologize in advance for the inconvenience this may cause to people who have posted comments or their own articles discussing these.) As a follow-up to my last post, I compiled a list of my own questions for theists. 20+ Questions for Theists

Platonism vs. Divine Aseity: A Deductive Argument for the Non-Existence of God

The purpose of this post is to sketch an argument for the nonexistence of God based upon the logical incompatibility of divine aseity and the existence of God. In Martin’s and Monnier’s taxonomy of arguments for atheism (see The Impossibility of God, Buffalo: Prometheus, 2003), this argument would be classified as a “deductive disproof of Platonism vs. Divine Aseity: A Deductive Argument for the Non-Existence of God

Horia George Plugaru’s Argument Against the Abundance Theory of Creation

The Internet Infidels just published a new essay by Horia George Plugaru in the Secular Web’s Kiosk, “Why the Abundance Theory of Creation Fails.” From the opening paragraph: How can God be both a perfect being and the creator of the universe? Doesn’t the fact that he created the world imply that he had a Horia George Plugaru’s Argument Against the Abundance Theory of Creation

Atheistic Teleological Arguments, Part 6: Richard Dawkins’s Chapter Summarized

In chapter 4 of his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins advances an argument for atheism he calls the “Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit,” in reference to Fred Hoyle’s famous comment about a Boeing 747 arising by chance in a junkyard.[26] Just as Hoyle’s argument appeals to the (alleged) improbability of evolution, Dawkins’s argument appeals to Atheistic Teleological Arguments, Part 6: Richard Dawkins’s Chapter Summarized

Atheistic Teleological Arguments, Part 4: Michael Martin’s Expanded Version

A. The Arguments Formulated In chapter 13 of Atheism: A Philosophical Justification, Michael Martin argues that Salmon’s arguments can be expanded to provide a powerful case for atheism: If Salmon’s arguments concerning the unique properties of God are restated and expanded, they provide a powerful inductive case for positive atheism in the narrow sense. The Atheistic Teleological Arguments, Part 4: Michael Martin’s Expanded Version

Atheistic Teleological Arguments, Part 3: Assessment of Salmon’s Argument(s)

Two general comments. First, I am uninterested in matters of Salmon’s interpretation of Hume, so I’m going to skip over that issue in its entirety.[10] Second, it seems to me that the idea of using a frequency interpretation of probability for assigning probability values to ultimate metaphysical posits is fundamentally misguided;[11] I think the epistemic Atheistic Teleological Arguments, Part 3: Assessment of Salmon’s Argument(s)

Atheistic Teleological Arguments, Part 2: Salmon’s Argument(s) Formulated

As I read him, Salmon presents multiple arguments against the design hypothesis. Let us consider the logical form of each argument in turn. Note that all of the argument labels are mine; Salmon does not label any of his arguments in his essay. A. The Argument Against an Unspecified Intelligent Designer This is the argument Atheistic Teleological Arguments, Part 2: Salmon’s Argument(s) Formulated