From article by Stephen Anderson:
“There was a time – some years ago – when to profess disbelief in a Supreme Being could be hazardous to one’s health. (…). Today, atheism has taken its comfortable seat by the fire and has its feet up. (…). Atheism has never been so respectable.
That is why perhaps we now ought to pause and ask if it has actually earned the easy place it enjoys. (…) Before we begin the trial, perhaps we ought to clarify the case. What is ‘atheism’?
(…) It claims there exists no kind of god.
That’s basic. But we might ask, ‘Is it really necessary to understand atheism as so categorical? Can’t we make room for softer versions of skepticism, so as to be more inclusive?’
(…) But secondly, and more importantly, including agnostics in their position is going to give away the game at the start (…), it is a personal declaration of doubt, not a categorical one. In its strongest form, agnosticism says something like, “I really, really, really strongly don’t think there is any God, because I’ve seen no evidence anywhere near sufficient to make me think there is one.” But the savvy atheist is going to detect the problem: as a personal declaration, it fails to bind anyone else.
(…) Similarly, the person who declares herself agnostic has only said something about her personal certainty, not about the existence of God (…) no logical reason at all to insist that no one else can possibly have such knowledge. (…)
If that’s fair enough, then let’s move on. (…): do atheists wish to deny only one God, or two gods, or the entire spectrum of possible gods?
I think it must be all. I don’t know of any atheist who would be happy to think that Zeus doesn’t exist but Ares does; that Thor and Loki don’t exist but Allah does; that Yahweh doesn’t exist but the pantheon of Hindu gods is real. (…)
(…) We must ask, then, “What is sufficient evidence to rule out the existence of such a being?” (…) atheists’ claim of evidence against His existence is completely unfounded. Adequate evidence for atheism would require the observer to go everywhere, at all times, see everything, test everything, and eliminate all possibilities (…) only then could he or she justifiably claim to have sufficient evidence to warrant atheism! (A massive irony issues from this: if anyone had actually done the tests required to be able to claim atheism honestly on sufficient evidence, that would mean that he or she had been everywhere, at all times, and under all conditions; in short, it would mean that there was indeed a God – and it would be the atheist! Obviously, this is silly. When any claim gets to the point where its success entails its failure, it is self-defeating, and hence, illogical.)
(…) You see, by positioning themselves as defending a negative, atheists have put themselves at a horrible disadvantage. (…) Only if all religions are bunkum, only if all believers are deluded, only if all Gods are eliminated is atheism secure.
(…) I can think of no atheist of recent times more celebrated than the late Antony Flew. But he died a Deist, leaving an account of his transformation titled, There is No A God. What about contemporary atheism’s most famous proponent, Richard Dawkins? He’s not much help: he’s realized the problem and publicly declared himself a ‘convinced agnostic.’ (Witness it for yourself: youtube.com/watch?v=dfk7tW429E4). This, of course, raises the question why, on other occasions, Professor Dawkins still allows himself to be called an atheist. Perhaps he senses that agnosticism simply cannot offer the kind of serious resistance to the idea of God that he wants to promote; and as a rhetorical flourish, atheism makes better press. But whenever he is pressed on the irrationality of that term, you can see that he lapses into calling himself a ‘convinced agnostic’ instead.
It clearly does not escape his attention (as it ought not to escape ours) that atheism cannot be rationally defended. Even when we treat it most charitably, what we end up with is the realization that it is nothing more than a posture of empty dogmatism.(…)”