https://youtu.be/WRKXNGEf0Bs?si=im7Zp_16Uin2AE9-

[Disclaimer: The following should not be taken as a specific defense of theism; to take it as such would be unreasonable.]

This is a summary of my argument:

The atheist is an atheist only up until the point where he requires the theist to bear the burden of proof…that is, to provide evidence for the existence of God. After that, the atheist is no longer merely a passive observer, but is now operating from a specific, though perhaps implicit, set of metaphysical assumptions—beliefs—about the nature of Reality and its root (its metaphysical primary), which necessarily inform his understanding of what exactly constitutes “evidence”. This is a consequence of the corollary relationship between metaphysics and epistemology, where epistemology necessarily proceeds from metaphysics. That is, one’s understanding of what is True, and what constitutes Knowledge (and thus what constitutes “evidence’…how one is able to know it when he sees it), follows from one’s understanding of what is Real (i.e. the metaphysical…the nature of Reality, including the nature of Man, himself). From here on out he, the atheist, is operating not from a position of a null or DIS belief (i.e. from A-theism) but is an active believer…one who is promoting a specific set of metaphysical principles which he accepts as valid and which preclude the existence of God; and as a believer, he, like the theist, is obligated to defend his beliefs.

The debate between the atheist and the theist is not really about evidence for God, or the lack thereof—for this makes the debate purely a redundant exercise where “evidence” is presented by the theist to a mere passive observer (the A-theist), having nothing to do with the real issue—the metaphysics—because God is specifically a metaphysical proposition. 

Rather, the debate is really between different metaphysical interpretations of Reality and its root (the metaphysical primary), and thus the “winner” of the debate is not he who can provide sufficient evidence (the theist), or he who has not been provided sufficient evidence (the atheist), but rather he who possess the most rational interpretation of reality—that is, he who possesses the superior metaphysics.

Now, on to the body of my argument: 

The following is a classic example of “poisoning the well”, and it is why the comments section of any video I upload criticizing atheism MUST be disabled. On my previous video entitled “Atheism: Twice the Son of Intellectual Hell” I was left a comment. If anyone were to read this comment prior to listening to my video, either a.) they wouldn’t bother listening to it at all, presuming to understand my arguments already and then summarily reject them as invalid, or b.) would listen to my video with a tainted interpretive lens. 

It is a comment that purports to offer a summation of my basic argument; unfortunately, as is often the case with atheists, it is deceptive and misrepresentative; and comes not even a little close to understanding what it is I’m actually saying. Given the concise and coherent nature of my video, I can only assume that the deception is willful, and is intended to dissuade viewers from seriously considering what it is I have to say on the matter. As such, this comment was deleted and comments closed on the video, but I will read it here for you in its entirety. 

“This video’s argument against atheism is based on several misunderstandings and misrepresentations. It mischaracterizes atheism as a positive belief system, misunderstands the burden of proof, equivocates on the meaning of evidence, creates straw men of atheist arguments. And makes unfounded accusations of hypocrisy and lying. The core flaw is the assertion that because God is defined as the metaphysical primary, everything constitutes evidence for God, rendering the request for specific evidence unreasonable. This is a semantic trick that avoids engaging with actual arguments for and against the existence of God.”

Allow me to break this down for you…I won’t go through it line by line, but will focus on the general problems with this comment which reveal its nonsense.

“It [my argument] mischaracterizes atheism as a positive belief system.”

This claim is arrantly false, and is nothing short of an out and out lie. I say specifically in the two preceding videos that a major problem with atheism is the fact that it is precisely NOT a belief system, and allows the atheist to hide from the real issue. It is, rather, a NULL…it is a NON-belief…it is DIS-belief; it is the absence of belief; it is the absence thus of an idea. It is a ZERO.

In atheism’s demand that the theist provide evidence for the existence of God, the theist is being asked to compare his evidence against a NULL; against ZERO VALUE. He is being asked to quantify, qualify, and/or reveal his evidence relative to NULL position; a VOID; a NON; a NOT…a NOT belief. Atheism qua Atheism is NOTHING at all, by intrinsic definition.

This is the whole deceptive nature of atheism. It demands proof of God, but provides NO frame of reference for such proof. This makes the debate a waste of time for both the theist and the atheist—who would be more accurately referred to as “one who calls himself an ‘atheist’”, since no one can actually be an atheist, since one cannot actually hold a NON-belief.

Anyway…

The only way the theist can provide evidence for the existence of God is to understand how the atheist defines “evidence” in the first place. This moves the argument away from the strictly epistemological to the metaphysical, where it should be; because, after all, we are talking about God—a specifically metaphysical proposition. However, the atheist simply cannot allow the debate to be moved to the metaphysical—again, its proper place—because there he would be forced to present and defend an actual belief. This would rob him of his ability to argue from his NULL-position—his A-theism—meaning it would rob him of his ability to obligate the theist to bear the burden of proof for his positive claim that “God exists”; whilst doing so from the atheist’s own implicit—though never stated and never intellectually defended, yet nevertheless a-priori—metaphysical position, meaning his own positive metaphysical beliefs…his own “positive belief claim” (e.g. the laws of physics, the laws of nature, the process of natural evolution, the mathematical universe, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc.).

The atheist’s power, he believes, is that he is not the one asserting the “positive belief claim”, and thus does not bear the burden of proof. In fact, he bears no burden at all beyond that of being simply a passive observer. Yet the atheist does, in fact, bear the responsibility for defining what he means by “evidence”, since epistemology naturally flows from metaphysics, and the debate concerning the existence of God is a metaphysical one. In other words, since epistemology flows from metaphysics, and the debate concerns “God”, which is a specifically metaphysical issue, ” the theist can rightly assume that the atheist will interpret any evidence for God from the atheist’s own implicit metaphysical assumptions; and therefore the theist has the right to know precisely what these assumptions are, and must be allowed to cross-examine them for rational consistency, just as the atheist has a right to examine those of the theist. So here we can deduce that debate is not actually about whether or not there exists sufficient evidence for God, but rather does God represent the more rational metaphysical proposition, or do the implicit metaphysical assumptions of the one who calls himself an atheist represent the more rational proposition.

Atheism is a NULL…but once the atheist requests proof of God, he is no longer arguing from a “negative belief” but from an implicit positive belief claim—meaning his own metaphysical assumptions; his own beliefs about the nature of Reality.

To summarize this point; The only way to know why the atheist does not believe in God, and the thus only way to know what he means by “evidence”, is to understand the metaphysical assumptions he holds which preclude God as a metaphysical proposition; and the only way for this to happen is for the atheist is to drop the atheism and actually articulate his belief.

*

“The core flaw is the assertion that because God is defined as the metaphysical primary, everything constitutes evidence for God, rendering the request for specific evidence for God unreasonable. This is a semantic trick…”

No. It is NOT an assertion. If you believe in God—if you are a theist—then this IS what God represents—the metaphysical primary. Which necessarily and by definition means that everything comes from God; which means that in some way or fashion everything is a manifestation and/or reflection of God and therefore everything constitutes evidence for God’s existence. If the atheist understood what it is he claims to disbelieve, he would thus understand the irrationality of asking the theist to provide specific evidence, and would accept the fact the debate must occur at the level of the metaphysics, and can ONLY occur there; and he would recognize that the debate is not about the lack of or presence of evidence, but is a debate concerning who has the more rational interpretation of Reality. But to do that, the atheist would need to drop the atheism—the NULL position—and this would rob him of his false pretense of power, and robe him of the one “ace” he believes he possesses—that he can obligate the theist to bear the burden of proof

This the atheist will never do. The atheist will never drop the atheism because he is above all an ideologue, period, of the same theistic type he claims to reject.

Finally…

The very thing that the atheist believes is his primary advantage—his position from a NULL-belief, and thus representing a mere passive observer—is the very thing that relegates atheism-qua-atheism to the dustbin of outright irrelevancy. He thinks that by being a mere passive observer means that the theist—the one making the “positive belief claim”—is the one who bears the burden of proof; but being merely passive, and coming to the issue of the existence of God with NO belief whatsoever, about anything intrinsic at all, according to his NULL position (atheism-qua-atheism) means that the atheist has no frame of reference for what constitutes “evidence” in the first place, and thus any perceived lack of evidence is NO basis for his rejection of the existence of God. In other words, by his atheism, he nullifies his atheism.

END