Defining Gods Into Existence

SIR: Oh dear! They’re at it again— those clever Christian philosophers defining their God into existence (Dennis O’Keeffe reviewing Antony Flew, June 2008). That argument is as dead as Anselm himself.

As for our brains being hardwired to believe in a god of one sort or another, a hypothesis for which there is no evidence whatever, they might equally be hard-wired so that, as children, we believe in monsters under the bed.

Belief in something, hard-wired or not, is no proof of the thing’s existence. No monsters under our beds, and no gods, either!

As for “challenging the grounds for atheism”, atheism is not a belief system—it is the absence of a belief system. It needs no grounds. The null hypothesis cannot be proven. The challenge remains squarely in the minds of those who do have a belief system—the theists. As the motto of Australian Skeptics so clearly states: “Show us the evidence!”

And please, before advancing the hoary old argument from “design”, spare a thought for the tens of thousands of children born each year with the grossest of congenital anomalies and hereditary diseases.

I think, therefore I am … an atheist.

Peter Arnold,
Edgecliff, NSW.