Gaven. It is pretty clear that there are no real atheists. I have met many Vuntagians who used to profess atheism, and all of them admitted to me that they had really always known in their hearts that there is a Vuntag.
Mick. Oh, so I guess I'm living proof that there are no real Vuntagians, because I once used to profess Vuntagism, but I really knew in my heart that there is no Vuntag.
Based on the information in these arguments, it is absolutely not true that there are no real atheists. Gaven defines an un-real atheist as one who professes atheism while all the time secretly believing that there is a Vuntag (or some other goddess). Presumably, a real atheist would be one who professes atheism while at the same time believing atheism. Ordinarily, a burden of proof argument would be deployed to show that something doesn't exist, but there are plenty of people who profess atheism. This means that Gaven cannot mount a burden of proof argument because the existence of someone who professes a doctrine is universally taken as proving the existence of someone who actually holds that doctrine. The only exception to this occurs when we can show that the person professing the doctrine is insincere. Gaven therefore tries to show that none of the people professing atheism actually believe atheism. He tries to do this by means of a generalization based on a sample of professed atheists, well, former professed atheists. His sample consists of present Vuntagists, not present atheists, and these are presumably people who would prefer to believe that they had always believed what they presently believe, so these people have an interest, albeit an emotional interest, in believing that they had always believed in their hearts in Vuntag. Furthermore, given the billions of people on the planet is likely that there are millions and millions of atheists. This means that his sample size is less than one in a million, far too small for such an unstructured population. Finally, Mick exposes the absurdity of Gaven's argument by pointing out, using himself as an example, that if Gaven's rule is a genuine rule of logic, then the existence of Mick, a former Vuntagist who had never really believed in Vuntag, proves that there are no real Vuntagists. Given that Gaven presumably does believe in Vuntag in his heart, it follows that saying there are no real Vuntagists is absurd, and therefore so is Gaven's argument.
Click your browser's "back" button to return to your
place in the reading.
This Site is Proudly
Hosted By:
