Atheism or God: Which is more rational?

Depending on which side of the debate you sit on, the answer is either god or atheism. For those who answer god to the above question. I have a few questions for you.

  1. which god is it?
  2. why god?
  3. how many are they?

There is a fellow called Prof Peter Kreeft a professor of philosophy at Boston college who argues for god. He claims it is more rational to believe in god than to be an atheist. Before we consider what the good professor has to say, I have a word of advice for his students, that is if any of them visit this blog. If you must do philosophy, do it under a new lecturer or attend a different college for this is what we call in my village a waste of money and time!

He starts his argument by asking a question that has been dealt with time and time again, that is, is faith and reason are opposed to each other?  When I wrote on the same question, I did show that faith is believing in things hoped for without any shred of any evidence they will ever come to pass. It is, to say succinctly, to choose to remain stupid against all odds! I don’t know when and how faith became rational. I am going to need a lot of help to understand this!

Then he goes on to tell us that the universe is evidence for god, to which i say hell no! That everywhere is the fingerprints of god. He however doesn’t say that cancer is the fingerprint of god. If the universe everywhere shows the fingerprints of god, how then can anyone worship such a god? The universe is beset with calamity and goodness in equal measure. Is it a god who is indifferent, acting as he pleases to amuse himself or is this god a sadist? Or rather are these apologists, theologians and philosophers daft?

He appeals to the five proofs[ and a refutation] of Thomas Aquinas as written in the Summa Theologica

The argument stated simply goes

  1. things move
  2. nothing moves for no reason
  3. something must cause movement
  4. this something is god

To arrive at the conclusion 4, he resorts to the same line of argument used in the Cosmological argument that an infinite number of causes is absurd. The good professor then begs the question by saying there must be an unmoved mover.

They say, those who claim to understand quantum physics don’t understand it. So on big bang cosmology, yours truly will refer you to It starts with a bang. There is an interesting new post that I think for all intents and purposes should help in understanding what astrophysicists mean when they talk of the big bang.

Back to the professor, he takes issue with the proposition that there could be other universes with the bold claim there is no empirical evidence for them and continues to look us straight in the face without offering any empirical evidence for his supposed god!

I didn’t think he will come to this, but this professor should change professions. He advances the argument so much liked by theists and apologists alike, that of Isaac Newton being a god believer. It appears to me they ignore the fact that he also believed in alchemy and for all intents and purposes, his theology was plain bad. If you want an example of scientists making bad theologians, Sir Isaac Newton and Blaise Pascal are perfect examples, you need not go further than that!

A scientist can be religious, that is not being denied, science just has no faith. There is no Hindu science, Baha’i science or Christian science. So the believer goes into the lab, but while there doesn’t pray that god will meddle with his results. For all intents and purposes, god is given a compulsory leave for the duration of the test. She is free to show up, and will be tested if that is possible.

And to reduce atheists to his level, he finishes by saying atheism requires faith while belief in god requires rationality. You know you have a dimwit when you hear something like that.

If you have read till this point, I have a treat for you, the professor himself making a pitch for god, he doesn’t tell us what, and how many gods there are.

About makagutu


34 thoughts on “Atheism or God: Which is more rational?

  1. aguywithoutboxers says:

    A very sound argument against his theories, my friend. It’s often baffling how supposed men (and women) of knowledge defend beliefs over known fact. The known always triumphs over the unknown yet they fail to see this. Beliefs blind in the light of the known.


  2. john zande says:

    I’m inventing a new word: Noelslapped.

    Vernacular. *Adjective: to be categorically invalidated; to have one’s theory or proposition impugned.

    *Usage: Prof Peter Kreeft just got Noelslapped!


  3. Mike says:

    The guy who said: “If you think you understand Quantum Physics then you don’t understand Quantum Physics” is the Nobel prize winner Richard Feynman :) 😊


    • makagutu says:

      Oh yes, thank you Mike. I see many people throw quantum this or that in their conversations and I ask myself are they just repeating what they heard, their bishop heard or what happens!


  4. archaeopteryx1 says:

    “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
    — Mark Twain —


  5. Marius de Jess says:

    Atheists have to choose between nothing as the beginning of everything or nature.

    If they choose nothing then they have to redefine nothing so that nothing is not what standard language understands by nothing, but what they atheists want to understand by nothing, namely, something but not God.

    Now, if this nothing that is not nothing but something that gives origin to everything with a beginning, then it is God by another name, namely, the nothing that is something.

    Or they can choose to postulate nature as the origin of everything with a beginning, in which case then it is God by another name, nature.

    So, it is impossible to flee from God as the origin of everything with a beginning, the only thing atheists can do is to change the name of God, but that is scarce consolation albeit enough to make them happy, that there is no more God, but nothing as something or nature.

    Marius Dejess


    • archaeopteryx1 says:

      Question, Marius, that should remove your game of semantics from the table – is your god alive? I ask, because that which we atheists call “Nature,” or, “something from nothing,” is not. So if your explanation is alive and ours isn’t, they could hardly be the same.


    • makagutu says:

      Marius, your whole comment is fallacious. You start by saying atheists have two choices, a fallacy of false dilemma.

      Would you be kind enough to tell me what you mean when you say god for us to even be able to consider as an explanation for anything?

      Let us for a moment allow you to say nature is god; are its effects invisible? Or do we see everywhere nature acting as would? Why then do we need your god to explain phenomena that can be explained without recourse to phantoms, magic and ghosts?


  6. emmylgant says:

    Too easy Noel, just too easy to shoot it down. :-)




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