I have chosen on this webpage to give an answer to Mr. Emmett F. Fields'
arguments regarding atheism. He is a real person, he is an
outspoken atheist, but most of all, he has put his arguments on the web
so that everyone can know his thoughts.
1 I strongly
recommend that you consider reading his debate against a fundamentalist
minister in 1983 at the indicated webpage.
We should understand the basis of atheistic argumentation, and
Wikipedia provides a description of this:
Atheism tends toward skepticism regarding supernatural claims, citing
lack of empiric evidence. Common rationales include the problem of
evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, and the argument from
nonbelief. Other arguments for atheism range from the philosophical
to the social to the historical.2
If you study closely Mr. Fields' presentation, you will see that
he uses all the rationales that are mentioned above in the
Wikipedia quote. These are not just academic arguments
for Mr. Fields. Rather, these are thoughts that incite in him utter
disgust, anger, and even rage at the idea of God, the Bible, and
Christians. After my own personal reading his debate, I know that he hates me
and my precious Bible, and sees that the only way for world peace and
prosperity is destruction of every religion, especially Christianity,
and every religious book, especially the Bible. His is no kind and
considerate presentation. I find in it no tone of compromise. He
is on a quest to utterly destroy the very idea of God.
I will attempt to address at least some of the objective issues Mr. Fields'
presented. There are a number of other kinds of issues that are
subjectively based that I will not address. These include his
personal preferences as well as his emotional protests that come from
his own personal beliefs about what kind of god would be acceptable to
him. In addition to these, note that the evidence for God is presented in the pages starting
with
IS THERE A GOD?
Also, the problem of evil is addressed separately on the page entitled
Pain and Suffering.
