CADRE Comments

In a recent post I excerpted some quotes from Robin Le Poidevin's recent book Agnosticism on the moral argument. In this post I want to share some more quotes from the book on the presumption of atheism. I wanted to title it, 'An atheist denies the presumption of atheism', but the more I read, the more convinced I am that he cannot possibly be an atheist. The book seems to be, not merely a description of agnosticism, but a strong positive argument in its favor. Therefore, unless Le Poidevin is merely writing 'speech in character', it seems that he is an agnostic. Nevertheless, he provides a very convincing rebuttal to the presumption of atheism, which is relevant to the discussion between Christians and atheists. Le Poidevin begins by describing the presumption of atheism as follows: Atheism doesn't require defense. Rather, it is up to theists to convince us that there is a God. Unless they can do so, we can remain comfortable in our disbelief. Only if they pr...

Robin le Poidevin is the author of an introduction to philosophy of religion called Arguing for Atheism , which atheist blogger Austin Cline calls "one of the best books on atheism which is currently available." More recently he has contributed the Very Short Introduction to Agnosticism for Oxford University Press. I have been unable to ascertain whether he is a full-blown atheist or an agnostic, but at the very least he is highly skeptical about religion, which makes his comments about morality and conscience all the more remarkable. They are presented in the context of demonstrating the ultimate ambiguity of all arguments for the existence of God, but they seem to me to lean very much in the theistic direction. To reverse well-known expression, with enemies like this, who needs friends? We all know what it is like to have a conscience, and it sometimes gives us a hard time. But what is the source of this thing that prompts us to certain actions, makes us refrain from oth...