Neotheist myths: “Rocks are atheists?”

We rational people hold that atheism is lack of delusion in fairytale character myths known as gods. Neotheists are famous for disputing this truth and dispute it often as “atheism is a belief that there are no gods” (for example: Graham Oppy). They do it with, in my eyes, three purposes:

1. That is how you sell your hobby (philosophy): if you can make it conventional that atheism is a belief that there are no gods, then you can keep on selling your arguments, elaborations and explanations about why there are no gods. At least, this way will increase your sells and rates.
2. Assigning burden of proof into atheists: “just like me, you too have to prove your case. If mine is unproven, so is yours.”
3. To take one down to quicksand with yourself: “I am unable to deal with the fact that my faith is irrational, but then, I am going to pull you down with myself.”

I can think of other reasons as well but I am not going to commentate on them. Attempts to shift the burden of proof into atheists, or at least make it shared, is probably the most common, and the most idiotic, cheap tactic of many theists and neo-theists.

As far as my observation goes, the most common way of this cheap tactic is the following:

if atheism is merely a lack of belief in God, then rocks, trees, and outhouses are all “atheists” because they too lack a belief in God. It doesn’t take any brains to “lack a belief” in something. A true atheist believes that there is no God.

taken from crossexamined.org, a Christian apologetics website.

Any functional brain could easily decipher the blatant manipulation here.

• Innocence, for example, is lack of crime and/or guilt – have you ever seen a neotheist arguing “no, innocence can not be as such, otherwise, rocks, trees, houses are all innocent. So, we shall define innocence as those who oppose crime exists”? If anyone argued so, feel free to quote and cite him/her.
• Homeless, for example, means “without home“, have you ever seen a neotheist objecting to this definition by arguing “no, homelessness can not mean lack of home, otherwise, rocks, trees etc all are homeless. So, we shall re-define homeless as someone who believes homes do not exist”? If anyone has ever argued as such, please, quote and cite him.

But this cheap tactic’s folly is beyond it. There are many ongoing wars (unfortunately) and we always try to evacuate the civilians from clash zones. What does civilian mean at all? Not belonging to an army (or to armed forces). Babies are considered civilians – have you ever seen a neotheist arguing “no no no. A baby can not be considered a civilian. We shall re-define civilianness as someone who opposes belonging to armed forces. Otherwise, rocks and trees are also civilians we have to transfer somewhere else as they do not belong to an army or any armed forces.” If we were to follow that neotheistic rationale, we would have to argue that babies can not be considered civilian and we would have to oppose the transfer of babies from warzones. Fortuneately though, this neotheistic way of arguing is not taken seriously by any sane person.

Now, you have seen that this neotheistic myth too is absurd and does not hold, just like all of them.

New Atheism – The Actual Salvation.