Why Aphilatelism Is A False Analogy

There is a popular analogy amongst the online atheist community comparing non-stamp collecting to atheism. There is an atheist who calls himself the Non-stamp collector and others who call themselves aphilatelists. The claim is that atheism is not a belief, philosophy or religion. That they don’t believe in God just like somebody could not believe in stamp collecting. The problem with this doge of intellectual burden of proof for atheist claims, and yes they do make claims, is that to be an atheist you must believe that theists and their arguments are wrong.

If someone where an Aphilatelist they would be someone who does not collect stamps. I personally do not collect stamps because it is a hobby that does not interest me. However, I do not think that stamp collectors are crazy, stupid, dangerous, delusional or wrong. I do not think that their hobby is a make believe fairytale. Some atheists, on the other hand, have said these things about theists. Even atheists who are not as confrontational and blunt as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens or John Loftus must, by virtue of being an atheist, believe that theists and their arguments are wrong about God. Often there are other beliefs tied to atheism such as naturalistic materialism which are opposed to what theists believe.

Atheists will claim that they have a non-belief, but with all the books such as “The God Delusion,” “God Is Great,” and “The Christian Delusion” which attempt to show why theists are wrong it sure does seem like atheists believe something. It this belief that theists are wrong that makes the comparison of aphilatelism to atheism a false analogy. Since atheists do indeed believe something they are responsible for defending the belief that theist’s arguments fall short of proving that God’s existence is likely and that theists are wrong to believe in God.

Is God’s Existence Just As Likely As Unicorns?

I have seen numerous comments from atheists that say that God’s existence is just as unlikely as unicorns, ferries and Santa Clause—they might even make the claim that they are aunicornists. There are a few problems with this line of thinking. The first is that we can use the Santa Principle to determine that unicorns don’t exist on earth. The second is that unicorns are not necessary beings while God is.


The Santa Principle says that a person is justified in believing that X does not exist if all of these conditions are met:

1. the area where evidence would appear, if there were any, has been comprehensively examined, and

2. all of the available evidence that X exists is inadequate, and

3. X is the sort of entity that, if X exists, then it would show.

So, using premises one and two we can say that unicorns don’t exist on earth because we have never seen any evidence of them. Since unicorns are said to be physical beings we should have found some evidence of them by now. Even if you assume that they are hiding in some very remote region then we should have at least found a unicorn skull that would verify their existence. However, we haven’t found any evidence of them so we can say with near certainty that unicorns do not exist on earth. Notice, however, that the Santa Principle says that the, “Area where evidence would appear, if there were any, has been comprehensively examined,” so we can’t say that we have searched the entire universe for unicorns. It could be possible that a planet 1,000 light years away has unicorns running around on it. Now, when we turn to using the principle to test whether God exists there are problems. God is said to be an immaterial being who does not reside on the earth. Since we currently do not have the ability to perceive immaterial beings we can’t say that the area where God exists has been comprehensively examined. God could very well exist in heaven, but we simply do not have the capacity to see him.

Could Christians Be Wasting Their Lives?

Hahah keep wasting your lives you crazy christians... you only get one, no afterlife, just this one pass. This one life you guys are wasting away praying to magical invisible sky daddy. HAhahahaa

--Anonymous commenter on Intellectual Feast

From time to time I run into comments from atheists, like the one quoted from the anonymous commenter, which deal with their belief that Christians are wasting their lives following a supposedly nonexistent God. I have even heard intelligent atheists like Daniel Dennett say that there is no easy way to tell believers that they have been wasting their lives on their faith. These comments show that the atheist commenter obviously hasn’t seriously thought about the implications of life without God in a materialist universe. If God doesn’t exist then our lives are brief, absurd and futile.


For centuries theists and atheists have been locked in a stalemate where neither side can conclusively prove or disprove God’s existence. Since this is the case, the atheist’s assertion that God or the afterlife doesn’t exist is an unfounded belief. However, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that the big bang was spontaneously uncaused and that matter popped into existence out of non-matter, and that we are here by chance as there is no God. What implications would this have on our lives? As the atheist says there is only one pass through life. In fact, when compared to the 13.7 billion years the universe has existed, our life span of zero to 120 years is incredibly ephemeral. Not only will each one of us die, but the entire human race is doomed to extinction as entropy causes the universe to die a slow heat death. If this is the case then how can one properly put their life to good use? Is it propagating my genes? No, as I said the human race will eventually be wiped out of existence so that is futile. How about accruing happy memories? Even if you don’t lose your memories as you grow senile with age, you will eventually lose all your memories when you die—it will be like they never existed. What about achieving fame through great works? Even if you are fortunate enough to be one of the few people in history to achieve greatness, your work will eventually be lost like the work of Shakespeare, Picasso, Plato and Mozart will be lost as the human race perishes. So, we see that in an entropic, materialist universe life is ultimately meaningless and futile.

The Limits of Naturalism

This is my response to Shelby Cade’s excellent blog post titled “Our limited friend” on Flatland Apologetics:


Nice article Shelby. I often hear naturalists say there is as much proof for Santa Clause, ferries or unicorns as there is for God. We actually can rule out some of these entities with the Santa Principle which says that a person is justified in believing that X does not exist if all of these conditions are met:

1. The area where evidence would appear, if there were any, has been comprehensively examined, and

2. All of the available evidence that X exists is inadequate, and

3. X is the sort of entity that, if X exists, then it would show.

This works for supposed physical entities such as Santa, unicorns and Sasquatch because we should be able to find them in the world but haven’t been able to. This doesn’t rule out God because he is immaterial being that can’t be detected by our senses or current technology. We also can’t rule out the multiverse because we have no way to perceive any universe besides our own.

Immateriality is a crucial attribute of God because in a pre big bang world with no physical building blocks a god composed of physical matter couldn’t exist. An omnipotent, immaterial necessary being is needed to spark the big bang and form the universe.

Dr. William Lane Craig vs. Dr. Lawrence Krauss

On March 30th, at North Carolina St. University, Christian philosopher Dr. William Lane Craig debated theoretical physicist Dr. Lawrence Krause on the question of is there is evidence for God. You can watch the debate here (skip to 16:00 for the debate introduction of 20:00 for the start of the debate).

The contrasting style and expertise of the debaters was interesting. Craig is a polished debater while Krause is not. Craig’s specialty is philosophy while Krause was uncomfortable talking about anything by physics.

The debate really hinged upon Craig’s assertion that a hypothesis is more probable given certain facts then it would without them. He formulates this with Bayes’ theorem Pr (H| E & B) > Pr (H|B) where H=a hypothesis; E=some specific evidence; B=our background information. He then goes on to present his usual five arguments:

1. The Leibnizian cosmological argument.

2. The Kalam cosmological argument.

3. The fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life.

4. Objective moral values and duties in the world.

5. The historical facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth.

Answering the “Challenge to Theists”

NonStampCollector posted a video on YouTube in which, after about eight minutes of rambling on, he challenges theists to explain how there is one God of the universe as opposed to three, 15 or x number of gods. I couldn’t resist a challenge like this, so I formulated an answer. Basically, if there are many gods of the universe then the world would be a much more chaotic place as each god would want to form and rule the universe in a different way. The competing gods would likely oppose each other like they do in Homer’s “The Iliad.” Since the universe is orderly we can conclude that there is just one God who formed it.


Here is my Monotheistic Argument:

   Premise 1—If there are many gods of the universe then the universe would be very chaotic and able to  support physical laws, as each god would oppose how the others formed and rule the universe.

   Premise 2—However, the universe obeys laws and is very ordered.

   Premise 3—If there are many gods of the universe then there would be many competing sets of objective moral values.

   Premise 4—However, there is one set of objective moral values.

   Therefore—Since the universe is orderly and there is one set of objective moral values there is just one God of the universe.

Say that god A wants a universe without stars so they, after the big bang, set the strong nuclear force stronger so that hydrogen and therefore stars couldn’t form. God B on the other hand wants a universe with stars so they set it at the current level so that stars can form. If these two gods were equally omnipotent who would win this disagreement? What if god C wants a universe without gravity, but god D likes gravity? Since there is gravity that allowed planets to form by causing matter to lump together we know that god C didn’t win that argument as the universe was forming, but say C decides to eliminates gravity and then D reestablishes the law of gravity. If this were the case the law of gravity wouldn’t be a law because gravity would exist at one moment and not exist at another moment—the world would be a very chaotic place. Since the world is orderly we can conclude that one God formed and rules the universe.

In the same way, say god A rules that raping and murdering people is a virtue while B rules that these acts are an abomination. Which god would win this argument? Since most everyone knows deep down inside that raping and murdering people is wrong and that being loving your neighbor as yourself is a good thing we can conclude that one God established objective moral values.

The Illusory Optimism of Secular Humanists

To the Apologists: Have you ever had the courage to contemplate your existence without "God?" Of what are you so deathly afraid without having this construct? What would be missing?


I have and my guess is that most of the skeptics on the site have also contemplated their worlds without religion. I have concluded that a world without Gods is in all reality the same as with them. Except of course the world without would be far, far, far, more peaceful.
—Fritz, a commenter on Debunking Christianity.

As an ex-atheist I have indeed considered what life would be without God—it is one bleak existence. If there is no God then we are here by chance and will lead short lives before our existence is wiped out. The second law of thermal dynamics says that our sun and the universe will die a heat death making life impossible. This means that our lives are futile as all of our memories and work will be wiped out like they never existed. That being said, where does this rosy optimism of secular humanism come from? If it could be proved that God/gods don’t exist and that all religion is false would the world turn into a peaceful utopia as people cast off religion? I resoundingly say no because secular humanists have an unrealistically optimistic view of human nature.

The idea that most conflict is caused by religious strife is false. Most wars (if not all) are waged for control of  scarce resources (such as land, water and oil) and power. The utopian vision of secular humanists where the human race renounces religion and begins hugging one another while singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” would crack as soon there was a serious shortage of fresh water, food or oil. How long would it take for humanity to go from hugging one another to tearing each other apart over needed resources? As Richard Dawkins says, “We are survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.” Even if resources aren’t scarce there will always be the next Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, or Qaddafi who will use extreme violence to take or maintain power. The possibility of being a godlike dictator has always captivated mankind and there is no reason to think that will change.