I would refine that it’s not a meaningful argument to have. Theists can still question whether what they mean by God exists in the way that they mean.
I think atheists make a mistake in tackling whether God exists when they don’t know what theists mean by ‘God’ or ‘exist’ (and theists don’t either). Atheists tend to press the meaning of the words towards overly empirical interpretations, so that they pretend theists believe in some sort of creature. In particular, arguments about a flying spaghetti monster, etc, feel entirely irrelevant to someone that is theist. They know they are considering something different.
‘Something different’ doesn’t mean slippery and shape-changing just so that you can never get a hold of it in an argument. It’s something a linguist or a psychologist could probably get a hold of.
My impression of the best way to convert a theist, based on intuition rather than practice in the field, is to challenge the consequences of this God-that-exists.
For example, what does God do and how is he good? Try to get the theist to feel for a rough answer, and then ask again in a week. As soon as the theist articulates a consequence, they realize it’s not true as they go about their day with this thought in hand and their image of what God does erodes. Until their concept of God doesn’t really do anything, and he’s not really that good in the sense they originally meant. Even if they still “believe in God”, their beliefs don’t have any consequence.
It’s depressing. I wouldn’t deliberately deconvert anyone.
I would refine that it’s not a meaningful argument to have. Theists can still question whether what they mean by God exists in the way that they mean.
I think atheists make a mistake in tackling whether God exists when they don’t know what theists mean by ‘God’ or ‘exist’ (and theists don’t either). Atheists tend to press the meaning of the words towards overly empirical interpretations, so that they pretend theists believe in some sort of creature. In particular, arguments about a flying spaghetti monster, etc, feel entirely irrelevant to someone that is theist. They know they are considering something different.
‘Something different’ doesn’t mean slippery and shape-changing just so that you can never get a hold of it in an argument. It’s something a linguist or a psychologist could probably get a hold of.
My impression of the best way to convert a theist, based on intuition rather than practice in the field, is to challenge the consequences of this God-that-exists.
For example, what does God do and how is he good? Try to get the theist to feel for a rough answer, and then ask again in a week. As soon as the theist articulates a consequence, they realize it’s not true as they go about their day with this thought in hand and their image of what God does erodes. Until their concept of God doesn’t really do anything, and he’s not really that good in the sense they originally meant. Even if they still “believe in God”, their beliefs don’t have any consequence.
It’s depressing. I wouldn’t deliberately deconvert anyone.