I’ve changed my mind on the persuasiveness of a specific argument. I used to hold a high degree of confidence in the line of reasoning that “since nobody can agree on just about anything about god, it is likely that god doesn’t exist”. But then, in an unrelated conversation, someone pointed out that it would be foolish to say that “since nobody can agree on the shape of the earth, earth has no shape.” I must be question-begging!
I think the correct comparison would be, “since no one can agree on the nature of Earth/Earth’s existence, Earth must not exist” but this is ridiculous since everyone agrees on at least one fact about Earth: we live on it. The original argument still stands. Denying the existence of god(s) doesn’t lead to any ridiculous contradictions of universally experienced observations. Denying Earth’s geometry does.
I’ve changed my mind on the persuasiveness of a specific argument. I used to hold a high degree of confidence in the line of reasoning that “since nobody can agree on just about anything about god, it is likely that god doesn’t exist”. But then, in an unrelated conversation, someone pointed out that it would be foolish to say that “since nobody can agree on the shape of the earth, earth has no shape.” I must be question-begging!
I think the correct comparison would be, “since no one can agree on the nature of Earth/Earth’s existence, Earth must not exist” but this is ridiculous since everyone agrees on at least one fact about Earth: we live on it. The original argument still stands. Denying the existence of god(s) doesn’t lead to any ridiculous contradictions of universally experienced observations. Denying Earth’s geometry does.
That’s the conclusion I came to as well, but I was worried that I was rationalizing, so I had to downgrade my confidence in the argument.