When the AE challenges evolution there are obvious touching stones, ideally he's told that the frog thing never happened and given a bunch of stuff he can go look up if he's interested. When the AT challenges theology he's told that he doesn't know enough, i.e. he hasn't exhausted the search space, but he's not actually pointed at anything that addresses his concern. It's more a sort of “Keep looking until you find something. Bwahahahaaa, sucker.” response.
I can assure you, I have personally seen atheists make arguments that are just as misinformed as the frog thingie.
For that matter, I've seen people who don't know much about evolution but are arguing for it tell creationists that a counterpoint to their claim exists somewhere, even though they don't actually know of such a "knock-down argument". And they were right.
Also, you seem to be modelling religious people as engaging in bad faith. Am I misreading you here?
The response doesn't even look the same as the response to the frog problem. Everyone who knows even a little bit about evolution can correct the frog fella.
Sure, but that was what we call an example. Creationists often make far more complex and technical-seeming arguments, which may well be beyond the expertise of the man on the street.
Whereas, to my knowledge, no Christian has yet corrected a rational atheist on his or her point of disbelief.
Maybe I parsed this wrong. Are you saying no incorrect argument has ever been made for atheism?
(And if they have why aren't they singing it from the rooftops - if they have as one might call it, a knock-down argument why aren't the door to door religion salesmen opening with that?)
Well, many do open with what they consider to be knock-down arguments, of course. But many such arguments are, y'know, long, and require considerable background knowledge.
And since I've talked two Christians out of their beliefs in the past who'd told me that I just needed to learn more about religion and know that someone who watched that debate lost their own faith as a consequence of being unable to justify their beliefs. (Admittedly I can't verify this to you so it's just a personal proof.) It seems improbable to me that they've actually got an answer.
If you have such an unanswerable argument, why aren't you "singing it from the rooftops"?
I think you can subscribe to E's heuristic quite happily even in areas where you acknowledge that you're likely to be off by a long way.
Minor point, but you realize EY wasn't the first to make this argument? And while I did invent this counterargument, I'm far from the first to do so. For example, Yvain.
I can assure you, I have personally seen atheists make arguments that are just as misinformed as the frog thingie.
For that matter, I've seen people who don't know much about evolution but are arguing for it tell creationists that a counterpoint to their claim exists somewhere, even though they don't actually know of such a "knock-down argument". And they were right.
Well, that's why I said ideally. Lots of people believe evolution as a matter of faith rather than reason. I'd tend to say it's a far more easily justified faith - after all you can...
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