Playing games

One game I’ve seen played by numerous theists against atheists is an attempt to corner atheists into admitting in some way that a deity is possible. Except if the theist were to actually listen to the assertions that atheists make, they’ll already see that most of us already do. The late Christopher Hitchens summed it up fantastically: "It may not be said that there is no god. It may be said that there is no reason to think that there is one."

As such one peculiarity about these games is how they merely get a person to concede the possibility that a deity might exist, something that again most atheists already concede, without actually showing evidence that a particular deity exists.

Typically it is Christians administering this game, and thankfully only a minority attempting to do so as it is quite a fallacious game to play, and it can be summarized as this: as each person only possesses a tiny fraction of the overall sum of knowledge available, it is possible that the God of the Bible exists within the part of the knowledge that, presumably, the atheist does not possess.

Except there is one major problem with the conclusion or concession the game tries to get the atheist to make: the God of Abraham, the God of the Bible, does not exist, as I have stated previously:

First, Christians, would you agree that without the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, Christianity would not have any definition? In other words, much if not all of the theology behind the religion called Christianity relies on the Holy Bible. It is where the teachings and story of Jesus are recorded, and it is the basis if not sole source for the theology most often cited by Christians. Now Mormons, I am aware, also have the Book of Mormon, but that is merely an addendum to the Holy Bible, as far as I am aware, so everything for Christianity still rests on the Bible.

And in the Bible lies many problems.

Numerous scholars have written about the authoring of the Bible, including the identification of the various authors of not only the Pentateuch, but the other books of the Old and New Testament. To put it simply the Bible is riddled with numerous problems, errors, contradictions and the like. The Bible is not the work of a god, or if it is, it is certainly not an infallible God as has been declared so readily by Christians. As the Bible provides a definition of God accepted by Christians (and further defined, molded, polished and primed by apologists), and as the Bible has been shown by numerous scholars to be wrong about so many things between its covers, it is not only my opinion but the opinions of many others that the Christian God, the "God of the Bible", Yahweh, Jehovah, or whatever name you wish to ascribe to the God first mentioned in Genesis, does not exist.

Now to say that the God of the Bible does not exist is not to say that no deity exists. But the Christian says that if a deity does exist that deity must be the god of Abraham. I’ve yet to personally encounter a Christian that is willing to admit that anything different. As such by trying to get the atheist to admit the general possibility a deity might exist, the theist is, in their mind at least, attempting to get the atheist to admit that their deity exists.

Except that isn’t how it works, for two reasons.

Admitting the possibility that unicorns might exist does not automatically mean that pink unicorns with purple eyes are a genuine species that we just haven’t discovered yet. Admitting that a deity might exist is not the same as admitting that the Christian god does exist.

Further, the onus is always on the Christian to prove their religion and all its claims are true.