Godborygmi: Guff im Himmel

Theists must resort to fallacious ad hominem attacks on atheists because, when it comes to evidence or philosophy*, theism has no evidential or logical leg to stand on. Contrary to a popular theist crow**, the burden of proof lies with those making religious claims. Atheists merely say, 'I don't believe that rot!'

Christianity, to pick on just one of the Big Three Abrahamic religions, has failed in almost 2,000 years to come up with any evidence beyond circular claims of being 'revealed religion' for any of its Guff im Himmel nonsense. Islam has failed for a shorter time, and Judaism for even longer.

In response to this piece of Godpuffery, 'My first thought was, “ How do you get passionate about nothing ? ” If no God exists, what is there to get passionate about ?'

I found two excellent responses Freethinker Sunday Sermonette: can Believing survive Seeing? and a shorter response in We “passionate” atheists in which PZ Myers exhibits his typical mixture of humor and good sense:

And oh, yeah, I'm passionate about atheism, but atheism isn't about nothing: it's about valuing reason over superstition, about conquering unfounded fears, about facing the real world without crutches and lies to hold you up. I'm sure someone is going to sit there and dissect the letters of the word and tell me that atheism means only an absence of belief in gods, but screw that — it's about a whole philosophy of thought that is built on materialism and naturalism. It is an idea with substance.

Mr Terry, however, finds his passion in an imaginary, nonsensical being with less immanence in our world than a grain of sand or a falling leaf, a delusion of no substance that can have less physical impact on his life than the secretions of even just one of his gut bacteria … at least that bacterium actually exists.

And he dares to rebuke us for believing in nothing? We believe in every thing.