Monday, January 26, 2009

Ross Douthat on the Teapot Analogy

HT: Matt Jordan

2 comments:

Eric Koski said...

Douthat: "... which supposedly settles once and for all the question of whether nonbelievers should give any credence to the possibility that God exists:"

But that's just silly. The point of the analogy is that the mere fact that God's existence can't be disproven shouldn't dispose one to believe in His existence -- since it would be equally a reason for infinitely many other groundless beliefs. the argument is often and unfortunately mischaracterized as being much more ambitious than it truly is.

Victor Reppert said...

Yes, in proper context it is exactly identical to what is called the Great Pumpkin Objection in the Reformed epistemology debates. But at the more popular level, I think the teapot, and the spaghetti monster, are used as ways of actually ridiculing theism, on the grounds that the evidential consideration is the same between the teapot and God. And apparently some of Douthat's correspondents were using the teapot and such as tickets to a doubt and question free atheism.