Random thoughts, late at night
November 13, 2008 8 Comments
One of the most ubiquitous arguments I hear from theists–it pops up at least once or twice a month on The Atheist Experience, for instance, is “How can you look at the trees, flowers, and sunsets, and say there is no God?” It’s phrased in a few different ways, but for some reason “trees” are always mentioned, with sunset being a close second, as though those were the best possible evidence for the existence of the divine. Which is kind of like the people who talk as though sliced bread were the pinnacle of human achievement.
Naturally, the argument–such as it is–is riddled with fallacies. But tonight a parallel argument occurred to me:
How can you look at shoes, cookies, and Christmas toys, and say there are no Elves?
Thoughts?
Dubito Ergo Sum 
It’s clearly begging the question. P1. Only something divine could have made trees, sunset, etc./Only elves make shoes, cookies, and toys.P2. Trees, sunset, etc. clearly exist./We clearly receive shoes, cookies, and toys at christmas.C1. God exists./Elves exist.God/Elves are asserted in P1, therefore the conclusion does not follow from the premises as it is part of them.
Not to undermine your point, but when you look at Christmas goods you can see the manufacturer’s stamp on them. It’s not the best analogy, unless there are elves in China.Otherwise, I agree w/wikinite.
Sweet, time to break out my elf apologetics, prepare for pwnage! :)*Ahem*, Obviously, elves are capable of putting manufacturing stamps on their shoes, toys, etc. The reason for this is two-fold. First, kids ask for specific brand name goods. The classic example is in “A Christmas Story” where the boy covets a “red ryder bb gun”. Now elves, as everyone knows, pride themselves on detail, and so would naturally place the manufacturers stamp on the products to make them appear authentic. The second reason is that elves only make toys for those with a child’s faith. You notice adults don’t receive elven toys from Santa, while children do (this is obvious by the fact that children recieve gifts from Santa while adults do not). It would hardly do to have blatent evidence of elves, as it would ruin christmas for children all over the world!
If the elves force you to believe in them, then they are denying you free will. The stamps they leave on things are their way of allowing those who choose not to believe to do so.
Hmmm.. argument from free will, good one, I hadn’t even considered it. It has to be peoples choice to be naughty or nice.
But if you chose not to believe in them, or fall for their ploy of putting misleading stamps on things, then the elves will definitely fuck you up.It’s your own damn fault for not having enough faith to look past the ‘made in china’ stamp.
Off topic, but you should drop by King of Ferrets’ place. There’s some theological wanker spewing Jesus jism all over the walls, and I’ve taken on the Fossian role of giving the book-length rebuttals to his nonsense. I’m just not as good at it as you.
aw man, i never get the good ones…:)