Reply #119: Author is absolutely incorrect in his dilemma [View All]

[0rganism]

Unanswered prayers of the faithful do NOT eliminate the possibility of a deity.

They may eliminate the possibility of the generically omnipotent, omniscient, compassionate deity, depending on what manner of divine compassion is implicit. We can pretty much say with certainty that if a divine omnipotent and omniscient being exists, it doesn't view death -- even of the most violent and disturbing varieties -- as a matter of direct concern requiring immediate intervention in all cases. As the author correctly observes, the material world as we know it is incompatible with such an entity.

But what we cannot eliminate from his observation of cruelty and unanswered prayer is the possibility of an omniscient, omnipotent, uncaring or malevolent deity. Or a pantheon of variously caring, competing deities struggling for supremacy. Or a capricious and fickle deity that rewards the faithful one day and destroys them the next. Or one or more demigods with limited powers. I could continue the list of exceptions ad nauseum.

An atheism that discounts only one type of divine being (omniscient, omnipotent, and compassionate) while leaving the doors wide open for all the rest is no atheism at all.