Flew: The Presumption of Atheism

1. Flew:The Presumption of Atheism

2. Critical Reading (A Partial List) • Read S L O W L Y • Read more than once • Read aggressively • Write comments and questions in margins • Circle words that you don’t know and look them up

3. Critical Reading Continued • Identify the main ideas, supporting arguments, and supporting examples • Try to draw connections between one part of the text and another • Summarize the argument when you are done to see what you still don’t understand • Reflect about what the author is saying: Ask yourself if you agree with the author.  If you don’t, figure out why.

4. Flew: The Presumption of Atheism 1.What it is, and why it matters 2.The presumption of atheism and the presumption of innocence (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) 3. The case for the presumption of atheism (i) (ii)

5. The Presumption of Atheism • Flew claims that debates about God should begin from a “presumption of atheism” (PoA). • As he puts it, the PoA amounts to the claim that: “The onus of proof must lie upon the theist”

6. “Theism” and “Atheism” “Theist” • Someone who positively asserts that God exists. “Negative Atheist” (“Atheist”) • Someone who is not a theist. • Someone who doesn’t assert that God exists. “Postive Atheist” • Someone who positively asserts that God doesn’texist.

7. The Presumption of Atheism PoA: “The onus of proof must lie upon the theist” It is up to the theist to: (i) Introduce and defend her proposed concept of God (ii) Provide sufficient reason for believing that this concept does in fact have an application.

8. The Presumption of Innocence Flew compares the PoA to the legal presumption of innocence. Presumption of Innocence: • All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. • The onus of proof must lie upon the prosecution.

9. Flew claims that both the PoA and the legal presumption of innocence are procedural. He then uses the analogy to make four points: (i) In both cases, the required “proof” encompasses “any and every variety of sufficient reason”. (ii) Both presumptions are defeasible. (iii) Just because the presumptions are procedural, this doesn’t mean that it is a trivial matter whether to adopt them. (iv) Defeats of either presumption in particular cases do not show that the general presumption was a bad one.

10. The Case for the PoA (i) First Move: Acceptance of these presumptions amounts to the adoption of a policy. (ii) Second Move: • To show that we should adopt some policy, we need to show that the policy furthers some aims and goals that we have.

11. The Case for the PoA (ii) Second Move: • In the case of theistic debates, our aim is to achieve knowledge or reasonable beliefabout whether God exists. • To have a knowledgeable or reasonable belief about something, we must have sufficient reasonfor believing it. • So, we should adopt the PoA to ensure that we never arrive at an unreasonable belief that God exists.