Why Atheism?

Regarding Bandoli's somewhat amusing piece, "Why Atheism?", I in all honesty can't provide much of a rebuttal. It doesn't deserve one in my opinion. The author argues by assertion throughout the entire piece, and even then his assertions and claims are way too broad and generalized to be worth the time it would take to straighten them out. A few examples: "And they have failed for two millennia to produce even one tiny piece of evidence (or slightest probability) for their claim. It is time to grow up and live in the real world." No, I suppose the arguments advanced by, say, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Ockham, Descartes, Leibniz, etc. don't count as evidence. These great thinkers may or may not have provided proof of God's existence, but their arguments can obviously be considered as pieces of evidence to varying degrees of strength and weakness. "A quick glance at the bloody history of the Christian Church and their representatives, it become obvious that the Church certainly hasn't deserved any respect from anyone. Everywhere wars have been waged, where there were burning, ravaging and spilling of innocent blood, the Christian Church was present. And always taking part on the side of the strong and mighty against the poor and weak." No documentation, no citing of authoritative historians familiar with the history (2,000 years!) of the Christian Church. It'd be just as easy for me to assert that it's obvious the Christian Church deserves respect from everyone, and that anytime wars were present the Church was there to help the poor and weak against the strong and mighty. The first problem with addressing pieces like this in detail is that by doing so one gives (the perhaps unintended) indication that the claims being made are worth taking seriously. The author's aren't. I don't think for a moment that even a Dan Barker or a Farrell Till would throw out such a blanket, categorical declaration like "the Christian Church has taken the side of the strong in every war since its founding". The second problem one runs into with such general pieces is that because of the level and sophistication of the arguments being advanced, one is almost inevitably forced to respond in a similarly generalized fashion. I'm not suggesting that any worthwhile argument be grounded in supreme clarity and analytical-philosophy type rigor, but some level of details and specificity must be present to achieve a worthwhile dialectic. Bandoli lacks specificity. His work is more to be compared to diarrhea than dialectic.

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