H. J Mccloskey On Being An Atheist Essay

After reading H.J. McCloskey’s article entitled “On Being an Atheist”, I believe that the main point he was trying to make was atheism is a more reasonable and comfortable belief compared to that of the Christian faith. There were three different proofs from which McCloskey attempted to build his case. The three proofs that he used were the cosmological argument, the theological argument, and the argument for design. McCloskey also brought up in his article the problem of evil in the world and he even went as far as to claim that it is not rational to live by faith. McCloskey claimed that proofs do not necessarily bring people to a belief in God. He stated in his article, “ most thesis do not come to believe in God as a basis for religious belief, but come to religion as a result of some other reason or factor.” (McCloskey 1968) However he made it clear that he believes that the three most commonly accepted proofs by theist are the cosmological argument, the theological argument and the argument for

Now at this point it is important to understand that McCloskey did at least consider these arguments as reasons that move ordinary theist to theism. (McCloskey 1968). This is not always the case with people and by actually considering these proofs as reasons that move ordinary theist to theism he contradicted the previous statement he made where he claimed that all theists do not hold to these proofs. So it would seem that any attempt to try and debate or use these arguments as reasons to not believe in God would simply be a waste of time. So why would McCloskey want to dispute or debate these arguments if theist according to him already do not hold these arguments as reasons for their faith? It would seem that his motives were not pure and all he wanted to do was start a fight and answer questions that no one was interested in to begin with. This article seems to be very objective