Who's the Real Skeptic?
As I note here , when George H. Smith, in Atheism: The Case Against God , constructed a dialogue between a skeptic and an antiskeptic, the theist was the skeptic. That may be counterintuitive, but it shouldn't be. Smith explains that many theists, including career theologians, are happy to present what look like reason-based arguments for God for as long as they can. But as soon as they run into the wall of logic, as inevitably they must, they will abandon -- nay, turn against -- reason and become open skeptics. (The best ones, after pushing reason as far as they can, then proclaim the limit of reason without actually rejecting it. Aquinas and Maimonides come to mind.) I think it was philosopher Antony Flew who said that theists treat debates with atheists like a tennis game in which the net is dropped when it's their turn to hit the ball. Just so. When beaten by reason, those theists will demand that atheists prove that it is efficacious. They will even have the audacity to as