Critical Analysis of McCloskey’s Arguement in "On Being an Athiest"

In this response, the author would like to state he is a Christian and finds the chapter to be very difficult to read. The chapter, “On Being an Atheist”, can be very convincing if the reader is not strong in their beliefs. Being a new Christian for over a year, the author of this response wants to make a statement that the spiritual warfare Christians believe in, has taken place this week. Atheist believes in no God. Therefore, they would not believe such spiritual warfare exists.

The author of this response would like to state that the arguments could not be proofs. Nothing can be 100% proven. To state something is a proof when it does not prove anything but cause arguments, is a fallacy. McCloskey believes the arguments individually cannot make a case for God. In lesson 18, the cumulative case was presented. The Cumulative case takes the Cosmological, Teleological, and Moral Arguments and puts them altogether. The Cosmological case makes claim for a creator. The Teleological case is the intelligent and the Moral case is the personal and morally prefect. Altogether, this makes the Cumulative case state; a personal, moral, intelligent creator of the universe is the best explanation for the universe we experience. The second half comes from the Best Explanation Approach. It states, the existence of God is the best explanation for the effects we observe in the universe. This also comes from lesson 18.

McCloskey’s claim, that the “mere existence of the world constitutes no reason for believing in such a being.” It is this author’s opinion; God could not exist because of the existence of the world. The cause of the universe must be necessary. “Many versions of the cosmological argument d...

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...nd the non-Christians lose all there treasure here on earth. The author means that Christians store up treasure in Heaven giving them their eternity and that is all they have to lose. Yes, they still have houses, money, and physical possessions but they live on daily bread, they do not spend crazy amounts of money like buying a car that is more expensive. All a car is good for is going from point a to point b. If there is, no God that means everything has any purpose. Therefore why live, why have kids, why work if we are all going to die.

In conclusion, my beliefs are there is a God and everything has a purpose. Everything created and designed by God is to fulfill that purpose. The arguments do not claim there is a God individually but altogether they make a claim for God. McCloskey stated his views and had few valid and many invalid statements