I'm separating out the notes on J. L. Mackie's The Miracle of Theism and Michael Martin's Atheism: A Philosophical Justification from the massive spreadsheet called Encyclopedia of God Debate Arguments (a project I abandoned after reading Nielsen), and copying them into their own respective spreadsheets. But I'm just making copies, not deleting that spreadsheet itself.
I will probably read Martin's book verbatim at some point, even though it's a total failure with regard to actually justifying atheism. As I've said elsewhere, it's a paper tiger, and I will only narrate it for completeness in my coverage of contemporary atheism.
The strange thing is that I have a sneaking suspicion that most non-believers as well as believers are afraid to read that book.
Mackie's book, The Miracle of Theism, while it fails as an eliminator of belief in God, oddly enough, given the title, contains what I remember to be the most devastating argument ever constructed against miracles.
The point of the title is that it's a miracle anyone believes in God. That's the actual miracle of theism, according to Mackie. Most atheists avoid the book because the title sounds like it's a book arguing for belief in God.
But as I've said elsewhere, someone else is gathering the essence of these two books (as well as all others on the subject), and since I've already taken exhaustive notes on both, I will not be doing anything with those except making sure I haven't missed anything that will be valuable going forward. When I took those notes I was still in the perpetually bewildered state, and although in reading those works I became permanently mind-blown, in taking notes I was not able to remember so many valuable insights from writers of every persuasion.
I will probably read Martin's book verbatim at some point, even though it's a total failure with regard to actually justifying atheism. As I've said elsewhere, it's a paper tiger, and I will only narrate it for completeness in my coverage of contemporary atheism.
The strange thing is that I have a sneaking suspicion that most non-believers as well as believers are afraid to read that book.
Mackie's book, The Miracle of Theism, while it fails as an eliminator of belief in God, oddly enough, given the title, contains what I remember to be the most devastating argument ever constructed against miracles.
The point of the title is that it's a miracle anyone believes in God. That's the actual miracle of theism, according to Mackie. Most atheists avoid the book because the title sounds like it's a book arguing for belief in God.
But as I've said elsewhere, someone else is gathering the essence of these two books (as well as all others on the subject), and since I've already taken exhaustive notes on both, I will not be doing anything with those except making sure I haven't missed anything that will be valuable going forward. When I took those notes I was still in the perpetually bewildered state, and although in reading those works I became permanently mind-blown, in taking notes I was not able to remember so many valuable insights from writers of every persuasion.
