Response Paper on On Being an Atheist, by H. J. McCloskey From a Essay

Response Paper on On Being an Atheist, by H. J. McCloskey From a Christian Viewpoint - Essay Example While to some this position on face value may seem to have credibility, a careful analysis of the theories from a Christian perspective shows his arguments lacking. The first thing that strikes is McCloskey’s choice of beginning his discourse with a usual and chronically pleading argument that would appear to make sense and put the entire onus of â€Å"believing† or of â€Å"faith† on a human need to want to believe, rather than a spiritual analysis of why we do. McCloskey puts forth that many theists take the position that â€Å"atheism is a cold, comfortless position,†1, and quotes one Christian as saying, â€Å"It’s harder if you don’t believe in God.† 2 McCloskey’s argument, which he extracts totally from this position, is a tired one at best, tied to a humanistic era [the 1960s] that overly promoted, at the exclusion of the spiritual founded in the intellectual, the concept of science, be it the science of human psychology or otherwise. â€Å"Proof† is the buzzword, a strange choice since proof of this overriding human need to feel comfortable in an uncomfortable world has neve r been proven, but is itself founded on the â€Å"discoveries† suggested by psychologists and sociologists and hardly based in solid scientific irrefutable fact. Much of McCloskey’s so called scientific approach falls far short of anything resembling proof. Consider McCloskey’s cosmological argument as examined by Privette (2009). â€Å"McCloskey argued that the cosmological argument was an argument from the existence of the world, as we know it.    He stated that believing in an uncaused first cause of the universe is a problem because nothing about our universe forces us to that conclusion.†3 I agree with Privette and would use the following argument, as she has, with a few of my own thoughts added on the concept of contingencies. If