“If he (an Atheist) can’t defend his view on the same terms that he asks that theism be defended, then he has not made a case that his view is superior.”
A very good point.
In his “Miracle of Theism”, Mackie discusses the idea that people might believe in God without any rational reason. In fact, he discusses a few ideas under that heading, asking whether fideism (belief without reason) can be an intellectually respectable position.
My position, like Mackie’s, is that it cannot. In fact, I want to do Mackie one better and say that “just because I believe” is not an intellectually respectable position regardless of the content of that belief.
Mackie, it seems, is only interested in this question as it relates to theism. It never seems to occur to him that, if one must give a reason for one’s beliefs, then materialists, neutral monists, non-reductive naturalists, and other non-theists must also defend their views.
It is, I would say, the general approach of the non-theist to appeal to his/her views as a sort of default position, a thing not to…
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