The Lamp Post

Atheism is irrational.  I think I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that atheism is truly irrational.  That seems like a bold claim, I know, but let me give it a try. First we need to define the term.  Atheism literally is a claim that there is no God.  This is distinct from agnosticism which claims, "we don't know" when it comes to God.  Sometimes the term anti-theism is used, which is like agnosticism but goes further to claim that all the evidence points away from the existence of God.  Let's first deal with atheism proper. Atheism is Irrational The issue here is one of epistemology, the study of how we know things.  In order to know there is no God one would have to have knowledge of his non-existence.  As an analogy, if I claimed there are no aliens, I would have to have knowledge that there is no other intelligent life in the universe.  Since I do not know this, and certainly cannot produce evidence that there is no alien life out there, it is not ratio