My original point was an attempt to demonstrate why the popular argument for athiesm - namely to analogize belief in God with belief in Santa Claus (or the tooth fairy or whatever) - was a bad argument; namely that it was childishly insulting and that it seriously failed to address the actual import of religious belief, and thus would not prove convincing (except to those suceptable to brow-beating).
I was then challenged to come up with a better argument; the above was my attempt.
Okay, well I don’t know. I find all such arguments to be rather infantile. I think there’s a difference between being an atheist and being ignorant of theism. There are some atheists who actually have a good grasp of theistic concepts and are able to articulate them without resorting to all this allegorical miasma.
For me the best argument an atheist can possibly make is that it is possible that God does not exist. That is the most difficult assertion to defeat, but I think that the case against it, after all things are considered, is stronger than the case for it. If it could not be defeated, then the results would be devastating because the only possible conclusion one could then draw is that God does not exist in actuality.
Speaking of “a difference between being an atheist and being ignorant of theism,” here is an excellent example of the latter.
I do. Santa Claus is a fat bearded man who lives at the North Pole. I absolutely believe that.
I also don’t think there’s any such person.
There really is an important disanalogy between what you’re saying about Santa and what you’re saying about God. Most of us theists think Santa is a bearded man, and most of us theists think God is not a bearded man. But your analogy relied on a purported fact that people in general think Santa is not a bearded man just as people in general do not think God is a bearded figure.
So I’m going to throw you a bone. 
What you’re looking for is an analogy between the person who comes to realize that if God is a bearded figure, he doesn’t exist, and the person who comes to realize that if Santa is a bearded figure, he doesn’t exist. The latter person might be told by his parents something like “Okay, we admit it, there’s no fat man at the North Pole. But Santa is real–he lives in your heart!” We might have an opinion as to whether this line should be swallowed. Similarly, a person who had thought God was a bearded figure might have been told, or reasoned for himself, “Okay, there’s no man living in the sky, but God is real–he lives in my heart!”
Well, “God lives in your heart” is not a central Christian claim, though it is compatible with Christian theology on certain interpretations and is a kind of phraseology you sometimes hear in some Christian circles.
Also, there have probably been very few people who ever went from thinking God is a quasi-physical human-like figure to thinking he was not. (Some have. Converts from mormonism would go through such a process. Others as well.) The analogy wouldn’t really be between children thinking about Santa and persons thinking about God, but rather, between children thinking about Santa and religious communities deciding/realizing things together about God. Which adds another layer of stretch to the analogy, as well as inviting historical refutation.
But anyway, I’m just saying I think an analogy like this is the kind you’re really fumbling after. I’m not convinced it’s an analogy that couldn’t be made to seem to work, at least, with some work.
-FrL-
Point of disagreement. When I mention “Santa” I mean Santa. When I want to mean Santa’s image, I mention “Santa’s image.”
Santa is a bearded man in a red suit who lives at the north pole. That sentence is true, just as true as the sentence “Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen.” It’s a true sentence, and it’s a sentence about Santa Claus–who just happens to be a fictional character.
-FrL-
The OP’s point can be made without reference to God as a bearded man living in the sky. That was an unfortunate choice on the OP’s part.
You can read “image of God” however you like. The image some people have of God is that of a human being. (Mormonism believes this literally.) The image some people have of God is that of a transcendant entity which can not be described in physical terms, but which can be described in personal terms. Don’t let the word “image” force you to think in visual terms. For “image,” perhaps, read “concept” instead.
Just as children take the concept of Santa to be an actually instantiated concept of a bearded man in a red suit, so theists take the concept of God to be an actually instantiated concept of (insert image/concept*) here. But the concept of Santa is not actually instantiated–the concept’s value is not in its actually referring to anything, but rathe in the aid it gives to children’s minds in organizing their attitudes toward certain ethical realities. Similarly (the analogy goes) the concept of God is not actually instantiated–the concept’s value is not in its actually referring to anything, but rather, in the aid it gives human minds in organizing their attitudes toward certain very significant moral and metaphysical realities.
-FrL-
For example, my own image of God could be formulated as follows: God is the ground of being, the ur-life, the perfect (and only) way of existence, inhabiting both cosmic and the personal scales of reality (and probably others). Not a very precise formulation but we’re talking about God here, cut me some slack. I’m just illustrating the fact that we shouldn’t be misled by the term “image” in the OP’s analogy. (The OP shouldn’t have been misled by the term either.)
I am afraid I have deceived you. this wasn’t so much a challenge as it was a lesson, one I learned when I tried to take this exact same path in framing the question many times before. It doesn’t matter how you frame this question, most (but not all) theists will either nitpick the thing to death, claim it isn’t a valid question, or claim that it is an insulting question to ask in the first place. Those weak in faith will try two out of three, and those who wear their Bibles on their sleeves might even go for the trifecta.
No matter how you phrase it, you are comparing the basis for their morals and ethics to a myth. That is why they feel insulted, and that is why they think it isn’t a proper question to ask.
By the way, I can’t actually find an argument per se in the OP, or in my restatement of it in my previous post.
What’s the argument supposed to be?
-FrL-
Probably a query related to the one in my previous post: What’s the question supposed to be?
-FrL-
I always thought that the proper formulation of the Santa Claus argument was a question of evidence, rather than some sort of analogy about beards. If you happen to have been catered to as a child by parents who told you that some gifts you had recieved were given by Santa Claus, then you had at least as good evidence that Santa Claus existed as the theist did/does that God existed, for most or all theists. The question would be why it is reasonable for a child to stop believing in Santa Claus but not for the theist to stop believing in God; after all, once you grant Santa that Santa is magical, there is no evidence against him.
In short, it’s an attempt to highlight special pleading. Or at least that’s how I figured the argument went.
I was wondering this myself!
It’s more of a survey than an argument:
‘Theists, is the following effective and less offensive than the usual Santa/God analogy?’
But the OP calls it an argument, both in the title and in the body of the post.
I can think of a few ways to read an argument into the post, but I want to know which is the intended argument.
-FrL-
Nevertheless, it is an argument by analogy, isn’t it? Even if you happen to think the analogy is a particularly strong or deep one.
You’re separating religion from God, it seems. Or you should. Not here so much but in the real world I see lots of articles with the implied theme that churchgoers live longer, so religion is good, so god exists. The proposition that churchgoers live longer is testable, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. But this has no bearing at all on the existence of god, unless there were a claim that god infuses churches with life extending radiation or something.
But now I’m a bit confused if you’re saying that God belief is deeper than Santa belief (which I agree with) or that Santa belief is deeper than Santa belief.
Needless to say atheists don’t think God is a bearded figure either.
Well, actually what I was doing was to ask people to give poor Malthus a break, since I very much doubted that he actually thought of god as a bearded figure, and was using the image as a stand-in.
For the rest I agree with you in a sense. I could see a parent saying Santa lives in your heart. However, we’ve had many theists posting here who say God lives in the universe, and not as an entity. That appears to be an option for those who accept the lack of evidence for a traditional god but who feel the need for a god concept. It is definitely not a Christian concept, but it is one of many theistic ones.
If you parse your sentence
[Santa is] [a bearded man in a red suit who lives at the north pole.] I agree it is true. However if you parse it
[Santa is a bearded man in a red suit ] [ who lives at the north pole.]
then it isn’t. No bearded man in a red suit lives at the north pole. Santa is the concept of such a thing though. Anyhow, I acknowledge you understand the difference, but I doubt the majority of the public does.
That’s exactly the origin of the IPU argument. I can speculate that the IPU was invented to eliminate the cultural baggage of Santa. I can see the antipathy to equating God with a child’s fantasy. The IPU had no such baggage, but she wasn’t treated any better.
One side is asking that we view a subject as myth or possible myth. The other side, by necessity of devout belief, views this approach as demeaning and/or insulting. As far as I can tell, this impasse cannot be breached.
I have bolded what I think is the impasse. Suppose it were worded this way:
One side, because of blind hostility, is asking that we view a subject as myth or possible myth. The other side views this approach as demeaning and/or insulting.Are you simply incapable of dropping the jugmentalism from your questions and comparisons? Not that you ever listen, but I’ve told you repeatedly that I DO NOT CARE whether you believe in God. That’s entirely up to you. Why can’t you simply extend that same courtesy? Why must I be an atheist in order not to be everything from delusional to brain damaged? You are digging a chasm and complaining that there is no bridge.