Atheists Arguments are Irrational

Atheists Arguments are irrational for several reasons.

1. Inductive reasoning is uncertain.
Inductive reasoning assumes a general conclusion based on specific facts or patterns. Scientists use inductive reasoning as the basis for building theories. Experiments yield results which are used to create theories that explain the results and allows for prediction of future knowledge.

Here's the problem: inductive reasoning is uncertain (yes, the implication is that science is also uncertain. gasp!)

For example, for centuries, the mainstream scholarly opinion was that black swans did not exist. Much of the world had been discovered and no evidence for black swans had been found. Thus, they inductively reasoned:

No evidence for the existence of black swans exist.
Therefore, all swans are black.

Imagine their shock when black swans were discovered in Australia in the 17th century! The discovery of black swans should have taught us to be wary of making universal assumptions and underestimating what we don't know.

Sadly, it didn't. When atheists state, "There is no God" they are engaging in same inductive based reasoning as their black swan predecessors:

No evidence for the existence of God exists.
Therefore, God does not exist.

People who insist on evidence alone for their beliefs are known as logical empiricists (aka logical positivists).

2. Logical Positivism is irrational.
Logical empiricists places high value on evidence as a confirmation for knowledge. They insist on the principle of verifiability meaning that only knowledge that can be proven true or false - by the evidence - is meaningful. In other words, empirical verifiability is the ultimate truth standard and any possibility not represented by the evidence is rejected out of hand.

I've often heard logical empiricists state with great pomp, "I have no beliefs! Only facts as proven by the evidence!"

Yet, despite their belief in the truth of their own statement, sustaining a logical empiricist position is difficult, if not impossible, since it is based on inductive reasoning and, hence, uncertainty and assumption.

Logical empiricists don't seem to understand that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Moreover, logical positivism is self-contradictory. Since the principle of verifiability itself cannot be emperically proven true or false by means of experience, then, logical positivism can not be meaningful either.

For these and other reasons logical empiricism has been replaced by other philosophical methodologies despite the fact that academics - especially the sciences - still teach this weak approach. In my opinion, , it has lead many a young and brilliant mind astray.

In its attempt to produce free thinkers, academia has unwittingly produced limited thinkers.

3. Biased Interpretation
A person who is limited in their thinking is biased in their interpretation of the evidence. Many limited thinkers believe they are unbiased, but, in reality, they are anything but.

Consider this statement by Richard Dawkins:

"You cannot be both sane and well educated and disbelieve in evolution. The evidence is so strong that any sane, educated person has got to believe in evolution."

See what I mean? Dawkins sets up a false dilemma (a logical fallacy, by the way) that limits the conclusion to one of two possible outcomes: Believe in evolution or risk insanity and ignorance. Because he can imagine no other scenario, Dawkins goes on to say:

"Now there are plenty of sane, educated, religious people: there are professors of theology, and there are bishops ... and so obviously they all believe in evolution or they wouldn't have gotten where they have because they would be too stupid or too ignorant. So, it is a fact that there are evolutionists who are religious and there are religious people who are evolutionists."

It's this kind of constrained reasoning that lead me away from logical positivism taught in school, to support a different methodology based on skeptical empiricism meaning that theories resulting from experiments are just one of possbily several interpretations of the evidence and is not exhaustive of all other possibilities.

For example, the arguments from natural theology, in my mind, make a far more compelling case for the Universe's existence brought about by a Supreme Rational Mind than mere random chance as atheists promote. Could my interpretation be incorrect? Of course. But, I certainly don't constrain or force my reasoning to fit my bias and I don't make statements like:

"You cannot be both sane and well educated and disbelieve in God. The evidence is so strong that any sane, educated person has got to believe in God."

I realize that people can be both educated and sane, yet, still disbelieve in God.

Conclusion
If anything my bias for clear and rational thinking biases me against atheism. As as student of logic, I can't and won't allow myself to to erect a worldview based on the uncertainly of inductive reasoning. I'm not saying that that inductive reasoning is inherently flawed and leads to bad thinking. On the contrary, inductive reasoning has lead to advances in medicine, technology, and science.

Inductive logic can be a very good thing.

What I am saying is that we need to be critical of our thinking processes to mitigate the slide into logical empiricism and biased interpretation which can and does happen as evidenced by the intellectual weakness of the atheistic position. In my opinion, atheism is an illogical position to maintain.