The A-Unicornist

I often roll my eyes when atheists indulge "sophisticated" theological arguments. There's a belief among some atheists that Dawkins and other "new atheists" didn't engage with religious philosophy seriously enough, and that there needs to be a newer, better dressed atheism that indulges in the purportedly more nuanced and complex arguments for theism.   The problem is that without exception, every "sophisticated" argument for theism I've ever seen is couched in the same bad assumptions as the less-sophisticated ones. There is no such thing as a sophisticated philosophical argument that is based on (to name a few) Aristotelian metaphysics, substance dualism, unembodied minds, or transcendent causation. All of these concepts are absurd and false.   It's not that I don't think we should talk to theists at all; absolutely we should. But we should be very careful about the framing of the questions and be quick to identify spurious assumption

I follow an atheist page on Facebook that talks all the time about how certain Christian apologists make "sophisticated" and "rational" arguments for God's existence that should be taken Very Seriously by atheists. Take a moment to consider the sheer absurdity of Christian apologetics on the issue of God's existence, particularly regarding the notion among philosophy/theology enthusiasts that Christian theologians can make "sophisticated" arguments for God's existence, and that these arguments are generally inaccessible to those who are not versed in the esoteric conceptual lingo of academic philosophy and theology.   Why is that absurd? Because it means that ivory-tower Christians are literally conjuring up all these complex, convoluted rationales intended to substantiate the claim that the central thing the entire religion is about - the very deity on which the entire religious practice is centered around - EXISTS. Not "matters to every

In case you've never read anything I've written on philosophy or religion over the last six or seven years, George Lakoff and the field of cognitive linguistics - specifically the concept of conceptual metaphor - has been radically influential in my thinking.   This isn't a conjecture; this is an active field of scientific research bolstered by strong empirical evidence. I think understanding cognitive science is important, because it underscores an essential concept that undermines a great deal of traditional philosophy: you cannot know the structure of your own mind through self-reflection. Just like you can't study the foundation of your house from inside your living room, we have to look at minds empirically to understand their structure. And how do we study the structure of the mind, and of reasoning itself? By studying language! Hence the field "cognitive linguistics." Why's this important? Take someone like Aristotle. His metaphysics are taken to be