Is Believing in God a Matter of Blind Faith?

Despite what many atheists believe, there are actually very sophisticated arguments for the existence of God. So good, in fact, that some of the top atheists in the world are impressed. (Not so impressed that they become theists, but still quite impressed.) For example, Dr. Quentin Smith (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Western Michigan University) writes that if the average atheist (i.e. naturalist) debated the average theist philosopher, the atheist (naturalist) would probably lose every single debate.
 

If each naturalist [atheist] who does not specialize in the philosophy of religion (i.e., over ninety-nine percent of naturalists) were locked in a room with theists who do specialize in the philosophy of religion, and if the ensuing debates were refereed by a naturalist who had a specialization in the philosophy of religion, the naturalist referee could at most hope the outcome would be that ‘no definite conclusion can be drawn regarding the rationality of faith,’ although I expect the most probable outcome is that the naturalist, wanting to be a fair and objective referee, would have to conclude that the theists definitely had the upper hand in every single argument or debate.

Short Blog: Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?

Reference

Quentin Smith, “Metaphilosophy of Naturalism,” Philo 4, no. 2 (Fall-Winter 2001): 195–215.