Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Steve Hays' Invisible Friend

Steve Hays of Triablogue is frustrated. He's upset because atheists liken Jesus or Yahweh to an invisible friend. In spite of his hurt feelings, his attempts to recover his worldview from this comparison are pretty flimsy. In fact, instead of serving to advance his position, Hays’ points only tend to backfire.

As is his customary procedure, Hays seeks to turn the tables on those dastardly atheists he has in mind by pointing to a series of would-be foils which, on a good day with ample hallucinogens, might suggest that the atheist’s “mocking” is out of line. On a more sober reading, however, Hays’ whole post comes across as a rather juvenile “I’ll show you!” outburst which quickly collapses under its own weight. It’s nothing epic, unless of course we consider the fail factor.

Before going any further (full disclosure alert), I’ll point out for readers that this is not the first time the notion of imaginary friends has come up on Incinerating Presuppositionalism. Back in the summer of 2006, I posted an entry titled Christianity: The Imaginary Friend’s Network, which readers are invited to read at their leisure.