Perhaps one of the greatest ironies of atheistic apologetics is that the atheists with the most intelligent things to say so rarely bother to say them. You would think, especially from a group that so readily boasts of their reasoning capabilities would put their best to the front, but as is the case with humanity in general, "A fool has no delight in understanding, But in expressing his own heart." (Proverbs 18:2).
Few examples of this rival the popular atheist website "Godisimaginary.com". This website claims "It is easy to prove to yourself that God is imaginary. The evidence is all around you. Here are 50 simple proofs:", which is followed by a barrage of links to the site's main articles. Hilariously, these are not limited to the 50 so-called proofs, but even to 17 "bonus" proofs... which are just remixes of the previous 50.
Ironically, the site is so desperate to reach 50 proofs that the "proofs" themselves are separated into multiple variants. Arguments 1, 2, 9, 10, 34, 41, 44, and 48, for example, are all attempts to criticise prayer on the basis that it "doesn't work". And other articles keep referencing back to these same claims. How strange. One would think, if there were so many proofs that God is imaginary, they could fill a site like this without having to split them up.
The irony is, if there were any simple "proofs", you would not need many simple "proofs". Even one is enough to convince a rational person. As an author and apologist myself, I tend to go with the rule of three. That is, while I occasionally give just one example to make a point, I will rarely give more than 3, no matter how many there are. For example, I could give many examples of atheists who have flat out admitted that there is no evidence that would be sufficient to convince them there is a God. But for sake of argument, I only need to name Richard Dawkins, Peter Atkins, and Bart Ehrman. These are three atheists who have admitted they would explain away even something as convincing as God personally appearing to them.
See how easy that was for me? I could go into more detail on each example (and have done so for Dawkins and Atkins). And if it was necessary to make my point, I would do so in the relevant article. I would not present "50 proofs that atheism is delusional", then write 8 separate articles on atheists rejecting evidence. It would all go in one article. Yet God Is Imaginary has 8 different articles attacking prayer - even with identical examples like "pray for God to cure cancer" - and frames this as 8 simple proofs that God is imaginary!
But even if we were to merge them all together, the resulting article would still fail to qualify as proof that God is imaginary. This is because, to begin with, rational people distinguish between "proof" and "evidence". A standard definition of "proof" would be, as found in Collins Dictionary, "a fact, argument, or piece of evidence which shows that something is definitely true or definitely exists." Evidence, by contrast, is somewhat weaker. It is "anything that you see, experience, read, or are told that causes you to believe that something is true or has really happened." But as much as the most vocal atheists talk about "proof" and "evidence", they rarely seem to use these standard definitions.
See, when I talk about, for example, the Hittites, I always know they are not proof that the Bible is truly the word of God. If I was ever to make such a foolish claim as "here is a proof that the Bible is the word of God", whatever argument follows this statement must logically, and exclusively, lead to the conclusion "therefore, the Bible is the word of God". However, the Hittites are only evidence of this, not proof. If the Bible is true, then the Hittites existed (and if the Hittites did not exist, the Bible is not true). Whereas the absence of evidence for the Hittites was previously used as an argument that the Bible is not true, we rediscovered them in 1906. This, however, does not mean the Bible is definitely true. It is consistent with it, and is therefore evidence, but not proof.
Think of it this way: Wet clothes are evidence that a water fight has occurred. They are not, however, proof, simply because there are other conclusions that may be reasonably drawn. It may be raining outside. The person may have fallen into a pond, or a river. Perhaps a car has gone past a puddle at high speed, drenching them. By contrast, the absence of wet clothes is not necessarily evidence that the water fight never occurred. There are other possibilities. Perhaps the person was not directly involved. Perhaps they were so skilled that they never actually got hit. More than likely, if enough time has passed since the fight, the person either got changed, or even dried out.
In order to fulfill its stated aims, God Is Imaginary must present at least one "simple proof" that God is imaginary. Because it uses the term "proof", there cannot be other reasonable conclusions. If "God is imaginary" is one conclusion, but there are reasonable explanations, the site has failed, and should either remove the failing articles, or change their stated goals.
As is common with atheists, the God Is Imaginary site has a particular axe to grind with the God of the Bible. It equivocates terms like "God" and "religion" frequently, but the God of the Bible stands out. It doesn't seem remotely concerned with other gods, and certainly not to the extent of the Biblical God. For that reason, I will extend this charity to the site: Some of the arguments, if they were based on true premises, would establish the non-existence of the Biblical God. If, for example, Evolution was true, then the Biblical God does not exist. This is because Evolution is fundamentally incompatible with both the word of God, and with the character of the God described within its pages. There is no sensible way to reconcile the two. Now of course, I'm going to contend that it is the premises of those arguments that are faulty, but if they were true, then the necessary conclusion is that Christianity is false.
But the vast majority of the arguments on the site do not even come close to this. The aforementioned attacks on prayer, for example, not only fail to prove God is imaginary, but insist upon misrepresenting Him. Remember, we have established that if there are other equally/more reasonable interpretations of evidence, the argument falls short of being proof. Note the conclusion of the first article:
"Therefore, one of two things must be happening:
• God is imaginary.
• God does exist, but he never answers prayers. Unfortunately, God is defined by the Bible to be a prayer-answering being. The contradiction between the reality of God and the definition of God proves that God is imaginary."
So, already, the article admits there is another possibility: God exists, but never answers prayers. This would still be a valid argument that the Biblical God does not exist, but not that God does not exist. But there is a third, more reasonable answer: God exists, and does answer prayers, but He does so as described in Scripture, not as He is imagined to according to the site's reckless handling of Scripture.
Now, much like our water fight analogy, if God truly didn't exist, then He would not answer any prayer. Thus, a single unanswered prayer is evidence that God does not exist. However, it is not proof, as there are other reasonable explanations.
The first article on prayer does try its absolute hardest to present God as a genie with no wish limit. It cites Scripture, and even polls which show more than half of Americans believe Scripture is "literally true". But while the article cites a great many verses wherein God promises to answer prayer, it conveniently neglects the equally numerous Scriptures that tell us He has the absolute, irrevocable right not to. It points to Matthew 7:7, where Jesus tells us we should ask, and will receive, because our Father knows how to give us good gifts, but it makes no mention of James 4:3, which tells us we won't receive an answer if we ask amiss (which, it should be noted, every example prayer on the site is). It cites Matthew 17:20, where Jesus says prayer can throw a mountain into the sea if one only has the faith of a mustard seed, but it fails to note that Jesus was notorious for using hard to understand figures of speech, such that His disciples were amazed when He finally spoke plainly to them (John 16:29). I don't even know how they get away with that, given that faith, being a non-physical concept, can in no way resemble a mustard seed except metaphorically.
So that's just two examples. It cites two Scriptures about God answering prayer, insists that this must be taken literally and with no qualification, and then suggests that since God doesn't answer every prayer in exactly the way it is prayed regardless of who prays it or why, God must be imaginary.
Three things make this worse. The first is that even without reading the Bible, it should be quite obvious how frail the logic is. It's like claiming Mike Tyson is a terrible boxer because he won't fight you. You can call him out, he probably won't get in the ring with you. You can ask his friend to call him out on your behalf, he probably still won't give you the time of day. In the same way, an atheist praying "God, please cure cancer" for the entirely selfish motive of proving He exists (and having the cheek to pretend it's an unselfish prayer, since curing cancer is a good thing) isn't, according to Scripture, going to warrant an answer. And if a Christian prays it? Then the Christian's prayer takes on the selfish motive of the atheist!
The second thing that makes it worse is one of the bonus articles. "Understand the Bible's ambiguity". This links to a different website. Now, I have tried multiple times, in multiple browsers, to access this article, but if it even still exists, I can't get it. However, from the URL, I can see the title is probably "understand that the Bibles ambiguity makes the Bible meaningless".
I can make two assumptions here. The first, which would be the more charitable one, is that it makes the case that if Christians must explain what Scripture says, then Scripture is not clear enough. This is something Christian apologists say to Muslims when they constantly have to explain away the violent passages in the Qur'an, and so I can assume this is what would have been in the article.
If this is the case, I would simply reply with there's a difference between reading and studying. More often than not, as I did above, Christians have to explain what the Bible says because when atheists read one page, they assume they don't have to read the next two, whereas Christians like me, who have read it cover to cover on more than one occasion, know that a verse on page 1 may completely change the interpretation of page 3. This is just a natural way of reading, by the way. If you read the U.S. Constitution, you're going to find that it prohibits alcohol, but you're also going to find that it repeals this prohibition. You're a dunce if you deny that prohibition happened, and you're a dunce if you assert that it's still happening. In the same way, note how I corrected the atheist's interpretations of the verses they cited by citing verses they either don't know, or don't want to know exist.
Alternatively, it is possible the atheist genuinely believes the common lie that the Bible is genuinely too ambiguous to understand. In this case, even the verses on prayer are too ambiguous, and thus citing them can never be a valid argument against them.
With either possibility, the atheist is ultimately out of line. On the one hand, they contradict themselves (which, ironically, is another argument they use to claim God is imaginary), claiming that the Bible is too ambiguous to be useful while being so perspicuous that it says what they want it to say, and no amount of context can sort that out. On the other hand, they flat out resist correction.
But the third way the atheist makes it worse is that in proof 32, the atheist imagines a scenario in which Chris speaks to a theologian named Norm, who gives him the exact response I have in this article. He writes Norm as a wishy-washy con artist who throws out ad hoc explanations for why prayer doesn't work, but he even uses the words "I said God answers prayers, not that he is a cosmic genie." In other words, not only does the argument against prayer not work, but the atheist is fully aware of this fact. Now, what is it called when we present, as true, that which we know to be false? Where I come from, we call this a lie.
When I began this article, I actually wanted to write it as the beginning of a series. Not that I wanted to write 50 responses, as I have neither the patience, nor the will to sideline other planned Bible Brain projects, to do so. But I did want to merge all the variant arguments together and show that the site is subpar, to say the least. But honestly, I don't even think I needed to put as much effort in as I have. I may, if my audience demands, write more in response to the site, but in truth, even reading one of the articles makes me stare at my screen in amazement.
In truth, as abysmal as the arguments from prayer are, I probably chose the best representative "proofs". Other arguments amount to "I don't like God", "Christians are jerks", and, shockingly, "atheism is true, therefore Christianity is false". I don't even want to touch argument 43, just read it, but have a therapist on standby, because you will suffer a severe existential crisis knowing you are the same species as the person who wrote it (keeping in mind, AI was nowhere near as advanced back then, so it must have been a human). If there is a high enough demand, I will write more in the future, but for now, I will conclude with this: If "God is imaginary because He is not a genie" is a logical argument in your eyes, then "intelligent atheists are imaginary because this site exists" is logical in mine.