Argument: Zweifel und Glaube sind Äquvalente. Das Bezweifeln eines Standpunktes weist auf die Bevorzugung eines anderen hin.
Timothy Keller nennt einige Beispiele für die Denkvoraussetzungen eines Mannes, der als Atheist begann, seine Kirche in New York zu besuchen (in Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Sceptical, 38-40):
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Meeting a real atheist who was not an immoral, unhappy misanthrope.
Dahinter liegende Denkvoraussetzung: This doubt is based on the implicit belief that religious people are saved by God because of their goodness and morality. -
Witnessing a good and faithful believer suffer horribly for no good reason.
Dahinter liegende Denkvoraussetzung: This doubt stems from a belief that if we human beings can’t discern a sufficient reason for an act of God, then there can’t be any. -
Witnessing corruption or hypocrisy in a religious institution. This might be the most warranted basis for doubting the truth of a particular faith.
Dahinter liegende Denkvoraussetzung: But my friend realized that the moral standards he was using to judge hypocritical believers came mainly from Christianity itself. -
Realizing the basic unfairness of the doctrines of hell and salvation.
Dahinter liegende Denkvoraussetzung: This doubt, my friend said, largely came from the underlying beliefs of his culture. He had a Chinese friend who did not believe in God, but who said that, if he existed, God certainly would have a right to judge people as he saw fit. -
An unanswerable contradiction or error in the Scripture.
Dahinter stehende Denkvoraussetzung: This doubt, my friend said, was based on a belief that all religious believers had a naive, uncritical trust in the Bible.
