Would you wager your salvation on that claim? That is, if God tells you, "Actually, that's not true of all atheists.", would you be willing to go to hell over it?

Atheists know God exists, they just hate Him

A lot of Atheists are naturally inquisitive. Even, no, especially as children, we questioned everything. Everything. Yes including our own beliefs. That's how we deconverted.

There is also a belief amongst Atheists that Theists are stupid.

It's not 100% universally true, of course. However, you said that thinking takes "effort" asif it hurts your brain to question things. The contrast between your claim about how hard it is to think and the fact that we naturally think...

well...

Did you believe in the existence of either of those instruments before you had seen either of them?

I had no thoughts about them before I saw them. Nobody was talking about them in my presence. If anyone had asked me "Do you believe trumpets exist?" my first response would have been "What's a trumpet?"

I don't disagree with what I quoted *except* in just one small part - "it’s just intellectually easier to pick out a few paragraphs and build a straw man, tear it down, and, well, there you go." I only disagree that it's a straw man. Certainly, there are cases where straw men are employed, but picking out specific examples of irrationality and tearing them down is not *inherently* a straw man. That's all I meant.

I have to disagree - in part - with your statement here: "That’s the problem with the Christian’s *meta*-narratives (on the one hand) and the Non-Theist’s 'as-if's' (on the other hand). The former fails to rationally inform the later because the former requires reading *entire* books. Thematic. Metanarrative. And so on. It takes real work, of course. However, it’s just intellectually easier to pick out a few paragraphs and build a straw man, tear it down, and, well, there you go."

Non-theists don't have any problem with Harry Potter, the Tao Te Ching, or even the Bible, for that matter. The problem is when the "metanarrative" tries to usurp places where it doesn't belong, where it becomes bogus. Potter has power over magical power *in the story*. A person can even take metanarratives from the story and find useful application in their lives. But the moment a person tries to pretend that *the story* has something to do with reality, he has jumped the rails. In this case, it is certainly effective to pick out a few paragraphs - no straw man needed, thank you - to tear it down. Not necessarily to tear down *the story*, but to point out the simple fact that trying to conjure fiction into reality just because you "believe in that story so much" is irrational, on its face.

The story of Noah's Flood is a religious myth. Do atheists hate religious myth? Why would they do so? Not the issue. (Though, I should note that the "moral compass" behind the metaphors of any story can certainly be highly questionable, at best, and extremely repugnant, at worst.) The issue occurs when a religious believer claims that this story is not a religious myth, but is an actually historical account told by an actual god, actually communicated/transmitted in some way to the minds of humans who wrote it down. And in that context it is precisely those religious believers who have injected the story into the sphere of critical and empirical analysis. Again, not a straw man.

Here's the short version of Paul's argument: 'This is what is true, because I said so.'

The parallel version of the Christian argument, premised on Paul's argument: 'What Paul said is true, because Paul was inspired by God.'

The entire Christian apologetic along these lines is one big circle. It's turtles all the way down.

The atheist just says that whatever claim you make, you need to back it up with credible real world evidence (evidentiary standards). And if you can't, then you don't have anything. The Christian apologetic on the other hand is premised on pure presupposition, and filled with all manner of rhetoric employed to try to justify entirely circular reasoning.

Feser acknowledges this point somewhat, when he writes, "But 'The Bible says so' is, of course, not a good argument to give someone who doesn’t accept the authority of the Bible in the first place (as the atheist does not). Nor is it a good argument to give someone who thinks you are misinterpreting the passage in question. ...the passage does not, I think, make the extreme claims Koukl seems to be attributing to it."

Of course, he still got that wrong, because in fact "The Bible says so" is not a good argument to give *anyone*. Period. But at least he shows at least some awareness of the circularity problem with the argument. (Incidentally, compare: 'The Book of Mormon says so.' 'The Qu'ran says so.' 'The Vedas say so.' Even the vast majority of Christian apologists themselves recognize the fallacy of the argument, while blinding themselves to it in the case of their own use of it.)

But then Feser backtracks: "St. Paul needs be understood as claiming merely that atheism and/or idolatry on the large scale, as mass phenomena are maintained by a kind of sinful suppression of the natural inclination in question. And I think that’s true."

And then besides merely backtracking his recognition of the fallacy of the argument, he employs a classic Christian apologist self-projection: "As I argued in a recent post, the New Atheism - not atheism in general, but the shallow, boorish, ill-informed atheism of Dawkins, Krauss, Coyne, et al., which has turned into something of a mass movement - is maintained by intellectual dishonesty, and is fundamentally motivated, not by a genuine concern for truth and rationality, but rather by the pleasure New Atheists take in feeling superior to those they caricature as irrational and ignorant. It is intellectual pride that drives the New Atheism, and that is, of course, a grave vice."

Because, of course, believing that your particular allegedly "holy" book actually comes from an actual god (despite the fact that you can't produce credible real world evidence to back this up) and employing circular reasoning to teach ideas based on that presupposition - ideas which are repeatedly proved to be false - doesn't have anything to do with intellectual arrogance. (Not to mention Feser's bogus use of the word "caricature" - since in fact we atheists are dutifully quoting the irrational and ignorant claims and arguments employed by Christian apologists everywhere precisely for the purpose of holding them up as proof-by-example of the criticisms we make - precisely because we are well aware of the tendency of Christian apologists to engage in exactly the straw man claim Feser has embedded in his statement here.)

Feser's own rhetoric shows that they don't have a clue what a "grave intellectual vice" even is.

that's your assumption!

"Why hate the word eternal?" was your question.

that's your assumption!

or: why atheists refuse to believe in eternal entities?
why atheists don't like the word eternal?
why atheists don't feel the idea about eternal entities?

if atheists don't believe in eternal entities, then, atheists should believe that a 'nothing' has creative power to do all things, including the vast universe?