Evidence II: Russell's Tea Pot

There is a hope that becoming an atheist solves many philosophical problems and that the solutions proposed by atheism do not create any greater difficulties.  A popular atheist argument is known as Russell's tea pot.  Bertrand Russell argued he could assert that there was a tea pot some place between Mars and Earth so small that no telescope could detect it.  And given this assertion, no one would be required to believe in the tea pot, because there is no real evidence, just assertion.  Notice, however, that the tea pot cannot be shown not to exist.

This argument is designed to show that if a thing cannot be proven or disproven to exist, the burden of proof falls upon those who assert its existence.  Hence, because God cannot be proven or disproven, the Christians, who assert his existence, must show that he exists.  But they cannot, so the atheist is acting only sensibly.

If you say this argument is wrong, then every assertion is true until proven false.  You must believe in unicorns, UFOs, and telekinesis, because we cannot disprove these things.  Or, at least, if you believe in God, you have no recourse to say that such things do not exist, because you believe in an equally unproven thing.

The weakness of this argument is apparent in its assumptions.  A sensible person, it argues, is one that does not believe anything until evidence is presented.  Yet what could be a more fragile assertion than love?  To be completely sensible, love becomes a contractual agreement, in which true love is measured by how certain requirements are met.  Love is reduced to its components, and if not verifiable, it is delusional.  To embrace Russell's argument is to give up on love itself.  But love does not hit at the heart of most atheists, who often believe that free thinking is the greatest human virtue.  And besides, maybe love is the exception; love without a little delusion is no fun.

The strongest assertion of Russell's argument is that we can logically deduce reality from evidence, and that this deductive reasoning is true.  In a word, he asserts we have intelligence.  But one may ask the question, what evidence do we have for intelligence?  How do we tell the difference between sanity and insanity?  We can use only our intelligence to explore the question, but this is precisely the problem we wish to explain.  Using intelligence to explain itself at best produces a circular argument.  Therefore, brought to its logical conclusion, Russell's line of reasoning argues against the concept of human intelligence.

This argument might be useful to show the nonexistence of God if God were just another material object in the universe.  But like intelligence, God is metaphysical, separate from physical reality but nevertheless a real part of it.  So if God requires evidence, so does intelligence.  Atheism, at least the scientific variety, cannot be comfortable with that.