My response (below) to the internet atheist cliche: “Believing God exists is like believing Santa Claus exists.”

This claim from the internet atheist is not strictly dedicated to ‘Santa Claus,’ it could be any number of things like, ‘The Tooth Fairy,’ or ‘The Easter Bunny’ etc...

This cliche is obviously meant as a polemic implying belief in God to be irrational. I think the point which is trying to be made by the internet atheist is that belief in God is held inconstantly and with some kind of special allowance; since the Theist would not hold belief in Santa Claus existing because it is irrational, yet belief in God suffers from all the same reasoned/rational/evidential problems (apparently).

The problem is that this is just an arbitrary and vacuous statement/cliche, unless the internet atheist adds some context. In order for this statement to have any weight as some kind of an argument which shows belief in God to be irrational, the internet atheist would have to show two things:

FIRSTLY: Show that there are rational reasons to think the proposition ‘Santa Clause does not exist’ is true or more likely true than the proposition ‘Santa Clause does exist.’

SECONDLY: Show that the same rational reasons for believing the proposition ‘Santa Claus does not exist,’ and the lack of rational reasons for believing the proposition ‘Santa Claus does exist,’ apply in the same way to the proposition ‘God does not exist,’ and to the proposition ‘God does exist.’

Until the internet atheist does that, their claim is arbitrary and vacuous, since there is no criteria to show that a proposition like: “believing God exists is like believing the earth exists,” is anymore or less accurate than their cliche.

Also these kind of baseless accusations cut both ways, since the Theist could equally accuse the positive atheist of irrationality by stating “believing the proposition ‘God does not exist’ is like believing the proposition ‘the sun does not exist.’” As you can see these kind of statements are pointless, they consist of being nothing more than an empty rhetorical jab.

I have a separate article which articulates how belief in a proposition can be shown to be rationally justified over its negation/opposite. Here is the link:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/atheist-answers/how-belief-in-a-propositi...

POSSIBLE ATHEIST OBJECTION: “Are you telling me you don’t think there are rational/good reasons to believe the proposition ‘Santa Claus does not exist’ is true, or more likely true than false?”

ANSWER: Firstly, yes I believe there are rational reasons the proposition ‘Santa Claus does not exist,’ is true. However, my reasons may not be the same as the one stating the cliche. Secondly, it is the one stating the cliche who is making the positive knowledge claim, and thus has the burden of proof to prove that the cliche is true; I am not going to do any of the intellectual work for him/her.