While the above responses do indeed point to weaknesses in arguments that compare the existence of God to \u201cFlying Spaghetti Monsters\u201d or orbiting tea pots, they do not specifically address what I think is the most important problem with the New Atheists, and that is that the very use of such arguments shows that the New Atheists do not know what they are talking about when they use the word \u201cGod.\u201d What all of these New Atheist memes \u2013 invisible pink unicorns, \u201cFlying Spaghetti Monsters,\u201d orbiting tea pots \u2013 have in common is that they compare God to finite contingent physical objects existing within the known physical universe. God is understood to be one additional entity among others in the same way that an orbiting teapot would be one teapot among other non-orbiting teapots or a \u201cFlying Spaghetti Monster\u201d would be composed of \u201cspaghetti,\u201d a physical substance of which every grocery store has numerous items. (This is also evident in the New Atheist claim \u201cI just believe in one less god than you do,\u201d or the claim, \u201cI don\u2019t believe in the Christian god, but I don\u2019t believe in Zeus or Thor either.\u201d)<\/p>\n
In the same way that an argument about Physics as a scientific discipline would have to address accurate accounts of the scientific discipline and not beliefs in phlogiston or physical reality being made of earth, fire, air, and water, New Atheist rejections of the Christian God at least should clearly show an understanding of what it is that Christians mean when they affirm that God exists. And no competent Christian theologian or philosopher has ever claimed that God is one finite contingent entity among others \u2013 another item existing within the physical universe. When the New Atheists say that they do not believe in God, comparisons to \u201cFlying Spaghetti Monsters\u201d and \u201corbiting tea pots\u201d make clear that they do not know what they are talking about.<\/p>\n
If one is going to deny the existence of God, then what needs to be denied is the God of historical Christian faith, and the place to turn for an account of this Christian God would be classic Christian theologians such as Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, John of Damascus or Thomas Aquinas, or even more contemporary theologians such as Karl Barth or Thomas F. Torrance (among Protestants), or (among Catholics) Hans Urs von Balthasar or Matthew Levering or numerous philosophical theologians such as David Burrell (my dissertation director) or Herbert McCabe, or Orthodox thinkers such as David Bentley Hart.<\/p>\n