The Argument

Humans are ill-equipped to fully understand the creator of the universe. Trying to use our extremely limited perspective and understanding in order to dismiss the existence of a limitless creator is a ridiculous idea. Humans simply aren’t in a position to dismiss the existence of god.

How to debunk it

1. The main irony here is that the claim about human brains being too limited to understand, much less to dismiss, the unlimited creator is itself a limited human idea. You’re claiming to understand something that, at the same time, you also claim is beyond our capabilities to understand. It’s a paradox.
2. This argument is an attempt to defend a premise—that god exists—despite the fact that the premise was never established in the first place. Anyone can come up with an idea about a ghost or deity and then claim that no one is in position to dismiss it. But that’s not how logic works. Arguments aren’t assumed to be true until proven otherwise. It’s the other way around. The burden of proof falls on the person making the claim, not on the person doubting it.
   I’m not saying that human understanding is limitless. I’m saying that evoking this idea won’t help you defend a claim about the existence of a deity that was never established in the first place.
3. You can take this approach with any deity or mythical character you want. In fact, most religions over the course of history have done exactly that. Claims about limited human faculties being too feeble to understand, let alone to dismiss, the gods have been used by almost every culture on the planet in order to defend the existence of almost every deity ever invented, from Zeus, Odin and Ra to Yahweh, Brahma and the rest of them.

Get the Debating Religion book now and start debunking common religious arguments in real time. This is a practical hand-book comprised of short segments that introduce common religious arguments followed by bullet-point replies that debunk them—simply, quickly, straight to the point.