OT: Doreen, MW was not making up athiest views out of thin air.
Sometimes one substitutes one absurdity for another in order to clarify to a claimant that they have stated an absurdity.
Well, I am not sure if that was the case or not here. For example on the 'why doesn't God give out lottery numbers?' issue. I have encountered similar arguments to this one and the, seemingly intelligent atheists meant this quite seriously. IOW to them it seemed like if there was a God, a loving one, than this God would do more helpful stuff than God does not. Since God does not, God does nor or probably does not exist. I took her as intending this kind of reasoning. If that was not her reasoning, fine. If it was, as I said, I don't think this is a logical line of attack.
For example: Claimant says that God tells him what is right or wrong or tells him what to do.
Opponent then asks if a Flying Flatulent Fungus Fairy tells him what lottery numbers are winners and what to pick.
See above.
Although it is a fallacy to assume that because God does not give lottery numbers, there must be no God- that is not the claim or intent of Absurdity Substitution.
OK. I just want to make it clear again, I have encountered it, here also, quite a bit. Very similar arguments based on what atheists think a God would act like if the God existed. I am open to the possibility that this was not what she meant. Would have been fairly easy for her to say.
The substitution is done to make the claimant THINK about the absurdity in his claims by simple trasnsposing one absurdity with another.
Since she is an ex-Christian I would have thought she would know how many Christians view such things. That God tends to give spiritual advice or direct people to places or texts they can get spiritual advice and does not give so much practical advice. So she should know that this teaching absurdity is not going to work because two realms - very clearly divided in Christianity - are being referred to. You know, the whole render unto Caesar split, where there are transcendent important things, and then the stuff of the world, the latter being much less important to God and should be to us.
In fact this split is one of the main problems I have with Christianity, the implicit denigration of bodies, nature, animals, our current lives, justice and all the 'worldly things'. I say this as an aside.
It is not as if I thought all of this out when I read her piece, but I think this informed the way I took her post. How could she not know that Christians consider transcendent things of utmost value and worldly stuff beneath God? How could she not know there will be no shock of absurdity, if she really was doing this kind of Zen Koan, teaching through illogic approach?
Edit: iow she should know a Christian will consider consider one absurd and not the other, especially a fairly ascetic, 'spiritual' type like Adstar. And so I took it more as an implicit proof or as 'evidence'.