On Preferring God’S Non-Existence

Anti-theism, a recent direction on the axiology of god´s non-existence proposed by guy kahane, is an effort to make explicit how despite conceding necessary divine attributes such as god’s perfect goodness and omnibenevolence, preferring his non-existence could be a coherent, rational, or even justified preference. this stand provided proven to be articulated and designed successfully, beyond its axiological implications, may have some epistemic bearings on the justificatory and rational status of believing in god´s non-existence. this paper starts with a short review on what anti-theism is, with an emphasis on specifying and explicating its principal presuppositions, arguments, divisions and finally considering critical remarks raised against this stand and replies proposed by the proponents. in the proceeding, i explain how anti-theism inspired by the thesis of pragmatic encroachment (a recent prominent thesis on the stand of pragmatics in epistemology) and especially the emphasis this theory spends on the role of rational preferences in the process of gaining knowledge (or more exactly justified belief), could claim to enhance the rationality of holding beliefs on the non-existence of god in comparison to believing in god. in the following, however, i will propose a critical review on the line of reasoning on which anti-theism based on pragmatic encroachment seeks to indicate the rational superiority of believing in god´s non-existence. to pursue this goal, i consider an alternative path, though based on the main intuitions of pragmatic encroachment, but on which by giving priority to moral concerns rather than mere practical or prudential concerns i.e. favoring moral encroachment over pragmatic encroachment, it is a theistic belief that may finally appear rationally prevailing than its counterpart. in concluding remarks, after wrapping things up, i deliver several remarks on the potent role of concentrating on the moral dimensions of knowledge and point in this respect to some insights and capacities moral encroachment might conduce in different debates in religious epistemology.