We're not adeists, okay?

Gary Gutting writes:

...Dawkins’ argument ignores the possibility that God is a necessary being (that is, a being that, by its very nature, must exist, no matter what). On this traditional view, God’s existence would be, so to speak, self-explanatory and so need no explanation... His ignoring this point also undermines his effort at a quick refutation of the cosmological argument for God as the cause of the existence of all contingent beings (that is, all beings that, given different conditions, would not have existed). Dawkins might, like some philosophers, argue that the idea of a necessary being is incoherent, but to make this case, he would have to engage with the formidable complexities of recent philosophical treatments of the question...

Here we go again...

Look, even if the "formidable complexities of recent philosophical treatments" manage to resurrect the dubious Ontological Argument, Argument from Contingency, or Cosmological Arguments -- and frankly, I have trouble imagining how they might, but I'll grant Mr. Gutting the benefit of the doubt and assume that this is merely a symptom of a lack of imagination and/or ignorance on my part -- those only get you as far as a deistic God. There's a great yawning chasm between deism and theism, and Dawkins' (and others') arguments are quite effective at demolishing any would-be bridges seeking to unite the two.

We are not a-deists. While many of us find deism to be unnecessary, irrelevant, and frankly somewhat silly, most of us don't categorically reject it as impossible. Moreover, you will rarely find an atheist mounting an attack on deism. The most we have to say about deism is when somebody tries to play the old switcheroo (as Gutting does here) and we are forced to point out that what that person is trying to pass off as a justification for theism is really just a justification for deism, and that the latter is a great big Whofuckingcares. That's about the worst you'll find an atheist saying about deism.

So please. If you are going to make an argument to undermine atheism, do not make a case for deism. That's retarded. That would be like if I said I didn't like soccer, and you tried to convince me to watch a game by extolling the virtues of baseball. It's not even a coherent conversation. So just stop, please, thank you.