The
following point has been made many times by many atheists but the
most notable quote is attributed to Stephen
Roberts:
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Godisimaginary.com has even made this “proof #28” in their list of reasons they believe God is imaginary. The point seems self-explanatory but, just for the sake of clarity, I'll expound on it a little. Over the course of human history, people have believed in literally thousands of gods – maybe millions. For example, people used to believe in the gods Zeus, Apollo, Ares, Aphrodite, Hades, Poseidon, etc but we now reject the gods of Olympus as myths. The claim is that the reasons Christians reject these false gods are much the same reasons atheists reject the God. It's a clever argument at first hearing and I've seen a couple of YouTube debates where Christian apologists seemed to get a little flustered when their opponent raised it. They shouldn't, though. I think the argument suffers from a fatal flaw.
Godisimaginary.com has even made this “proof #28” in their list of reasons they believe God is imaginary. The point seems self-explanatory but, just for the sake of clarity, I'll expound on it a little. Over the course of human history, people have believed in literally thousands of gods – maybe millions. For example, people used to believe in the gods Zeus, Apollo, Ares, Aphrodite, Hades, Poseidon, etc but we now reject the gods of Olympus as myths. The claim is that the reasons Christians reject these false gods are much the same reasons atheists reject the God. It's a clever argument at first hearing and I've seen a couple of YouTube debates where Christian apologists seemed to get a little flustered when their opponent raised it. They shouldn't, though. I think the argument suffers from a fatal flaw.
The
argument seems to give the impression that there are degrees of
belief that range from believing in many gods, to believing in a few
gods, to believing in one God, to believing in no gods. It's like a
graph fading from black (many gods) to white (no gods) and the
atheist would have us believe that he and Christians are both nearer
to one end of the graph, separated by only a shade of gray. It's an
entirely wrong impression of our positions.
You
see, the difference between rejecting most gods and rejecting all
gods is the difference between theism and atheism. It's not a fine
line or a blurry line that divides the two. It's a bold line, a line
of demarcation. Either the light is on or it is off and there is
nothing in between. Atheists believe nature is all there is; theists
believe there is something that transcends nature – something
supernatural. Theists believe in things like miracles, souls, and an
after-life. Atheists don't. It's black or white. There are no
shades of gray.
Theists
see the universe as sublime. We see the enormity of space, the
multitude of stars, the beauty of nature and know it must be the
product of a design. Therefore, there must be a Creator. We know
instinctively there is a such thing as objective morality; that some
things are always wrong. If there is objective morality then there
must be a law that transcends our shifting opinions. Therefore,
there must be a transcendent Lawgiver. The theist knows there is a
God and asks, “Who is He?”
Atheists
may think they see beauty in nature but “beauty” is merely the
product of a chemical reaction in our brains. “Beauty” isn't
really a thing. They see order in the universe but “order” is
merely the result of matter behaving according to fixed physical laws
and there is no purpose behind it. The laws, the matter, even the
space all just poofed into existence without a cause – without a
Creator. Morality is merely the collective opinions of a society.
What society considers acceptable will change from time-to-time and
place-to-place but the universe doesn't really care. There is no,
“why?”; everything only “is.”
Perhaps
the atheist rejects the Christian God for the same reasons I might
reject Zeus or Thor. Maybe he believes the Bible is a myth. Even if that were true, that still wouldn't mean there is no god, only that there is some other First Cause
that we just don't know about. I'm not about to reject the one, true God but, if I did, that still wouldn't make me an atheist.
4 comments:
I don't parse Robert's point quite the way you do. I don't think he's arguing that there is a continuum of theism ranging from belief in separate tutulary deities for every tree, stream, and shopping-mall kiosk, to a pantheon of several named gods, to belief in one all-powerful God, to belief in zero deities of any kind.
Rather, I'm pretty sure that he's arguing that there's no more reason for believing, specifically, in your God and the truth of His scriptures than there is in Allah and the infallibility of the Koran, or in Zeus and the myths about him, or in Shiva and the traditions about him. He's implying that even if there is a First Cause, there is [a] no reason to suppose this First Cause is personal, [b] if the First Cause is personal, we still have no reason to suppose this First Cause desires or has any interest in our worship or welfare, or [c] even if the First Cause is personal and interested in us, that any of the various religious beliefs humans have held or advocated is mostly true.
C.S. Lewis acknowledged a similar point somewhere in his writings (I can't find it on short notice): we see a host of different religions in different cultures, all obviously man-made and false in their distinctive claims (e.g. that the Koran was dictated to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel, or that the sun goddess Amaterasu was the direct ancestress of the Japanese emperor), while Christians have their own belief system that is obviously the exact same type of thing, but fortunately all true. Lewis of course goes on to attempt to defend the claim that Christianity, uniquely and unexpectedly, is true in its claims, but he saw the problem: there's an inconsistency in rejecting every claim about supernaturally inspired scriptures or deities except those of your own particular religion, when your own particular religion has no more evidence for it that the claims you reject. Lewis argued that there was more evidence, of course, while Roberts, I assume, denies this.
Steven J,
Thanks for your comments. I think I covered your point when I said, “[P]eople used to believe in the gods Zeus, Apollo, Ares, Aphrodite, Hades, Poseidon, etc but we now reject the gods of Olympus as myths. The claim is that the reasons Christians reject these false gods are much the same reasons atheists reject the God.” However, do you really think that Roberts is arguing for agnosticism and not atheism? I'm quite sure that is not at all how he feels. Note that he starts his quote with the assertion, “I contend that we are both atheists.”
The continuum is implied in the quote. Roberts makes no call to action in this quote, but the implication is that Christians have already rejected a myriad of other gods and if we would reject our belief in the only remaining God, then we would be like the atheist.
Thanks for visiting. God bless!
RKBentley
"You see, the difference between rejecting most gods and rejecting all gods is the difference between theism and atheism."
No. Theism is the "belief in the existence of a god or gods".
Atheism is the "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.", some may say it's a rejection of all Gods, but this is not what most people who identify as (Agnostic-)Atheists are saying. There could be a God or Gods, there could not be, I don't know, you don't know. The time to believe something is when there's good objective evidence for it (see Russel's Teapot).
John S,
You said, “Atheism is the "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.", some may say it's a rejection of all Gods, but this is not what most people who identify as (Agnostic-)Atheists are saying. There could be a God or Gods, there could not be, I don't know, you don't know.”
I've heard this many times; critics attempt to redefine atheism into a way that doesn't assert a universal negative. Do you really claim that this is what “most people” mean when they say they are atheists? Please tell me what word, then, - besides “atheist” - describes a person who believes there is no god? You can use “atheist” any way you want. However, you're not the word czar who gets to say what the word means to most people.
You said, “The time to believe something is when there's good objective evidence for it (see Russel's Teapot).”
I don't believe this. Can you show me good objective evidence for it? By “evidence,” I mean scientific evidence, of course – not philosophical arguments.
Thanks for visiting and for your comments. God bless!!
RKBentley
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