As
a Christian apologist, if I may presume to be one, I would feel slack
in my duty to God if I only answered the easiest arguments skeptics
make rather than the most difficult ones. Over the years, I've
responded to many “best arguments for atheism” articles I've
found on the web. It's been my experience, though, that none of them
are very good. Indeed, many can't even stand against their own
criticism. For example, Carl Sagan is quoted as saying,
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Of course, Sagan didn't present a shred of evidence to support this
claim! What a riot. //RKBentley chuckles//
Anyway,
I recently came across still another article titled, 3
Famous Atheists & Their Best Arguments. As I clicked on the
link, I went through my usual cycle of emotions: curiosity,
hopefulness, disappointment, and finally, determination to at least
find something in the article worth blogging about.
Most
of the arguments in the article have been addressed on my blog
already. Perhaps those really are the best arguments for atheism
because I've heard them repeated so many times. In fact, it would
probably be a good idea to write more about them because they are
certainly arguments Christians will hear often. Regardless, there
was one point raised in the article that I don't believe I have
written about. It's certainly not an original argument, but it's
been raised often enough that I'm rather embarrassed that I haven't
addressed it before now. So let me remedy that today.
Religion
is Desperation
I've
also noticed this painful truth about religion. It's made up of
people who are intensely afraid of reality, and of the truth of the
human condition. Religion comes from our hatred for our loathsome
existence and our deep desire to deny the actuality of death and
future loss. However, if we can be united in our dissociation from
real life, we can be happy. We can call this dissociation "faith"
and together we can be free from the horror of existence.
The
article attributes this argument to Richard Dawkins but it well
predates Dawkins. The earliest and most famous (infamous) person who
raised this point is perhaps Karl Marx who said, “Religion
is the opium of the people.”
Wiki
actually cites the full quote as saying, “Religion
is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless
world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the
people.”
The
implication is, life is really hard and people use religion like a
drug to escape from reality. There is such a tangle of problems with
this argument that it's difficult to find the best order to unravel
them.
IT'S
AN APPEAL TO MOTIVE
I
believe I should dive right in and start with the obvious: this is a
text book example of the fallacy, appeal
to motive. Think about it. Suppose I really do believe in
Christ only because I'm afraid to die. How would that make
Christianity not real? It would be like a person, dying from cancer,
rejoicing when the doctor says, “I have good news. Here's a cure!”
The sick person certainly has a reason to want
to believe the doctor but his eagerness (or even his skepticism if
he doubted) has no bearing on whether he is really sick or whether
the doctor really has a cure. To question the motive of believers,
by saying they believe in God only because they are afraid of the
world, does nothing – NOT ONE THING – to establish atheism as
being correct or theism as being wrong.
If
we looked at the opposite side of the coin, I could make this same
argument against atheists – that God is real and atheists deny
there's a God so they can live their lives however they want and
pretend there is no God who will judge them after they die. I could
say that Hell is real and the thought of eternal torment scares
atheists so much that they try to convince themselves it isn't real.
I could talk about the amazing historical evidence for the Bible,
about the evidence for the Flood, about the evidence against
evolution but atheists won't accept any of it because to acknowledge
any point means they would have to accept the possibility of a God
and that's not an option for them.
If
Dawkins truly thinks God isn't real because Christians want Him to be
real (I still can't quite figure out what point Dawkins is trying to
make), then he needs to examine his own motives. Romans 1:18-20
says, “For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Because
that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath
shewed it unto them.
For
the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his
eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:”
I believe the evidence for God is overwhelming. Everything I know
about reality affirms over and over that there is a God behind it
all. The Bible says we intuitively know there is a God, I shouldn't
even have to present any evidence of Him. So when atheists deny what
should be obvious, I do
question their motives. Are you ready for a dose of irony? Many
atheists only claim to be atheists because they know God is real!
IT'S
A HASTY GENERALIZATION
Besides
its faulty appeal
to motive
foundation, Dawkins deftly piles onto his argument still another
fallacy of logic, the hasty
generalization.
It's true there may be people out there who fear death so much that
they would leap at any promise of eternal life – even
an empty promise.
Yet even if that's true, it's no basis for Dawkin to suggests this
applies to all Christians or even most Christians.
The
majority of Christians believe in God and the Bible for the same
reasons people believe anything, namely, they are convinced that
these things are true. We become convinced through many different
lines reason: logic, evidence, and our experiences. It's factually
wrong for Dawkins to suggest the primary factor why Christians choose
to believe is fear.
IT'S
AD HOMINEM
It's
hilarious when an atheist acts “holier-than-thou,” but in his
typical, condescending fashion, Dawkins suggests that atheists are
enlightened thinkers who fully grasp reality while theists are
quivering cowards who couldn't leave their house without an assurance
that someone “up there” is going to keep them safe. I'm not sure
exactly why he does this. It could be simple ridicule borne out of
his habitual contempt for theism. It could be a tactic aimed at
shaming people who claim to believe. Whatever the reason, it's
rather shameful.
No
one wants to look like a coward. No one wants to be thought of as a
person who can't face reality. Yet that's what Dawkins claims
Christians are. It may be possible to embarrass a person to the
point he is afraid to admit what he truly believes to be true but
it's just a gimmick. It does nothing to prove what the person
believes isn't true.
IT
CONTRADICTS ITSELF
If
people invent religion to quell their fears of reality, why invent a
religion with hell? It doesn't make any sense. In fact, it's beyond
senseless for someone who already fears death to create a religion
where a worse punishment might await him after death! If fear were
truly the motivating factor for people to believe in God, some form
of universalism, the belief that all people can live happily ever
after, would be the most popular religion.
In
conclusion, let me remind you of the title of the article that raised
this point: 3 Famous Atheists &
Their Best Arguments.
I'll repeat that, “Their best
arguments.”
Really? Saying, “You only believe
in God because you're afraid of reality,”
is one of the best arguments for atheism? I'm sorry but it's not one
of the best. It's not even a good argument. It does nothing to
support atheism and the author should be embarrassed that he even
included it in his article.
Further
reading
11 comments:
Scripture makes it clear that there are no atheists, really. Sure, they claim to be, but they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. Christians argue from our presuppositions (the truth of the Bible), and professing atheists argue from their own presuppositions (materialism, for the most part). They redefine atheism as "lack of belief", which is disingenuous and convenient. Also, they define reality from their naturalistic assumptions. Believe in God? Then you deny (my version of) reality.
Other things you pointed out are very common, such as ad hominem, hasty generalizations, appeals to motive, and so on. They can all be mixed up in a straw man, where they presume to know the thoughts and intentions of Christians, make up an insulting version of Christianity based on a misrepresentation, tell us what we think, and then expect us to defend it. Sorry, old son, I don't have to defend something I don't believe or didn't say. None of us have to. Watch out for those distractions and keep them on topic. An interesting "Witnessing Wednesday" on Todd Friel's Wretched Radio program for September 12, 2018, has an encounter with an atheist. This is early and late in the broadcast. It is interesting how he detests being kept on topic, and has the focus of a ball bearing in a blender when he's trying to dredge up straw man excuses to reject the Bible.
First, your critique of the Nietzsche quote is formally correct: it is an appeal to motive (I would have said, "genetic fallacy," but the distinction is negligible).
Second, it is the author's summary of Nietzsche's argument, not Dawkins'.
Third, I think the author misunderstands Nietzsche's point (though, still, your critique stands).
Nietzsche's point seems to have less to do with fear of death than with disgust at the pettiness of human existence -- the constant scrabbling for petty advantage and transient pleasure, and the hope for a grander, more heroic existence (note that on this view believing in Hell makes more sense: it raises the stakes and makes our decisions more consequential). This seems a more Nietzschean position.
Fourth, though, outside of philosophy class, arguments are presented in an implied context; not every premise need to explicitly set forth. The author's implied claim is that we have emotional reasons for accepting religion, and no other reasons. True, a belief accepted on emotional motives and no evidentiary grounds is not, thereby, prevented from being true, but given the inconceivably immense number of possible beliefs and the tiny fraction of them that can actually be true, accepting beliefs because they feel good rather than because the evidence supports them is unlikely to lead to correct beliefs.
Fifth, I think this is Dawkins' point. The quotes actually attributed to Dawkins point out that there are a lot of religions, and all of us reject most of them. Implicit in this point is that we have just as much reason to accept Jehovah and Jesus as we do to accept Zeus, or Amaterasu, or Damballah (you reject this implicit claim -- you believe that there is immense evidence for God, and by implication for the Bible's specific claims about Him -- but Dawkins would complain that you weigh the evidence for your beliefs on a very different scale from the one you use for, say, Islam or Zoroastrianism). Dawkins argues for critical thinking -- the application of a single standard of evidence to all beliefs, with no allowance given to, e.g. the Bible's claim that we just know that the Bible is true, so there's no need to check further.
Sixth, one might presume that the author closes on what is intended to be his strongest point (that being a standard way to arrange arguments), and that is neither Nietzsche's point nor Dawkins', but Epicurus' famous statement of the problem of evil: God is all-powerful (and can create any logically possible state of affairs), God is all-good (and therefore desires that evil and suffering not exist), and evil and suffering exist, is one of those "pick any two" situations; the three together are not logically possible.
A side note, about Hell.
I offered a suggestion of how Nietzsche might answer your point about why people would want to believe in Hell, but that isn't really my answer.
First, as long as we're on logical fallacies, note that a believer's reason for accepting a set of doctrines need not be the same as a teacher or theologian's reason for promoting that doctrine. For the average believer, Hell could be an undesirable feature attached to a package deal of otherwise desirable features.
From a theologian's point of view, the doctrine of Hell has a number of advantages. It provides a motivation to keep and spread the faith (since the consequences of turning away from it are horrible for you, and those of not sharing it are horrible for those who don't hear). Second, it counters the problem of "discounting against the future" -- economists will tell you that people tend to under-count costs that will not be incurred a long time from now, so if punishment for sin waits until we're dead, it had better be really horrible to overcome this discounting tendency. And third, of course, Hell means that our enemies and persecutors will get what's coming to them -- Hell is often thought of as what happens to people we really dislike and resent, not to Bob or Mary, the quiet infidel and petty sinners next door.
As Dawkins would put it, memes that include the threat of Hell have a selective advantage over similar memes that lack such a threat, so the threat would evolve as ideas change and are accepted or rejected by people.
Note that the Mosaic law, and the Pentateuch in general, include no mention or threat of Hell: God's punishments and rewards apply to this life, and future rewards or punishments befall one's descendants, not one's postmortem self. In the later prophets and writings, a hope for a future resurrection of the righteous emerges, with no mention of post-death punishment for the wicked; they just stay dead. By the book of Daniel, it is promised that the wicked dead will be resurrected to be judged and receive eternal shame -- but that's not quite the same thing as eternal torment. By the time of Jesus, the idea of Hell existed, but was not universally accepted among the Jews, and indeed, even Paul nowhere hints at the idea -- one can lose out on Heaven, but he never threatens his readers or their neighbors with hellfire. The idea is an example of how religious ideas evolve over time, complete with variation (in what people think about Hell) among the population of ideas in the heads of believers.
Bob Sorensen,
Thanks for your comments. Atheism is denial on so many levels that it can't help but be rife with contradictions. A person cannot reject reality and then expect to have sound arguments.
I appreciate all the work you do on The Question Evolution Project and your other ministries. Please keep visiting and commenting. God bless!!
RKBentley
Steven J,
Thanks for correcting me on this being Nietzsche's argument instead of Dawkins. I should go back and correct that but I hate to edit anything I've written except to correct spelling or grammar because I feel like that would be a kind of moving the goal posts. I have written addenda to articles which is what I may do here.
The author of the article to which I was responding is Sam Wickstrom. It seems he was rather lax about attributing which quotes to which atheists. His quoted Dawkins as saying, “We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” Perhaps Dawkins had that quote in his book but that point is usually attributed to Stephen Roberts. Wickstrom's “desperation” point was attributed to Nietzsche but Marx made the same argument before Nietzsche. I'm just saying this to say that you're right and my response is against the argument itself regardless of who said it.
Your comments on Dawkins and Epicurus are a little outside the point of this post. I've written on them before so, for now, I'll repeat that the difference between atheists and theists isn't simply a matter of degree as the quote suggests. Rather, it's there is a god(s) or there isn't. Theists, of course, believe there is, so they search for the true God and seek to understand Him. Atheists believe there isn't and seek only natural answers to their questions.
Your comments on Hell are interesting. You're right that the argument as presented has no context but I answered what was presented. Your suggested solution isn't truly congruent with Wickstrom's point. Your solution suggests that Hell is more of a device used to control people. A priest might say, join my church and do what I say or you will burn in hell forever. That's a different point entirely but I don't have time to explore it fully. I may write on it. For now, I'll just make 2 points:
1) I repeat that hell is not compatible with the argument as presented by Wickstrom here. If religious people are only motivated by fear, a belief there is no hell should be the most popular. I'm going to assume that you agree with that.
2) Your point is simply another appeal to motive – this time to a lust for power/glory. But I get it – you aren't using this as an argument for atheism. You're responding to a point I raised about Hell. The existence of Heaven/Hell ultimately boils down to whether or not there is a God. One has to settle that question first before examining the others.
Thanks again for your comments. God bless!!
RKBentley
"The implication is, life is really hard and people use religion like a drug to escape from reality."
Nope, that's not what Marx meant. Read the whole thing in context--he was *paying religion a compliment.* When you're in pain, opium is a really, really good thing. Marx was concerned that the painkiller (religion) was allowing people to avoid confronting the issues (problems within society).
Be more careful next time with your research.
Galileo Unchained,
Thanks for visiting and for your comments. I'm not sure how your point is any different than mine. I said Marx compared religion to a drug that people used to escape reality. You said Marx compared religion to a painkiller that people used to avoid facing the pains of reality. It seems to me that's a distinction without a difference.
Regardless, I was ultimately addressing Wickstrom's point where he said, “I've also noticed this painful truth about religion. It's made up of people who are intensely afraid of reality, and of the truth of the human condition. Religion comes from our hatred for our loathsome existence and our deep desire to deny the actuality of death and future loss. However, if we can be united in our dissociation from real life, we can be happy. We can call this dissociation "faith" and together we can be free from the horror of existence.” Wickstrom certainly wasn't paying religion a compliment.
Thanks again. Please keep visiting and commenting. God bless!!
RKBentley
(Did my last comment get posted? Let me try again with my original identity.)
RKB: Thank you for the polite welcome.
“I'm not sure how your point is any different than mine. I said Marx compared religion to a drug that people used to escape reality.”
Is a drug a blessed painkiller to help you minimize unavoidable pain or a soporific that lets you check out of reality? These are two very different interpretations, and Marx was pointing to the first one.
“I was ultimately addressing Wickstrom's point where he said, ‘I've also noticed this painful truth about religion. It's made up of people who are intensely afraid of reality, and of the truth of the human condition. . . . ‘”
That’s fine—you and Wickstrom both seem to have the same interpretation. But then don’t bring Marx into it since his interpretation is different.
“Wickstrom certainly wasn't paying religion a compliment.”
Exactly! And Marx was. *That’s* the difference.
Galileo Unchained,
I did receive both comments. I have a moderation feature which sometimes makes people think their first comment was lost in cyberspace so they leave a second. In those cases, I usually only publish one response – which I've done here.
I'm not sure what our disagreement is about. Marx isn't known for his theism. His religious views were somewhat complicated but it appears you're trying to present him solely as a friend to theists. Marx claimed to be for the working class and often spoke of religion as a tool used by tyrants to control the masses. Are you a Star Trek fan? Do you remember on Deep Space Nine how the Founders used the drug, “white” to keep the Jem'Hadar in line? That's sort of how Marx viewed religion. He may not have seen it as all bad, but I wouldn't go so far as to say he's paying religion a compliment.
Even if my view of Marx's quote isn't entirely correct, it's not entirely wrong either. It certainly has been cited many times by unbelievers to attack believers. Being a business major myself, I neither agree with Marx's views on economics. Overall, Marx's impact on the world has been very bad so I'm not too worried that I might accidentally portray him in a bad light. I think he's done that all by himself.
Thanks again for your comments. God bless!!
RKBentley
RKB:
“I'm not sure what our disagreement is about. Marx isn't known for his theism.”
And yet that didn’t stop him from characterizing religion in a positive way.
“it appears you're trying to present him solely as a friend to theists”
I can’t imagine how you got that. I’m simply correcting the interpretation of a single quote. That’s it.
“I wouldn't go so far as to say he's paying religion a compliment”
And yet a straightforward reading of the paragraph in context shows that he was.
“Even if my view of Marx's quote isn't entirely correct, it's not entirely wrong either. It certainly has been cited many times by unbelievers to attack believers.”
Agreed. And you have an opportunity to correct the interpretation for your readers.
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