The “Best” Evidence for God

I have posted on the subject of the evidence for the existence of God a few times in the past, including the following: 

• Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of Absence 

• What Would It Take to Convince Me

• What Constitutes “Evidence” of God

But theists keep asking about why atheists don't accept the evidence for God, what would it take to convince an atheist that God exists, etc. And, since the questions always ask about “God” (as opposed to “god” or “gods”), I can only assume that the people asking these questions are Christians asking about evidence for their particular God and not just some generic notion of some sort of supreme being or divine force or creator of the universe. 

The most recent question I saw on this subject took a slightly different tact by asking, “What evidence for God is the hardest for atheists to ignore?” I honestly don’t know if this was meant as a “trick” question in an attempt to get atheists to admit that there is at least some good evidence for the existence of God (meaning, presumably, that atheists are ignoring or refusing to accept it), or whether it was an honest inquiry. Regardless of the intent of the question, however, the short answer is the same — there is no “best” evidence for the existence of God, nor any evidence that is hard (let alone “hardest”) to ignore. If there were, we wouldn’t be atheists. Despite what many theists apparently (and desperately) believe, most atheists are not atheists because we choose to ignore the evidence for God’s existence or because we secretly know in our hearts that God exists and just want to lead rebellious, sinful lives. It’s just that we really, truly don’t find any of the evidence and arguments offered to be at all convincing. 

Here’s the thing. Theists of all stripes (and, apparently, evangelical Christians in particular) love to claim that there is plenty of evidence for God to be seen all over the place, but whenever atheists actually look at what is offered it seems to vanish like the morning dew on a hot day.

Sometimes it vanishes due to having a wholly natural explanation (“The apparent design of nature is proof that God exists!” No it isn’t).

Sometimes it vanishes due to being wholly unsupported (no corroboration, no verification, etc.).

Sometimes it vanishes in a puff of logic (as when it is noted that the person offering the supposed evidence is suffering from a severe case of Confirmation Bias).

Most of the time, however, it vanishes because the offered evidence is simply not sufficient to rationally support a belief in the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, intelligence that exists outside of time and space, that is not made of matter or energy, that nevertheless cares about each and every one of us and will answer our prayers (but sometimes the answer is “no”), that will reward the faithful with eternal life while punishing the majority of his beloved children with everlasting torment, etc., etc., etc.

It has been said that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and it doesn’t get any more extraordinary than God (especially the Christian “God”). The fact that somebody prayed for a sick relative and that person got better isn’t even close to being slightly sufficient to provide even a glimmer of the evidence necessary to justify a belief in “God”. The fact that somebody “knows deep in their heart that God exists” is even less convincing. Heck — a 20-foot-tall manlike being with a white beard and a flowing robe could materialize in the middle of Times Square and, with the wave of an arm, convert all of Manhattan into a garden paradise, and it still wouldn’t even begin to approach what would be required to justify belief in the “God” most theists talk about.

I dunno. Things were a lot simpler back when theists just talked about gods of thunder and gods of the ocean and the like. It wouldn’t take much evidence to convince an atheist of the existence of one of those gods. For that matter, it wouldn’t have been difficult to provide enough convincing evidence that the God of the Old Testament existed back in the days when people thought the whole world was relatively small and that stars consisted of pinholes poked in the fabric of the night. Sadly, in their hubris, theists have continually expanded the descriptions of the their gods over the years as science has discovered more and more about the scope of the universe, to the point where their gods are necessarily so unimaginably vast and powerful that no amount of proffered evidence could ever suffice to convince most atheists that they actually existed.

Atheism in Iambic Tetrameter

In response to the frequently asked question, "Do you believe in God," allow me to provide an answer in iambic tetrameter (with sincerest apologies to Dr. Seuss, from whom I learned my craft as a wayward youth):

I do not believe in the God of the Jew.
The Christian God is fictitious, too.
I cannot accept that Allah is God,
And the Hindu deities are just way too flawed.
The ancient Egyptian gods are not real,
Nor are the Greek and Roman, I feel.
Sumerian gods are all just right out.
And the Celtic gods? They have no clout.
Thor and Odin and the other Aesir?
I just do not think that they really are here.
The Aborigines have their own pantheon,
But all of it’s rubbish! Oh boy, this is fun!
What of the Mayans and Aztecs and such?
Well, their gods do not excite me too much.
Buddha’s not a god, so he doesn’t count,
And the Asian gods will never be found.
The list could go on, there are thousands to go,
But I’ve made my point, as I’m sure you all know.
It’s all superstition and none of it’s true!
You can pray all you like ‘til your face turns bright blue.
Gods are made up, every single last one.
That's what I believe, and now I am done.

Objective vs. Relative Morality

[The following is something I came up with after being told for the umpteenth time that atheists can't be moral or can't have a basis for judging "right" from "wrong" because they can only rely on "relative" moral standards.  Unlike theists, of course, who get their "objective" moral standards straight from God.]

Morality — the system or method by which we determine whether actions are “good” or “bad” — can either be “relative” or “objective” (a.k.a. “absolute”). Objective morality is morality based on universal principles that everybody agrees on, whereas relative morality is determined differently by different groups and is subject to change over time and in different places and cultures. Now, theists and atheists alike claim to be be able to determine right from wrong, good from bad, but what type of morality can each group actually claim to have? Objective or relative?

Let’s start with atheists. Now most atheists get their sense of “right” and “wrong” from the realization that other people are human beings the same as they are, and are therefore deserving of the exact same rights and respect as themselves. “People are people” may sound like a simple tautology, but it’s objectively true and it’s the core principle that provides atheists with the objective morality that lets them condemn slavery, murder, robbery, lying, etc. Now, this isn’t to say that all atheists are good people, since we all have free will and can decide whether to be good or bad, but at least atheists have something objective by which they can make value judgments in the first place.

What about theists? Well, they tend to rely more on wholly relative morality to make value judgments for the following reasons:

• Different theists believe in different Gods, each of which is said to have given different moral laws for us to follow. So, right there, theistic morality is wholly relative according to which God you believe in.
  


• Even within a single God belief (Christianity, say), there are tons and tons of different denominations and sects who all interpret the supposed “word of God” in different ways from a purely doctrinal standpoint. So, once again, even within the Christian faith, theistic morality is wholly relative according to which particular sect or denomination you belong to.
  


• Even within a single sect or denomination, it’s pretty much guaranteed that different preachers or even individual members will have their own specific interpretations as to just what their God wants them to do. Should you shun homosexuals or welcome them? Should you donate money to homeless people or is that just encouraging bad habits? Do women really need to be subject to their husbands’ will or not? Is it enough to just accept Jesus into your heart, or do you actually need to do good deeds and repent for your sins? Is it really harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, or is that just a metaphor? Does “turn the other cheek” mean you can’t own a gun for self-defense? Did God really just promise to “answer prayers” (and sometimes the answer is “no”) or did he actually promise to give “whatsoever we ask for in faith”? Is lusting after a woman in your heart really the same as committing adultery, or was Jesus just being metaphorical again? What’s the best way to “love thy neighbor as thyself” while still preventing transgender people from using the bathroom they feel most comfortable in? Is it OK to vote for somebody who claims to share your values if he talks about sexually assaulting women, mocks disabled people and lies all the time? What, actually, would Jesus do? And so on and so forth. Thus, theistic morality is wholly relative according to the individual beliefs of each particular theist.
  


• For theists that claim to get their morality from holy scriptures written thousands of years ago, many of the oldest commandments and moral codes from those books no longer apply today. The explanation for this is usually that those commandments were given for a specific group of people, that the culture and socio-economic conditions back then were different than they are today and/or that some sort of “new covenant” made those old commandments obsolete. It was OK to own slaves back then, but not today. It was commanded that disobedient children should be stoned to death back then, but we don’t need to follow that commandment today. Jews were required to keep kosher, but later Christians didn’t need to. All of which is to say that theistic morality can actually change over time and is wholly relative to the particular people to whom the moral commandments were given.

Now, keep in mind what I said earlier about atheists basing their morality on objective principles. Because these principles are objective, theists are capable of perceiving them as well. In fact, this is what allows, say, Christians to decide which parts of the Bible to follow in the first place and which parts should be ignored or reinterpreted away. The problem is, though, that many theists allow these objective moral principles to be overwhelmed by the teachings of their particular religion to the point where they are willing to discriminate against other people simply because this is what they have been taught is correct. Without the teachings of their religion they may never feel it right to, say, kill an infidel, or deny homosexuals the right to marry or treat other people as property. But because they have been indoctrinated to accept the relative morality provided by their religion, they end up chucking objective morality right out the window.

Now this isn’t to say that all theists are bad people or incapable of making moral judgments. After all, just because a moral principle is relative doesn’t mean it is wrong. But it does mean that their sense of right and wrong is at the whim of their religious indoctrination and this is why a lot of otherwise good people can be convinced to do some very bad things (or, as Steven Weinberg once put it, “With or without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” In other words, without a source of truly objective morals to rely on, theists can only do what they are told is right, regardless of whether it actually is right.

Atheism and Evolution

As evidenced by probably half of the questions posed to atheists in various public forums, many theists seem to think that atheism and the theory of evolution (or “Darwinism” for those who want to imply that evolution is just some sort of cult of personality that atheists belong to based solely on faith) are inextricably linked. Apparently, either all atheists believe in evolution as their religion instead of believing in God, or else a belief in evolution is what caused people to become atheists in the first place.

In this post I want to try and unpack this a bit. First, to explain what atheism really means and what the real relationship between atheism and evolution is. And second, to try and understand why theists keep insisting on a relationship that isn’t there.

First, the facts:

• Atheism is neither a belief system nor a community of like-minded individuals. There is no official atheist doctrine, there are no appointed atheist leaders, and there are no requirements to be an atheist other than simply not believing in God. Or gods.


• Yes, many atheists accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, but not all do and you can certainly be an atheist and not accept it. Just like you can be an atheist and think the world is flat or that aliens are regularly abducting people or that world leaders are being replaced with lizard people. Being an atheist is not the same as being a scientist or a rationalist or a materialist — it simply means that you do not believe in God. Or gods.


• And, while many atheists do accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, they do so for the same reason they accept, say, the theory of gravity. It’s a coherent, well-established theory that explains observed phenomena that has been supported by observable evidence and is backed up by numerous other fields of study. And, keep in mind, the “theory” of evolution is the current best explanation for the observed fact of evolution, just like the “theory” of gravity is the current best explanation for the the observed fact of gravity.


• It’s important to note that many theists also accept the theory of evolution for the same reasons many atheists do. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that most theists accept it (although some still want to include God as the ultimate driving force behind it). The whole denial of evolution thing is really just limited to a very small number of Christians and Muslims world-wide who take their scriptures extremely literally and feel threatened by anything that could be seen to contradict those scriptures in any way (more on this later).


• Finally, while it’s certainly possible that some atheists lost their faith after learning the details of the theory of evolution (e.g., because their faith was based on an assumption that God was required as an explanation for why life on earth is the way it is), the vast majority of atheists were not looking for an explanation regarding the diversity of life on earth in the first place and didn’t choose to replace their religious beliefs with the “religion” of evolution. They simply lack a belief in God, whether because they were not raised to believe in God in the first place, because they were taught about God and found the notion to be rather silly, because they carefully considered the evidence for God’s existence and found it lacking, or any of a thousand other reasons.

Second, the theories:

• As stated above, many (if not most) theists in the world have no trouble accepting the fact that all species — including man — have evolved over long periods of time to reach their current state. They do not take their scriptures to be 100% literally true and are fine with that, focusing instead on the principles and promises made in those scriptures. A small subset of theists, however, acknowledge the hypocrisy involved in only believing in part of holy scriptures and therefore take an “all or nothing” approach. And, since the holy scriptures clearly state that God created man in His own image and gave him dominion over all other creatures on earth, acknowledging the fact of evolution (and accepting the validity of the current theory of evolution by natural selection) would be to deny the validity of the scriptures and the very foundation of their faith.


• These theists who take their scriptures literally know full well that most of what is written in those scriptures either cannot be verified by modern science or is directly contradicted by modern science, whether it be archaeology, geology, cosmology, anthropology, physics, chemistry, biology, or what have you. But the whole concept of evolution in particular bothers them, since it undermines the whole idea of humans being uniquely special creatures in God’s eyes. OK, so maybe the world wasn’t really created 6000 years ago and maybe Noah didn’t really have an ark full of animals and maybe Moses didn’t really part the Red Sea, but we sure as heck didn’t come from monkeys!


• As a result, for those theists who take their scriptures literally and whose world view revolves around the notion that humans are special, it is only natural to assume that everybody else’s world view revolves around the fundamental question of how humanity got here and what is humanity’s relationship with the rest of the universe. Thus, since their worldview revolves around “God did it,” atheists must have a worldview that revolves around “God didn’t do it.” And, since a belief that “god didn’t do it” requires some alternate explanation, that explanation must be “Evolution”.


• So, in the eyes of these theists, it is incomprehensible that somebody could simply not believe in God (especially their God) without having an alternative belief system in place. And, since these theists acknowledge (whether explicitly or implicitly) that their belief system is fundamentally based on faith (belief without evidence or in spite of evidence to the contrary) and a reliance on the testimony (anecdotal stories) of others, they assume that atheist must also base their belief system on faith and testimony.


• This false equivalence leads to two separate phenomena. First, there is an ongoing attempt to argue that atheism is no better than theism since both “isms” are equally reliant on “faith” and “testimony” and therefore atheists have no right to feel at all superior to theists (and theists are perfectly justified for not feeling at all inferior). Second, there is an ongoing attempt to undermine the theory of evolution in the mistaken belief that doing so will somehow convince atheists that the explanation for how humanity got here must actually be “God did it” after all.

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For more of my musings on the subject of evolution and religion, please see the following:

Accepting Evolution
The “Theory” of Evolution
Evolution and Why Labels Don’t Matter
Another Evolution Analogy
 

For more discussion of what, exactly, it means to be an atheist, please see the following:

What is an Atheist?
No, Atheism Is Not a Belief System
Why “I Don’t Believe God Exists” Really Is the Same as “I Believe God Doesn’t Exist”

The Note Paper of Barry

1. Behold, this is the Note Paper of Barry.
2. For verily, it was written by Barry.
3. Now, I say unto you that Barry is all-powerful, all-knowing and utterly infallible.
4. Yea, and everything written by Him is completely true.
5. "But," the fool might ask in his heart, "how can I know that Barry is all-powerful, all-knowing and utterly infallible"?
6. Behold! This Note Paper says He is, and everything written on this Note Paper is completely true.
7. "But," the unwise might ask in his heart, "how can I know that everything written on this Note Paper is completely true"?
8. Verily, I say unto you, this Note Paper was written by Barry, who is all-powerful, all-knowing and utterly infallible.

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[Just in case anybody doesn’t get the joke, some Christians claim that the Bible is the infallible, perfect word of God, which we can know is true because it says so right there in the Bible. Oh — and we know that God is infallible and incapable of lying because it says that in the Bible as well. So if we know the Bible is true because it is the word of God, and we know it is the word of God because the Bible says it is…]

The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

I have previously discussed some of the classic arguments offered to “prove” the existence of God, including The Argument from Design, The Cosmological Argument, The Fine Tuned Universe and Pascal’s Wager, so I figured I should briefly touch on the so-called “Ontological” argument for the sake of completeness. I have avoided talking about this argument in the past because (a) as originally formulated the argument seems so laughably inadequate that it really doesn’t bear much discussion and (b) modern formulations of the argument add so much jargon and technical word-play that it can be very difficult to even understand what the argument actually is by the time you finish reading it. I will admit, however, that the original ontological argument was seen as significant enough in the past that numerous famous philosophers such as Kant, Hume and even Saint Thomas Aquinas took the time to object to it, so perhaps it’s not as laughably inadequate as it appears to me.

As originally formulated by theologian and philosopher Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), the ontological argument is as follows:

1. It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined).
2. God exists as an idea in the mind.
3. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.
4. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist).
5. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)
6. Therefore, God exists.

He later restated this same argument slightly differently:

1. By definition, God is a being than which none greater can be imagined.
2. A being that necessarily exists in reality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exist.
3. Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God.
4. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God.
5. Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality.
6. God exists in the mind as an idea.
7. Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality.

As we all know (or should know by now) an argument is only as good as its premises, and a perfectly valid argument can be completely unsound if the premises are not actually true.

The first premise of the ontological argument is that, by definition, God is the greatest possible being that can be imagined. This sinks the entire argument right from the start, since it is defining God as “the greatest possible thing that can be imagined” without actually providing any empirical evidence that this is the case. It is also setting up a wholly circular argument by arbitrarily defining God as a being that embodies the very characteristic that will later be used to prove His existence. You might as well define “unicorns” as “the beings responsible for the color blue” and then claim that the existence of the color blue is therefore proof that unicorns exist. This is simply defining God into existence, since we don’t actually know what God is like even if He were to exist and it basically amounts to an argument that states, “God, by definition, exists; therefore He exists.”

The second premise that a being that exists (or “necessarily exists,” if you prefer) is more perfect than one that doesn’t exist is yet another assertion without any evidence to support it. How does one even define “perfect” in the first place? If I want to go all Platonic, should I start claiming that the “perfect” concept of a chair, to which all actual chairs are merely compared to in our mind, must somehow actually exist somewhere or else it can’t actually be “perfect”? Of course not. “Perfection” is, in many cases, an ideal that does not actually exist and there is no requirement to think that something must exist in order to be considered perfect. Just asserting that something that exists is “more perfect” than something that is only a concept doesn’t make it so.

Aside from the fact that this entire argument is nothing more than an attempt to define God into existence, however, this argument suffers from the same problem as many of the other arguments I mentioned above. To wit, at most all these arguments can possibly prove is that some sort of supreme being exists and not the actual “God” that is actually worshiped by those who would use these argument to prove their God’s existence. The God supposedly proved by these arguments is not the God that answers prayers, performs miracles, provides revelation, rewards the faithful, punishes sinners, gives us a set of objective morals, tells us the way to live our lives, etc. It is a nebulous description of God that could apply equally to the God worshiped by any religion, and therefore cannot be used to prove the existence of the God worshiped by any specific religion. It’s the ultimate bait and switch.

Doesn’t the Beauty and Majesty of the Natural World Prove that God Exists?

A question that gets frequently asked of atheists is how we can possibly look at all the wonders of the natural world and not believe in God? Now, sure, this is partially just a restatement of the classic “Argument from Design” (which I cover in detail here), and it also involves a fair amount of arguing from ignorance or incredulity (“I can’t personally imagine how such a thing is possible without God, therefore it must not be possible”). But I think it actually goes a little deeper than that.

After all, once upon a time, we really did have no idea what caused sunsets, how mountains formed, how rock structures came to looked like they were carved into interesting shapes, etc., so it only made sense to think that such things were specifically created for our benefit. But now we obviously are able to explain how all these things are caused by purely natural forces and principles, so this question can’t just be due to sheer ignorance of how the natural world works. There must be more to it than that.

But hey — maybe all this means is that God created all the natural laws in the first place and therefore is ultimately responsible for it turning out the way it has. Sure, God didn’t personally sculpt the amazing rock formations seen in Utah’s Zion National Park or the Grand Canyon, but can’t we still give Him the credit for creating the rocks and wind and water and setting up a natural system whereby rocks can be eroded by wind and water? And sure, maybe God doesn’t personally paint every single beautiful sunset by hand, but we can still praise Him for creating the water cycles that causes clouds to form and making it so that sunlight refracts when it strikes water droplets, etc., right? And, OK, so maybe God didn’t personally cause those majestic mountains to rise out of the crust and get covered with snow, but we can still worship Him for coming up with the idea of plate tectonics and snow in the first place, right? After all, God created the entire universe from scratch, and therefore every beautiful and awesome and great thing we see in that universe must therefore be the result of God’s will, right?

So, maybe the argument is not simply about how could all these things exist without God but instead why would they all be so majestic and beautiful and awe-inspiring without God. Surely God must have set things up so that the end results would be so amazing, right?

OK, let’s play that game. The natural world is full of amazing, beautiful, wonderful and awe-inspiring things that prove that God exists and loves us enough to share all this beauty with us. Gotcha. Now let’s take a look at all the things in the natural world that aren’t so great shall we? Let’s look at the volcanic eruptions instead of just looking at the majestic mountains. Let’s look at the vast dust storms instead of just looking at the pretty sunsets. Let’s look at the floods and earthquakes and droughts and lightning strikes and tornadoes and hurricanes and tsunamis instead of just looking at the amazing rock formations. And then go look at the children dying of genetic diseases and the ugliness of things like Ebola and smallpox and parasitic infections and flesh-eating bacteria. Care to look at some picture of people with half of their face eaten off? Seriously — go ahead and do a Google image search for flesh-eating bacteria. It’s OK, I’ll wait for you to finish vomiting at the sight and come back here.

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.

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Still with me? Wonderful. Now, after looking at all that ugliness in the world, you go ahead and tell me that it’s all a testament to just how depraved and sadistic and cruel God is, since He created the universe from scratch and therefore every horrible and ugly and terrible thing we see in that universe must also be the result of God’s will.

• No, you can’t claim that the ugliness is just random stuff not under God’s direct control or all the work of Satan.
• No, you can’t claim that all the bad stuff is the result of man’s exercise of free will, since I didn’t even mention anything related to man’s inhumanity to man.
• No, you can’t claim that Adam and Eve sinned and somehow caused the entire universe to enter a “fallen” state since (a) that would mean that a supposedly loving God decided to punish the entire universe for the sins of two people and (b) it would also negate all the previously “great” things that you previously gave God credit for. I mean, seriously — either the world is full of ugliness because it is in a fallen state or else it is full of beauty and greatness because of God. You can’t have it both ways.

So, please. Go ahead. You admit that all the ugliness in the world is evidence that God is a sadistic bastard (or, perhaps doesn’t exist at all), and I’ll admit that the beauty in the natural world is evidence that He does exist and loves us so much that He wants to share His glory with us. You don’t get to just look at the good and ignore the bad and claim that it somehow proves something.

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Having said all that, let me just make it clear that I do think there are many beautiful, majestic and awe-inspiring sights in the natural world, both here on earth and out in the rest of the known universe. And no, I don’t think the entire universe is a dark and depressing place just because there are also many ugly, hideous and scary things as well. I take the good with the bad and understand that this is what happens when you have a universe that operates on impersonal natural principles and that wasn’t designed specifically for our benefit.

No, All Theists Do Not Worship the Same God

Despite the fact that there are many thousands of different religions and sects within those religions, each with their own unique take on what, exactly, “God” is and how He acts (or what, exactly, “gods” are and how they act, for the various polytheistic religions out there), time and again I keep seeing people claim that “it’s all the same God” or that “all theists worship the same God, even if they call Him by a different name.”

Now, growing up as a Christian (a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and being taught that the Bible was literally true, this claim was pretty much required in order for the religion as a whole to make any sort of sense. After all, the Bible clearly talks about one God who create the Earth and everything else, so there can’t possibly be any other gods out there. And, since the Biblical timeline is supposed to trace back to the beginning of human civilization, the only choice is to assume that every other ancient religion (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Sumerian, etc.) was actually somehow a corruption of this original true faith in the one God of the Bible. Historical and archaeological evidence to the contrary be damned, that’s our story and we’re sticking with it, since to do otherwise would be to admit that other civilizations talked about completely different “gods” long before the events in the Old Testament (including the creation of the world) ever took place. OK, so while this view is not actually supportable by evidence, I can understand why people would cling to it.

A completely different claim, however, is often made that the three so-called “Abrahamic” religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) all worship the same God, despite the fact that most of the actual devout members of each of those three religions would probably not agree with this claim. All three religions, the argument goes, all have their roots in the Old Testament, each one building upon that basic concept of God and therefore all actually worshiping the same God when you get right down to it. In fact, it is often said, the word “Allah” in Arabic simply means “the God” and this is a reference to the God described in the Bible.

Except… this really doesn’t make much sense. Just because all three religions have a concept of God that can be traced to the same root, the interpretations and extra information added on by each religion is so great as to render the resulting concept of God wholly unrecognizable from one religion to the next. Yes, both Christians and Muslims claim to worship the God described in the Old Testament, but they have changed the core definition of that God so much as to produce an entirely different concept of God.

One big is example is the core Christian concept that Jesus Christ is divine (i.e., that Jesus is, in essense, an aspect of God). You can’t have Christianity without Christ, and the fact of Jesus’s atoning sacrifice is what evidences the divine mercy that is an essential part of God’s very nature. Jews, however, will absolutely not accept that Jesus was the literal son of God, let alone that he is actually an intrinsic part of God. The Jewish concept of God simply will not allow God to have a human component, and the idea of an atoning sacrifice to provide salvation to humanity is a foreign concept. As soon as Christians took the Jewish notion of God and added Jesus to that notion, it ceased to be the same God. Similarly, the fact that Muslims do not accept Jesus as divine (“just” another prophet) means that they do not actually worship the same concept or description of God, regardless if they claim that their belief derives from Biblical sources.

[Thought experiment: Take a 2010 Honda Civic coupe. Chop the frame and add some steel to lengthen it. Hack at the body and rework the pillars until you can fit two more doors so it’s now a sedan. Remove the 4-cylinder naturally aspirated gasoline engine and replace it a 6-cylnider supercharged diesel engine. Convert it to all-wheel drive. And then remove all the badges and replace them with ones that say “Smith Motors.” Now, take this car and put it side-by-side with a brand new 2017 Honda Civic Coupe and try to justify claiming that they are basically the same car. Sure, they can both trace their roots to the same original model and style of car, but are they really still the same?]

So, then, why do people keep insisting that all Abrahamic faiths do, in fact, worship the same God? Well, some of these folks are legitimate scholars of comparative religions and are merely pointing out the historical fact that each later religion claimed to be based on the previous ones. But that’s not really the same thing as “worshiping the same God,” though, is it? Or that each religion has the same understanding of God’s essential nature? As far as I can tell, the answer is no, and that’s because legitimate religious scholars (many of whom aren’t even religious themselves) often don’t have an agenda or an axe to grind.

In my experience, however, there is another group of people who make the claim that all Abrahamic faiths worship the same God, however. These are not serious, impartial religious scholars, but instead appear to be deeply religious individuals, usually of the Christian or Islamic persuasion. And their assertion that all Abrahamic faiths worship the same God seems to be a direct response to the issue raised time and again by atheists that, since there are so many different Gods worshiped by so many different religions, the likelihood of any one God being the true God is not very high. “It doesn’t matter that there are so many different religions,” they will claim, “since they all basically worship the same God.” And this appears to be nothing more than an attempt to perpetuate the false “theist vs. atheist” dichotomy I explored in a previous post:

The issue isn't "Theists vs. Athsists" but "Theists vs. Everybody Else."

As long as these believers can argue that all theists are somehow presenting a unified front when it comes to a belief in God, they can ignore the vast differences among the various religious beliefs and avoid needing to justify why their particular God concept is the only one worth talking about or needing to defend their beliefs against, not just atheists, but every other belief system that contradicts theirs.

The issue Isn’t “Theists vs. Atheists” but “Theists vs. Everybody Else”

In just about every debate regarding the existence of God, the opposing sides are usually theists (those who believe in God) and atheists (those who do not believe in God). Similarly, here on Quora, theists of all stripes typically post questions directed at “atheists” (or “agnostics,” under the mistaken belief, apparently, that an atheist is somebody who claims to know that God doesn’t exist while an agnostic merely is unsure). As a result, the issue in question is usually framed in terms of “There is a God” (or, perhaps, “It is rational to believe in God”) vs. “There is no God” (or, perhaps, “It is not rational to believe in God”).

However, this presumption that the issue is always (or even primarily) between theists and atheists involve a massive amount of hubris on the part of the theists. It requires the theist to assume as an absolute given that their particular concept of God, among all the many thousands of concepts of God throughout all of human history (including the many thousands of concepts of God held by religious people of all stripes in the world today) is the only concept of God worth discussing. When a Christian asks a question about why atheists don’t believe in “God,” or when a Muslim or a Hindu sets out to prove the existence of “God,” they don’t even bother to define the properties of the God they are discussing. For that matter, when a Baptist or a Born Again Christian or a Catholic or member of any other Christian denomination sets out to prove the existence of “God,” they never ever acknowledge that their understanding of God may be unique to their particular denomination of Christianity, let alone to Christianity in general. It’s always, “I know that [my] God exists, why can’t you atheists agree with me?”

This is, of course, why many atheists respond to questions posted by theists by first asking, “Which God?” And this seems to annoy many theists, who just can't seem to grasp the idea that there are billions of other people who have a different understanding of God (or gods) and who are just as sincere in their beliefs. “Obviously,” these theists seem to be saying, “all of those beliefs are just ignorant superstitions. We’re talking about my God who, unique in all of human history, just happens to be real.” Did I mention the hubris involved in such an assumption? Devout Christians are just as convinced that their concept of God is the right one, as devout Jews are convinced that their concept of God is the right one, as devout Muslims are convinced that their concept of God is the right one, as devout Hindus are convinced that their concept of God is the right one, as devout Zoroastrians are convinced that their concept of God is the right one, etc., and within each major religion the numerous sects are all equally convinced that their concept of God is the right one and that everybody else has got it wrong.

So, yes, it would be nice if theists would specify exactly what sort of “God” they are talking about when asking questions or attempting to make arguments about “God” instead of just assuming that (a) everybody knows what their concept of God is and (b) their concept of God is the only one worth discussing. And then, rather than framing the debate as a discussion as to whether “there is a God” (the theist side) or “there isn’t a God” (the atheist side), the theists should be forced to acknowledge that what they are really arguing for is the proposition, “My personal concept of God is the correct one and every other concept of God ever held throughout the entire history of humanity, including the belief that there is no God, is wrong.” And then they should be forced to defend that proposition instead of just using the same tired “logical” arguments to “prove” the existence of some sort of nebulous “creator” that applies equally well to most of the concepts of God worshiped by various religions.

Is America a Christian Nation Founded on Judaeo-Christian Values?

Time and again, when ostensibly devout Christians here in America want to exercise their right to discriminate against those who do not share their beliefs, they trot out the well-worn nostrum that “America is a Christian nation” or “America was founded on Judaeo-Christian values” as a justification. This “foundation on Judaeo-Christian values” bit is so important, in fact, that some people even think its appropriate to put large stone monuments commemorating the Ten Commandments in courthouses.

But was America or its laws actually founded on Judaeo-Christian values (to the exclusion, presumably, of all other values)?

Well, to start with, we have the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states in part:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…

So, given the fact that the founders certainly could have specifically stated that America was a Christian nation founded on Judaeo-Christian values and instead chose to state that would be no official state religion, it certainly seems as though the founders at least didn’t think that their new country was a Christian nation founded on Judaeo-Christian values. But maybe that was just an oversight on their part.

Well, what about Article Six of the very same Constitution, which states in part:

[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Again, the founders could have stated that only good, God-fearing Christians would be eligible to serve in public office, but instead chose to say that it essentially didn’t matter what religion (if any) somebody belonged to. Still, maybe they just assumed that all Americans would be Christians and this was to prevent bickering between, say, Catholics and Protestants. Hey — it’s possible, right?

And then, of course, we have the famous “Separation of Church and State” as described by Thomas Jefferson:

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

But surely Thomas Jefferson was an outlier, right? One wacky “deist” in a sea of devout Christians, obviously. Surely the rest of the founders and early Americans were confident that America was, first and foremost, a Christian nation and were not afraid to announce this fact openly, right? Well, not according to the Treaty of Tripoli, which was submitted to the Senate by President John Adams, received unanimous ratification from the U.S. Senate on June 7, 1797, and states in part:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims]; and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

But, hey — maybe they were just lying for the sake of getting the treaty done. Not that lying is exactly a “Christian” value, mind you, but that’s politics for you.

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OK, so depending on your point of view, it’s either blindingly obvious that the founders of this great country did not think that America was founded on Judaeo-Christian values or else it’s blindingly obvious that none of the facts provided above have anything whatsoever to do with the issue and can be safely ignored (“Nothing to see here, folks, move along”). Fine. For those in the latter camp, however, how about we explore exactly what these supposed “Judaeo-Christian values” actually are and see if they do, in fact, form the foundation of our laws.

First up, of course, is the Ten Commandments, which is seen by many American Christians to be the foundation of U.S. law, to the extent that some would erect statues of the 10 Commandments right in the lobby of courthouses, as mentioned earlier. There are various versions, but here’s the most common list:

1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. [Hmmmm… I don’t see that enshrined anywhere in the Constitution or other laws of the United States. In fact, as mentioned above, the First Amendment of the Constitution specifically says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” You’d think that if America were indeed founded on Judaeo-Christian values the first and arguably most important commandment would be called out somewhere, right? Interesting…]
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. [Hmmmm… Again, I don’t see anything about this mentioned anywhere in the Constitution or other laws of the United States. And it’s kinda ironic that somebody would fight to erect a large graven image of the 10 Commandments in front of a court of law, doncha think?]
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. [Nope, still not seeing it. One could argue, by the way, that putting “In God We Trust” on our money is a direct violation of this commandment. There’s a reason why observant Jews write “G-D” instead of “God”. Ah, well… moving on!]
4. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. [Ah, yes — this must be why we have all those laws prohibiting football games and NASCAR races on Sundays. Oh wait, never mind. As an aside, did anybody else find it hilarious when, after 9/11, everybody started singing “God Bless America” at sporting events held on Sundays? Just me, huh? OK, fine.]
5. Honour thy father and thy mother. [You know, the Old Testament was really explicit about this one. In fact, Deuteronomy 21:18-21 specifically states that if you have a disobedient child, you need to take them outside and have them stoned to death. Gotta love those old time family values! Regardless, I’m not aware of anything in the Constitution or other laws of the land dealing with this. ]
6. Thou shalt not kill. [Bingo! We have a winner! This one is definitely in the Constitution. Isn’t it? OK, so it actually isn’t. We do have the nifty Second Amendment right to bear arms, though, so I guess it’s OK to kill in some circumstances. But, what the heck — let’s give this one to them, since there are plenty of English common law statutes dating back hundreds of years that prohibit murder.]
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery. [Um, yeah. Sorry, no laws against adultery. Which is good, I suppose, since most of the politicians would be in jail. Remember back in 2012 and the only Republican running for president that hadn’t had more than one wife was the Mormon? Good times, good times.]
8. Thou shalt not steal. [Again, not in the Constitution, but plenty of examples from English common law. So we’ll give it to the Christians. That’s what, 2 out of 8 so far? Hmmmm… In other news, it’s a darn good thing that “steal” doesn’t include manipulating the tax code to avoid paying ones fair share of taxes to contribute to the common good, right? I mean, am I right, or am I right?]
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.[Not really sure about this one, to be honest. Nothing in the Constitution (again), but plenty of laws regarding perjury in a court of law. That probably counts, so that makes 3 of 9 so far. w00t!]
10. Thou shalt not covet (thy neighbor’s house, wife, servants, animals, or anything else).[OK, I’m going to go out on a limb here and call this commandment positively un-American on its face. I mean coveting your neighbor’s, well, everything, is what capitalism is all about and is what makes this country so great in the first place, capische? Well, maybe not quite, but there still ain’t any laws against it, and that’s a fact!]

OK, so the final tally from the Ten Commandments is a pretty poor showing of only 3 out of 10. Maybe. Not looking so good for this myth so far, but let’s see what a selection of values described in the New Testament can tell us:

1. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. [Nope, just a restatement of the first of the 10 Commandments. Nothing to do with the U.S. And remember, according to the Biblical account, Jesus said this was the most important commandment of all, so it seems odd not to have it actually enshrined anywhere in our laws.]
2. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. [Nice enough sentiment (and in no way original to Christ’s teachings), but not really enshrined anywhere or officially part of U.S. values.]
3. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world [Interesting how so many conservative Christians think we need laws to prevent gay marriage and abortions due to “Bible principles” and yet rail against government programs that “force people” (via taxes) to care for the poor, the widowed, the orphans, etc. Suddenly, it’s a bad thing for the government to “force” anybody to follow Biblical principles (when it’s a principle they don’t actually want to follow themselves, of course). I’m just saying…]
4. Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. [Well, seeing as how the United States spends more on its military than, what, the next top ten countries combined, I’m going to give this one a big fat “NOPE!” There’s also that pesky “right to bear arms” enshrined in the Second Amendment to the Constitution to consider. And as for giving people more than what they ask for if they sue you, well, that alone would put more than half the lawyers in this country out of business, wouldn’t it?]
5. Judge not, that ye be not judged. [Well, there goes our entire legal system down the drain…]

And so on and so forth. Yes, one could try to abstract the “Judaeo-Christian values” into some sort of core beliefs like “treat individuals with respect” or something, but that’s just a modern gloss on what the scriptures that form the basis of Judaeo-Christian values actually state.

And please, don’t even get me started on all the other Biblical laws that most modern-day Christians wholly write off as not applicable. I mean, it’s vitally important that gay people not be allowed to marry since the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong, but divorce? Eating shrimp? Owning slaves (OK, sorry, that one actually was in the Constitution to start with until the 14th Amendment came along…)

Analogies Are Not Arguments

Life is like a birdbath. It's made of concrete, filled with water, and uh...birds like to splash in it. Boy, that was dumb. Life isn't anything like a bird bath…

I have noticed a recent trend here on Quora (although it has probably been going on since time immemorial) whereby theists try to prove the existence of God (or, at the very least, justify why it’s rational to believe in God) through the awesome power of analogy. Some examples of this are the following:

• "You can't see the air, but you know its around. Same goes for God."
• "You can't see electricity but you know it's around. Same goes for God."

The thing is, though, is that these are not actually arguments and are instead just analogies. Analogies are wonderful things in that they make it easier to explain and understand complex subjects. But analogies don’t actually prove anything or provide evidence of anything and are really only useful if both of the following are true:

1. The underlying concept the analogy is seeking to explain is actually a true concept to begin with.
2. The analogy is actually a good one, meaning that the comparison it makes is actually relevant (see the Garfield comic shown above for an example of a bad analogy).

The various “God” analogies described above fail for both of these reasons. First of all, they assume that God exists instead of offering any evidence to that effect and then expect the analogy to somehow convince people to accept that assumption. If you can’t first demonstrate that God exists in the first place, using an analogy to explain why His existence can’t be detected doesn’t really get you very far.

Second of all, of course, they are simply bad analogies. For example, let’s look at the “argument” that “you can’t see the air but you know it’s around” (presumably meant to prove that the same is true of God and the fact that we can’t see Him doesn’t mean He doesn’t exist). Let’s see how well our knowledge of air stacks up against theists’ supposed knowledge of God:

• We primarily know about air based on the writings of people who lived thousands of years ago, just like theists primarily know about God based on the writings of people who lived thousands of years ago. Oh, wait — that’s not true.
• We mostly know that air exists because people claimed to have actually seen it thousands of years ago, even though it’s completely invisible today, just like people claimed to see and talk with God thousands of years ago even though nobody sees him today. Oh, wait — that’s not true.
• We have hundreds of different, often conflicting, descriptions today of what air actually is and how it acts, just like theists throughout the world and throughout history have hundreds (if not thousands) of different, often conflicting, descriptions of what God actually is and how He acts. Oh, wait — that’s not true.
• We are completely unable to detect air via any scientific instruments whatsoever and therefore have to accept its existence purely on faith, just like theists are completely unable to detect God via any scientific instruments and therefore have to accept His existence purely on faith. Oh, wait — that’s not true.
• Although we can occasionally detect the effect air has on the rest of the world, we can’t do so in any sort of consistent manner since “air moves in mysterious ways.” So, sometimes when we blow into a balloon it inflates, but other times it doesn’t. And sometimes when we inhale the air fills our lungs, but other times it just refuses to enter. This is just like how theists are unable to consistently detect the effect God has on the rest of the world since “God moves in mysterious ways.” So, sometimes He heals people who pray for healing, but other times He doesn’t. It’s exactly the same. Oh, wait — that’s not true.

So, yeah. Not a particularly good analogy, sorry, and definitely not any sort of argument (valid, sound or otherwise).

Why “I Don’t Believe God Exists” Really Is the Same as “I Believe God Doesn’t Exist”

I have noticed a very odd phenomena while observing theists interacting with atheists. To wit, atheists tend to say they don’t believe that God exists, whereas theists are constantly trying to get them to admit that they actually do believe that God doesn’t exist.

Sure, there are some subtle differences between the two statements. It is certainly possible to have no opinion whatsoever on a subject and, in that case, it would only be accurate to say you don’t believe anything about that subject. After all, you can’t affirmatively believe something is false if you haven’t ever considered it in the first place. For example, you might say that a newborn baby does not believe in God because that baby can’t even grasp the concept, and it would be incorrect to sat that a newborn baby believes that God doesn’t exist.

Similarly, it is possible that there is so little information available to actually form a belief in something — no claims of evidence for or against — that it’s really only possible to say you don’t believe it and not that you actually believe it is false. For example, most people would probably say they don’t actually have a belief that there is a technologically advanced alien civilization on a planet orbiting the star Antares, but wouldn’t go so far to say that they believe there isn’t such a civilization there. There’s simply no evidence one way or another, so the default position is to lack belief without affirmatively disbelieving.

But what about when atheists talk about their lack of belief in God? Is it really any different from having a belief that God doesn’t exist? I would argue that the two statements are functionally equivalent since (a) atheists who talk about such things certainly have an opinion on the subject (or else they wouldn’t be talking about such things) and (b) there are plenty of arguments and claims of evidence used to support a belief in God as well as plenty of counter-arguments and counter-evidence to support an active disbelief in God. So, when an atheist claims that he or she does not believe in God, it is usually because they are aware of the claims for God’s existence and they have actively rejected those claims as lacking in evidence and logical soundness.

So, why do so many atheists hate to admit they believe God doesn’t exist? And why do so many theists desperately try to get them to say that they do? Well, as far as I can tell, it all comes down to a mistaken notion of the burden of proof. As one atheist I had a discussion with recently put it:

[Stating a belief that God does not exist] is a description of a strong or militant atheist, because you believe there are no gods. It is a brave statement. A belief in the existence or nonexistence of something logically requires proof or evidence, otherwise it is subject to contradiction. I am a plain vanilla atheist, one who just does not believe that gods exist. The lack of belief in anything does not require proof or evidence and is not subject to contradiction. [Emphasis added]

So, apparently, some atheists believe that stating they believe God does not exist somehow shifts the burden of proof onto them to somehow justify their affirmative belief in the non-existence of God. And, apparently, this is exactly what theists have in mind when they insist that atheists don’t just lack a belief in God but actually believe God doesn’t exist.

Except, this is not how the burden of proof actually works.

Yes, it is true that the burden of proof lies upon the person making a claim, but it’s crucially important to understand when somebody is actually making a claim in the first place.

For example, if a theist states that she believes that God exists and an atheist responds that he does not believe that God exists (or, if you prefer, that he believes that God does not exist), neither party has any burden of proof whatsoever since neither one has actually made a claim. Stating a belief is not the same as making a claim, and a statement of belief does not require justification (except, perhaps, to validate that you do, in fact, believe what you say you believe and aren’t just lying).

Here’s the thing, though. Many theists don’t just state that they “believe” that God exists. Instead, they claim that God does exist. And, not only that, they have all sorts of “proof” (including logical arguments) to support this claim that God exists. And, since they are actually making a claim, they have the burden of proof to actually provide the evidence and arguments in support of that claim and defend that evidence and arguments against any and all evidence and arguments to the contrary.

Most atheists, on the other hand, don’t ever claim that God does not exist. They claim that they don’t believe God exists, or that they believe that God doesn’t exist, but once again a statement of belief — even an affirmative statement of belief (“I believe God does not exist”) — is not a claim that carries with it any burden of proof whatsoever.

Even when atheists get into debates with theists, atheists rarely assert that “God does not exist.” At most, the atheist will provide evidence and arguments to rebut the claim by theists that God does exist and then conclude that the complete lack of good evidence and sound arguments to support a belief in God should rationally lead to a lack of belief in God.

So the whole idea of atheists who claim that God does not exist is basically a straw man cooked up by theists. But it’s a good topic for discussion, since many theists think that they can shift the burden of proof onto atheists simply by getting them to admit that they affirmatively believe there is no God instead of just that they lack a belief in God. As discussed above, however, it doesn’t matter if you assert a belief or a lack of belief, since neither statement carries with it any burden of proof whatsoever.

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Having said all that, let me acknowledge that some atheists do, in fact, make the actual claim that God (at least the God described in the holy books of any world religion and actually worshiped by anybody) does not exist. And yes, any atheist making this claim would absolutely have the burden of proof to back up his claim. Fortunately, for these atheists, the burden of proof is actually quite easy to meet, since all one needs to do is show that (a) all logical arguments used to prove the existence of God are unsound and (b) that evidence that should be there if such a God existed is, in fact, not there. See, for example, the following:

Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of Absence

Keep in mind this only applies to the God described in the holy books of any world religion and actually worshiped by anybody. Few, if any, atheists will ever claim that no possible concept of God exists, since there are concepts of God out there that are so amorphous as to be wholly incapable of being proved or disproved. You know, the omniscient, omnipotent, intangible “spirit” God who exists wholly outside of time and space and who created the universe and then does not interact with it in any way. Sure, that sort of God could exist, but who really cares if it does or doesn’t, since it doesn’t answer prayers, doesn’t perform miracles, doesn’t proscribe moral laws, doesn’t reward good deeds, doesn’t punish bad deeds, doesn’t provide for an afterlife or a path to salvation, etc., and really only exists conceptually as a means of plugging current gaps in human knowledge (e.g., “where did the universe come from?”).

The Demands of Justice and the Mercy of God

Back when I was a practicing Christian, one of the things I had the hardest time understanding was how a loving God could condemn any of his children to eternal torment. The standard explanations I got usually went along the lines that God doesn’t actually condemn anybody to Hell; instead people choose to go there themselves by not accepting and following God’s word. And then there would be some discussion about the importance of free will and how God can’t force anybody to be good.

Underlying this explanation, however, are the core concepts of Divine Justice and Divine Mercy. Divine Justice, it is said, is an absolute principle that demands that a price is paid for every sin. That’s just the way it is. If you sin, you need to be punished for it. However, because God loves us all so very, very much, He decided to come up with a way to let us off the hook. Since the demands of Divine Justice are so incredibly powerful, God figured out that the only way to get around those demands was to have an all-powerful being sacrifice Himself for everybody else’s sake. To, in effect, take responsibility for the sins of the entire world, to take the blame, and therefore pay the price Himself. And that is why He decided to send His only begotten Son (or send Himself, depending on what version of Christianity you adhere to) to suffer and die on the cross for us. And why would He do this? Why, because He is a loving God who believes in being merciful. After all, wouldn’t you spare your children pain and suffering if you had the power to do so?

Of course, this Divine Mercy has a catch to it. God isn’t just going to be merciful to every Tom, Dick or Harry who wants to avoid being tormented for all eternity. No, if God is going to go to all this trouble to sacrifice His Son (or Himself, if you prefer), then the least we can do is acknowledge that sacrifice and do a few small things like be baptized, pray to Him, try to keep His commandments, ask for forgiveness each and every time we make a mistake, maybe donate to His church (whichever one that actually is), etc. No big deal, right? And anybody who isn’t willing to put in that teeny bit of effort in order to be saved, well, they deserve to burn in hell for all eternity for being such ungrateful little pricks, right?

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OK, so obviously I’m embellishing the explanation a bit. What is typically said is simply along the lines of the following:

Justice demands that our sins are punished, and God’s mercy allows us to escape that punishment if we choose to accept it.

But the implications are all there. And here’s where it all breaks down to me:

• Why does Divine Justice demand that all sins are punished? And who decided that all sins are equally punishable with eternal torment? If God created the universe and is truly omnipotent, then He made the rules in the first place and can change them as He sees fit, right? If cheating on a test warrants the same punishment as committing genocide and the punishment for both is eternal freaking torment, where’s the justice in that (“Divine” or otherwise)? Instead of providing a “loophole”, why wouldn’t a merciful God just not set up a system of ridiculously draconian and over-the-top “justice” in the first place? I’m not even talking about getting rid of punishment altogether, mind you [Christian folk really do seem to love the idea of the guilty getting their just deserts, don’t they?], but simply making the punishment fit the crime and acknowledging that no crime is worthy of eternal freaking torment!
• Even if you want to argue that the draconian justice system is OK since God has provided an easy way to avoid that justice, this ignores the fact that the vast, vast majority of humanity will never actually be able to take part of that mercy. Even if you could figure out which of all the many different Christian denominations is the “right” one to follow, for most of human history Christianity either didn’t exist or was a small minority belief. Even today, there are billions of people who are born, live their entire lives, and die without ever having the chance to hear about God’s merciful offer*. And even if they do hear the offer, no evidence whatsoever is ever provided to convince people to abandon their beliefs and switch over to the correct religion (whatever one that happens to be).

So, the bottom line is that God supposedly set up a system whereby any sin is punishable by eternal torment, and then decided “in His mercy” to create a loophole that the majority of His children would either never have a chance to accept or would have no good reason to accept, effectively condemning the vast majority of humanity to suffer in agony for all time and eternity through no fault of their own.

Gee, what a guy!

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* I should note, by the way, that the Mormon church has come up with a way to deal with this problem. Or at least to attempt to deal with it. True, not everybody will have a chance to hear the Gospel during their lifetime, but anybody who didn’t will have another chance in the next life. And, since baptism is an absolute requirement for salvation, Mormons therefore perform many thousands of “proxy” baptisms on behalf of all those who might decide to accept the gospel in the next life. Unfortunately for this proposed solution, though, (a) I don’t think they’ll ever get all the billions of people who lived and died without hearing the Gospel and (b) that still leaves all those who heard the gospel in this life and didn’t choose to accept it for whatever reason. Mormons further get around the idea of “eternal torment” by claiming that those who reject the gospel even after hearing it won’t actually be sent to hell but will instead get to live in the “Terrestrial Kingdom” of heaven, which is basically just like earth but without all the disease and natural disasters. So, no eternal glory with God, but not a bad place to be. For all time and freaking eternity!

The Hypocrisy and Hubris of Biblical Interpretation

[Note: The following post deals specifically with the Christian religion and the Bible, since that is what I am most familiar with. Whether it applies to other religions and their holy books — and to what degree — I leave for others to decide.]

First, a few premises:

1. Christianity is ultimately based on the Holy Bible. Sure, you can say that Christianity is based on the teachings of Christ, but those teachings can only be found in the Bible. And Christianity (for most Christians, at least) extends well beyond just the words of Christ and encompasses instead all the moral laws and principles found throughout the entire Bible.
   
2. Christians, on the whole, believe that the Bible’s primary purpose is to act as a guideline to show us the path toward salvation. Only by following the laws and moral principles in the Bible can we learn about Christ, follow his commandments* and be saved. So, obviously, it is vitally important to know exactly what the Bible says and what it actually means.
   
3. Since the time the Bible was first assembled in its current form, some 1700 or so years ago, billions of people have relied on it to show them the path toward salvation.
   
4. God, according to Christian beliefs, is an omnipotent, omniscient and all-loving father who actually wants all of his children (that’s us) to learn and follow the path toward salvation. Sure, we are given free will to choose whether to follow the path or not, but the path should be clear and unambiguous enough to follow if we choose to do so.

OK, assuming those premises are more or less accurate, let’s move on to the hypocrisy and hubris part.

One trend in modern apologetics (“defending the faith” or, as I like to define it, “attempting to logically justify something that is believed for non-logical reasons,” but I digress) is to deal with supposed contradictory, scientifically impossible and/or morally reprehensible passages in the Bible by claiming that one must have special knowledge in order to understand what the passages really mean. This takes many different forms, including the following:

• One must have studied the original languages in which the Bible was written in order to understand what the passage really means.
  
• One must have a deep understanding of the socioeconomic factors that existed at the time the passage was written in order to understand what it really means.
  
• One must fully understand the culture of the people to whom the passage was addressed in order to understand what it really means.
  
• One must read the “forgotten” or “apocryphal” books of the Bible that were not included at the time it was formally assembled, but really should have been included in order to understand what the passage really means.
  
• Etc., etc., etc.

One common example of this approach is when people try to justify things like the approval of keeping slaves as stated in the Old Testament. “No, no,” they will claim, “if you look at the original Hebrew and consider the culture and socioeconomic climate at the time the Old Testament was written, you’ll see that this was actually a very good kind of slavery and not at all like the slavery you are thinking of!” This, despite the fact that these passages were actually used as justification for keeping slaves by Christians in the American South prior to (and, sadly, even after) the Civil War. Gee, what a pity those Christians didn’t have access to the original Hebrew version of the Bible. Or know how to read ancient Hebrew even if they did. Or have any way of knowing what the culture and socioeconomic climate was at the time the Old Testament was written…

Which leads me to the whole hypocrisy and hubris angle.

First, the hypocrisy. On one hand, these apologists believe that an omniscient, omnipotent and all-loving God would require his children to do certain things in order to gain salvation (and avoid eternal torment) and that the only way to learn what those things are is to read the Bible. But on the other hand, they are asserting that is no way for the vast majority of his children to actually know for sure what the words in the Bible actually mean unless they become Biblical scholars, study ancient dead languages, become experts in anthropology, etc. Especially when you take into account that, for the majority of the history of Christendom, believers were actually forbidden to read the Bible (which is why it existed solely in Latin for many centuries). So it is hypocritical to hold people to a standard that they cannot possibly meet while simultaneously claiming that it’s all part of a loving God’s plan for them.

And then, of course, the hubris. Christianity has been practiced in many forms for nigh on two thousand years. Billions of people have been born and died and have failed to understand what the Bible — the one and only guideline toward salvation — actually says. But now, two thousand years later, after all of this, here comes these apologists who are apparently the first and only of all of God’s children to finally understand it all. Just because they are so darn special, of course. And smart. Unlike all those poor deluded saps (e.g., 99.999% of humanity) who got it wrong all these years (oh, well, sucks to be them, I guess!)

OK, so maybe I’m overstating things a wee bit. But the fact remains that any time an apologist claims that they have some sort of special knowledge or training or insight that allows them to know what a Biblical passage really means, in contrast to how the vast majority of Christians have understood that same passage since Christianity began, it is hubris of the highest order. Especially if you think that God actually wanted His children to understand it all along.

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* Yes, I am aware that many “Born Again” Christians believe that the only thing necessary for salvation is to accept Jesus.

Pascal's Wager

If memory serves, Pascal's wager was essentially as follows:

Assuming there is a non-zero chance that God exists, and assuming that the reward for believing in God (if he exists) is eternal salvation, and assuming that the penalty for NOT believing in God (if he exists) is eternal damnation, and assuming that there is no downside to believing in God even if he doesn't exist, then the only logical course of action is to believe in God.

Now, assuming that I haven't completely misrepresented Pascal's argument, here's my response. Basically, I think that all of his assumptions are false, or at least not verifiably true, To wit:

Assuming there is a non-zero chance that God exists:

Why assume that there is a non-zero chance that God exists? Given the complete lack of empirical data to prove his existence, and given the many counterarguments to his existence (the existence of evil in the world, the fact that different people have claimed to receive conflicting messages from God, the fact that many so-called "miracles" have been proven to be the result of natural forces or merely delusions, etc.), maybe there is only a one in a million chance that God exists, or perhaps a one in a billion chance. Or, perhaps even a zero chance that God exists. Pascal's wager could just as likely be used to prove the rationality of believing that a flock of pink elephants will fly into my window one night and grant my heart's fondest desires. I mean, anything’s possible, right?

Assuming that the reward for believing in God (if he exists) is eternal salvation:

What proof is there that believing in God will automatically result in eternal life, let alone eternal salvation? Different religions have different beliefs, and not all religions believe in an afterlife. Assuming there is a God of some sort, maybe he has simply created us as playthings and has no desire to let us return to his presence. Or maybe the whole purpose of life is to enjoy ourselves fully while we can, since the rest of eternity will be mind-numbing boredom as we sit on a cloud and strum a harp all day long.

Assuming that the penalty for NOT believing in God (if he exists) is eternal damnation:

Who is to say that the penalty for NOT believing is eternal damnation? Again, assuming there is a God of some sort, maybe He really doesn't care what we do here on earth. Claiming that all nonbelievers will have eternal torment and misery is pretty cruel and heartless when you think of all the BILLIONS of people who are raised in societies where a belief in God is not taught (not to mention all the BILLIONS of people who lived on the earth before the Bible was even written). God is the one who decides where and when somebody will be born, so why would he then condemn that person to Hell for never hearing about him?

Assuming that there is no downside to believing in God even if he doesn't exist:

Who's to say that there is no downside to believing in a non-existent God? Perhaps if you are a born again Christian who thinks that it is enough to simply “accept Jesus into your heart" to be saved, then this assumption is valid. The religion in which I was raised, however, taught that God demands a life of self-sacrifice and obedience; no premarital sex, no alcohol, 10% of your income donated to the church, significant amounts of time devoted to performing various tasks (attending meetings, visiting other members, preparing lessons, performing sacred ordinances, etc.). If you believe that all of this is required of you to gain the promised reward and there ISN'T really a God, you will have essentially wasted your entire life to some degree or another. Economists call this “Opportunity Cost.” This isn’t to say there can’t also be some benefits to trying to live a wholly religious life (maybe you get mutual support from other believers, maybe you have an easier time dealing with the death of a loved one, etc.), but these benefits don’t erase the potential costs.

An additional downside to believing in a nonexistent god is the sacrifice of my capacity to rationally distinguish between what is real and what is fantasy. If I'm willing to believe in God simply because it's a "safe bet", then why not also believe in UFOs, psychics, ghosts, etc.? Maybe the UFOs will only rescue those who believe in them when the day or Armageddon is at hand. Or maybe the TV psychics can only convey messages from the loved ones of those who believe in psychic powers. Or maybe ghosts only visit those who are willing to see them? Forcing myself to believe in something for which there is no evidence and plenty of counter-evidence can only diminish my ability to think rationally.

Then the only logical course of action is to believe in God:

Basically, I think the argument boils down to "the theoretical reward is so great, and the cost to play is so minimal, that it is in your best interest to play." I suppose an analogy could be made, perhaps, to one of those multi-state lotteries where the prize has risen to $300 million and the chance of wining is 1 in 100 million. If the tickets are only $1 each, it only makes sense to play, since the potential gain is enormous and the potential loss is trivial.

However, I don't think that analogy is really accurate. For a closer analogy, you would be required to sell everything that you own in order to enter the lottery with the same 1 in 100 million chance of winning. Not only that, but there are 4000 different lotteries to choose from, and — at most — one of them will not be a scam (that is, only one can possible be legitimate, but it’s possible that they are all scams). Oh — and if you lose (which is likely), your whole life would be ruined as a result.

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To sum up, since there is no way to tell if there is any chance that God exists, and since there is no guarantee that God would reward belief with eternal life if He did exist, and since there's no guarantee that God would reward disbelief with eternal damnation, and since the penalty for believing in a nonexistent God is potentially very high, the only logical thing is to not believe in God.