some recent errors in "theism" discourse

Is "theism" ridiculous? Is religion an information hazard? No and yes, respectively, but there's more to both.

I’ll be responding to two essays I’ve recently read on here. My rebuttals are somewhat disconnected so I won’t try to make this into a unified essay with an elegant structure. It’s pretty close to just fact checking. I’ll close with a general rant about the Dunning-Kruger effect in online atheism-vs.-“theism” discourse, which rant is not directed at either essayist I’m responding to.

---

“A Core Area of Disagreement Between Theists and Atheists: Is Theism Ridiculous?”

This essay by

Bentham's Bulldog

(from whom I demand no response, as with the next writer) makes some good points. In particular, it’s worth pointing out the titular difference between atheists and “theists” as to whether “theism” is flatly ridiculous. That’s a solid area of inquiry and not discussed often enough. But the essay do go slightly off the rails, in large part because it makes absolutely no distinction between “theistic” faiths. I put “theism” in quotations because I think it’s mostly a useless term — which I’ll get to.

I. What is god?

One main issue comes when the Bulldog discusses the difference between belief in god and Santa Claus. To some atheists, belief in a god might seem akin to belief in Santa Claus. And he shows that there are many good ways to disprove Santa Claus, as opposed to his notion of a god. His notion of a god. That’s the part I want to pick at first.

God is not arbitrary and constricted in the ways Santa Claus is. He is wholly limitless—a mind totally without limits. If you are a theist, you can write out fundamental reality in one sentence: there is a mind without limits.

Not many people believe in a god like this, at all. Nor does BB cite any specific theological sources for this. That’s a recurring issue for me in these sorts of arguments. Most “theists” do believe that a god (including my G-d) acts in the world in observable ways. For instance: splitting the Red Sea, incarnating as a human and dying and rising from the dead, wiping out whole cities, and of course eventually restoring the world to perfection. If there is a Santa Claus, it would be Jesus or Eva Frank or whoever. Señor Santo [Claus] comes to mind as a silly pun. For most religions, their god gives them material commandments with eternity at stake, too. This abstract aethereal god seems not to.

Anyway, for now, the point is: BB is arguing here for a god very few people believe in. I’ve actually heard this notion of god given to atheists before as a plausible god, so it seems like an idea that often emerges from debates regarding atheism or “theism” rather than ordinary theology. “Theism” is too empty a term to mean anything in a debate, anyway. Are we arguing about early Roman paganism or Late Platonist henology? Or Wiccan theology — if so, Dianic or not? There’s hardly a unified thing called “theism” to support or reject with one line of argument.

II. The “problem” of evil

One common justification atheists give for theism being absurd is that the problem of evil renders theism very improbable…

I will join these people in admitting that the problem of evil is a strong argument against theism. It lowers the odds of God by a lot. But sometimes, it is worth believing something even if there are strong arguments on the other side. Once we have admitted that evil is powerful evidence against theism, the only remaining question is whether it is a knockdown blow—a K.O. or just one consideration among many.

I think there are several reasons to reject the idea that the problem of evil is an argument so powerful it cannot be beaten by contrary arguments. Certainly most arguments are not this powerful. In order to think the problem of evil singlehandedly demolishes the possibility of a plausible theistic view, one would have to be very confident that the argument works.

I’ve already written my thoughts on the “problem” of evil from a confessional, Jewish standpoint, which I won’t rehash.

And I quote some key Jewish passages on evil elsewhere in my weird post about/for the Lady Eva.

So, I’m not going into the Jewish angle too much, here. Suffice it to say, evil works for the good, in Judaism, no matter its intent. It stemmed from the good, whether at G-d’s will or consent, and will be made light again, including retroactively, by the Holy Maiden during redemption. It’s not an issue if the hypothetical reader has a basic understanding of either orthodox or antinomian Judaism’s soteriology.

No, the issue here is simpler, far simpler, which is why I consider this more or less a fact checking issue. These atheists are basically taking all of “theism” to be Christianity, a very boiled down version of Christianity at that. And BB is engaging them at this level without calling out, hey guys and gals, not all “theism” is Christian. Given BB’s theology seems not to be orthdox-ly Christian either, I’m sure he’s aware of this; his putdown could’ve just been a lot easier. Evil is absolutely no disproof of most religions.

Greek polytheism? No. Some Jewish Gnostic strands of Christianity? C’mon. Any polytheistic faith is “theist” but has no issue with this; most ideas of a demiurge make this a laughable non-issue too. Even my favourite obscure faiths, usually not taken as serious schools of thought, don’t care: Filianism has a trinity with a darkly divine person, and Love Has Won makes it clear, in as many words, that “everything works for the light.” In the latter case, not even a widely mocked New Age faith has anything to worry about in this debate. Evil’s existence has absolutely nothing to do with the plausibility of most theologies or thealogies ever. BB’s idea of a god does not either, but it’s about the least unique idea of a god in this way.

If people want to debate the Simple English Wikipedia version of Christianity, go for it. They just need to stop pretending that they’re talking about all “theism,” which is why I hate the term: it serves little purpose in argument or even casual discussion. “I believe in a god” communicates virtually nothing arguable. Arguing about a simplified Christianity and claiming it applies to all faiths that believe in a god is flatly dishonest. I don’t think BB is being intentionally dishonest here, perhaps he’s just being polite, or I wouldn’t be so harsh. I’m avoiding individual callouts. However, I would personally suggest everyone ignore liars as usual and not descend to engage them at their level. I have a hard time believing that they haven’t read even a slight morsel about Greek paganism before making their arguments.

To be honest, I think treating someone else’s beliefs as “ridiculous” is a personal character issue, not so much an issue for argumentation. BB sees otherwise and that’s fine, perhaps he has less interest in moralising. I don’t treat atheists as ridiculous and I don’t treat every other religion’s adherents as ridiculous, even though I obviously think I’m correct and all other faiths are wrong. Like I said, though, I think Mr. BB was insightful to prod at the “ridiculousness” divide with a sharp stick, something I’ve not seen done before.

---

“Pascal’s Wager: Religion as Info-Hazard”

The Great Day of His Wrath by John Martin (Wikimedia)

This essay by

Evan Harkness-Murphy

was quite interesting to read. My main rebuttal is that it doesn’t take into account the full stakes of a religion being true. Here’s the gist:

Religion is the most serious info-hazard imaginable: simply hearing it means you are now eligible for Hell. (If the true God is an evil god we’re all going to Hell anyway). It is morally imperative then for us to extinguish all religious creeds everywhere, and prevent all religious thought in form, even though this may mean we ourselves are condemned to Hell (if we accidentally extinguish the true one) because by succeeding in our mission we will ensure that no good person ever again would be condemned to Hell. And according to cardinality etc. etc. aleph sets yada yada the happiness of a potentially limitless number of future un-damned souls — experiencing, if not perfection in Heaven, then at least eternally persisting pretty-good-ness in Purgatory — would far outweigh whatever infinite suffering awaits our own finite number (of heroes!) in Hell

This makes sense when taking Pascal’s wager to its conclusion… sort of. Two major issues:

1. Some mainstream Christian groups think that unawareness of their God does not excuse anyone from damnation. Annihilating knowledge of their God could therefore condemn everyone thereafter to hell. Again, this is a sort of fact checking moment. For instance, St. Augustine, a bit of a famous guy, believed that unbaptised babbies go to hell, even though they didn’t personally decide to reject the Christian God. He may have wiggled around on the issue once, but that’s just one example: this is an extremely normal belief in Christianity. Harkness-Murphy might have a rebuttal, but this was an essential idea to respond to, given it’s a mainstream view in the world’s largest religion.

2. If a religion’s idea of the afterlife is true, that means the whole religion is true. Let’s unpack this a teensy bit more, but again, it’s more or less a fact check.

As for those peoples that warred against Jerusalem, G-d will smite them with this plague: Their flesh shall rot away while they stand on their feet; their eyes shall rot away in their sockets; and their tongues shall rot away in their mouths.

—Zechariah 14:12

Harkness-Murphy already makes the case that the misfortune of a few souls going to an eternal hell would be outweighed by the number of souls who would go to an eternal afterlife that’s not as bad, given that the damned souls earned damnation in the process of sparing them the information hazard. He’s mathematically right on that, I guess, although I don’t find statistics useful in discussing religious matters — from a strictly confessional, thus not super relevant at the moment, angle.

However, what Harkness-Murphy doesn’t address is that if a religion is right about the fate of souls, it’s also right about, for instance, the time of redemption. The above passage from Zechariah is about this coming period that Jews and Christians believe in, in their own ways. Most gods would not let their entire people die and—if the religion is true—the god is also real. The anti-information hazard people may have been a prophesied sect of enemies who initiate the demise and possibly damnation of all disbelievers. They would likely have raised the number of people going to a bad afterlife because every nonbeliever is about to either die or suffer in some other way.

Oops.

One very normal Jewish eschatology holds that outright enemies of the Jews will die in the final wars, and the rest of the world will just realise the truth of G-d. That would be more pleasant and maybe… worth the Nations kicking off? It would be funny to invert Harkness-Murphy’s hypothetical and argue that everyone should work on behalf of Judaism, but it wouldn’t be very serious and might make me feel weird as an accidental evangelist.

---

Dunning-Kruger

I’m not going to be directing this section—truly a screed—at anyone in particular. If I thought that Bentham’s Bulldog and Evan Harkness-Murphy should be included in this part of my post, I obviously wouldn’t have responded to their interesting essays specifically. Keep in mind that I’m referring to the general quality of this online “theism” discourse.

A lot of the “theism” vs. atheism debate consists of giant examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Its participants usually don’t know what they’re talking about, at all. Most participants do not acknowledge that anything other than Christianity exists, which is an issue of either literacy or honesty. I don’t think it’s good to argue about something I don’t know about and I don’t think it’s good to lie.

If religions with a malevolent divinity never come to discoursers’ minds when trying to debunk all of “theism” with the “problem” of evil, they should either stop typing, or replace every reference to “theism” with what they actually mean. In a comment earlier, I compared common behavioural issues in online “theism” discourse to an anti-intellectual arrogance that would be bizarre even from a student in Philosophy 101.

People in this discourse do not tend to touch the absolute basics of religious studies. They don’t get into Hinduism or the New Age, paganism or neo-paganism, Judaism or Manichaeism, nor do they bring up anything more obscure in Christianity than what one might hear in a televangelist’s sermon. If they bring up what they might hope to pass off as Judaism, it’s almost always a Protestant way of reading Tanakh: not Judaism, at all. If they don’t bring up the tradition at all, such as the basic texts I cite in my post on evil, they aren’t talking about Judaism in an honest way.

They are enlightened by their intelligence, so why—in their euphoria—would they need to address the complexity of even one major world religion, let alone three or fifty faiths? Just lie or don’t read, it definitely won’t be embarrassing.

My point is simple. Don’t write about anything from a place of total ignorance or from a place of dishonesty, indulged for the sake of snarky takedowns. Intellectual humility is important. We need always to be aware of what we don’t know. And then not yap until we do know something about the topic. A simple solution is to cite, cite, cite. If someone stops and notices their essay on religion doesn’t cite anything religious, they should reconsider what they’re doing.

I find all this very irritating. I don’t know much about rationalism, which I’ve freely admitted. But I at least know a little about religion, so I can offer correctives on that. I hope the early parts of this post might be of mild use to a hypothetical reader.