Only One Less God?

The Claim That Atheists Believe in One Less God

Over the years, as you listen to the presentations made by today's atheists, you start hearing familiar themes, as one would expect, of course. One that is interesting I'd like to examine in this brief video is the claim that the atheist simply believes in one less God than the theist does.

And to give you an example, I'd like to play a section from Dan Barker, the head of Freedom from Religion Foundation, as he presents, evidently, an argument that he uses in most of his debates, I've heard him use it many times, presenting this exact concept.

Let's listen to how he puts it.

Long before we understood electricity or the weather, our ancestors would look up at the thunder and the lightning and they would go, what is that? That hyperactive agency detector says, well, that must be some bird, animal, human creature thing up there doing that, and so they named it Zeus.

Or if you live in the north, they named it Thor. And they thought this thing up there was communicating with them. And millions of people believed in Thor. In fact, do you want evidence for the existence of Thor?

Let me ask you a question. What day of the week is it today? Thursday. What does Thursday mean? The day of the acknowledgement of at least the belief of a God named Thor. How many people in this room now believe in the existence of the God Thor?

Any of them? There's one in every crowd, you know? Or Zeus? How many of you believe in the existence of Zeus? Or Jupiter? Or Quetzalcoatl? What, is this a room full of skeptics? You don't believe in Thor and Zeus?

What's wrong with you? Are you doubters? Do you doubt what millions of people sincerely believed for thousands of years? How many of you believe there was a desert religion that started in the Middle East and they had a war god named Yahweh?

This group of Jacob, the Israelites, they had a war god named Yahweh, which competed with the other gods. The God of the Bible. How many people in this room believe in the existence of Yahweh, the God of the Bible?

I thought so. Okay. Well, the only difference between you and me is that I believe in one less God than you do. We are all atheists. In fact, you know, the early Christians were called atheists by the Romans because they didn't believe in the right gods.

Why the Comparison to Zeus, Thor, and Yahweh Is a Category Error

Now, the reason, of course, that Dan Barker uses this form of argumentation is easy to understand. He is attempting to lower Yahweh to the level of Zeus or Thor or Quetzalcoatl, all pagan deities who came forth from the creation.

They were not transcendent, monotheistic deities, self-contained, eternal, etc., etc. They're fundamental, foundational differences, and so it's a category error to even put the true God of the Bible in the same category as these beings.

Why Worldview Differences Between Theism and Atheism Matter

But beyond that, beyond that basic error, is it really just a matter of one belief difference? I would suggest to you that this is a very fallacious argument. Whether one believes that one is the product of random chance, forces that are impersonal, forces that have no teleology, no direction, no purpose, no meaning, whether one believes that one might have been or might not have been, one might have been completely different, one is simply a briefly appearing life form in a universe destined for heat death, without any transcendent meaning whatsoever, will determine how one lives one's life.

In contrast to that, whether a person believes that he or she is the creature of God, created by a divine being that has absolute purpose, transcendent purpose, and that in fact we are created in the image of God, and therefore God has interest in our life and in how we live that life, and that therefore there is transcendent meaning, there is a purpose in all of creation, we have a place in that purpose, I suggest to you that that is a fundamental difference of worldview that impacts everything, our morality, our ethics, our behavior, everything is impacted, and that the divide between those two perspectives is a massive chasm that is trivialized, truly trivialized, to simply make it sound as if, well, I just believe in one less God than you do.

Why Soft Atheism Cannot Escape the Claim That God Does Not Exist

No. Now, Dan Barker likes to try to defend soft atheism, he, well, I just lack a belief in God, but he can't maintain that, you've probably, if you've heard him speak, heard him say many times God does not exist, that's atheism.

He doesn't want to have to defend an atheistic worldview, of course, because it's really indefensible, but that is the perspective that he's taking, and when you say God does not exist, then not only are you making a claim, but the worldview you must embrace will be fundamentally different than the Christian worldview.

It's not just a matter of, well, Zeus doesn't exist, and you don't believe Zeus exists either, and so we're all in the same boat. This trivializes the fundamental worldview difference that exists between Christian theism and atheism, and I truly would hope that my viewers, when you hear this argument used, and Dan Barker's not the only one to use it, when you hear this argument being used, especially if it's in a situation where you're speaking with someone who is presenting this kind of argument, that you'll be quick to point out that this trivializes a fundamental difference, a difference that really is the heart of the entire debate.

Thanks for watching.