Memebuster #3: I just believe in one less God than you

A mighty impressive list, but does it really do anything to disprove the existence of God?

One of the pithier quotes that does the rounds online and is frequently injected into debates between Christians and atheists is the following, originally coined in the mid-90s by Stephen F. Roberts:

"I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
	...Stephen F Roberts

The particular meme I have shared is a variant of Roberts' idea, containing the end of his quote and a long list of deities from various cultures and religions from across the globe. Both the meme and the quote are interesting to reflect on and it is perhaps even challenging for some Christians to formulate a response. But never fear, this meme is as busted as they come. Let's look at the three claims contained in the quote and see whether they stand or fall.

Claim 1: We are both atheists

This claim is clearly false, if it is being offered to someone who believes in the existence of God. Someone who believes in God is not an atheist at all. Nothing offered in the rest of the argument justifies this claim, so it can be dismissed as empty rhetoric. It may sound impressive, but it means nothing. And to compound things, it sloppily contradicts the very next claim.

Claim 2: I just believe in one fewer god than you do

So what? This is stating the obvious. A Christian theist believes in one God, while an atheist believes that there is no God. We can count too, you know. Sometimes this comment is made like it's a profound declaration, but really it's just a statement of obvious fact and hardly an earth-shattering revelation. 

Meanwhile, if Stephen F. Roberts and his atheist brethren believe in one less god than we do, then Claim 1 is contradicted, because we are not both atheists. 

Let's move onto the final and most important claim.

Claim 3: I dismiss your God for the same reason you dismiss all other gods

And again, this statement is false - depending on the reason for which you dismiss all other gods. 

If, like me, you reject the existence of Apollo, Dionysus and Thor (etc, etc) because there is no evidence to justify belief in them, then you stand on solid ground.

"Aha!" cries the atheist. "That's exactly why I reject your God."

Well actually no, the evidence for the God of Christianity is utterly unlike the evidence for the gods listed in the image at the top of this article in terms of abundance, depth and quality.

Atheists sometimes make the mistake of imagining the concept of God as being some kind of "sky dude" who is similar to Thor or the Greek and Roman deities. That he's merely an immortal anthropomorphic being with superpowers and an interest in the moral behaviour of his human pets. But this is a strawman representation of God. I reject that kind of god too, he's far too small and weak an idea to be worth more than a cursory investigation.

When Christians talk of God we are offering a philosophically robust hypothesis. We are speaking of the uncaused first cause, the necessarily existent being that terminates the infinite regress of causes and brought all of contingent reality into existence. We are talking about the architect who fine-tuned the initial big bang conditions to be just right for producing a universe in which intelligent life can exist, despite the range of possible life-permitting values being infinitesimally narrow. We are talking about a perfect being whose nature is the objective standard by which we measure right and wrong moral actions. We are positing a unified explanation for the existence of life, love, physics, chemistry, beauty, truth, information, goodness, design, logic, mathematics and human free will.

None of the other gods rise to this level. Even in their own mythologies, virtually none of the finite gods are responsible for the existence of all other things. None of them can plausibly account for the existence of  observable features of the actual universe, such as the fine-tuning of the universe for life, or the existence of objective moral standards and duties. Information is caused by intelligence, yet genetic information pre-existed the first intelligent beings. How many of the gods on that list could be the solution for that little chicken and egg paradox? Very few of them, because they are not the type of thing that creates and designs genetic processes. Perhaps most damningly of all, there are no current philosophical arguments being offered and defended by modern philosophers for the existence of these lesser gods. As ideas go, they just do not hold water.

Yet by contrast there are many logical and time-tested arguments for the existence of God being articulated and defended by philosophers in the current academic sphere. There are also millions of people worldwide who testify that they have experienced the love of God, yet how many Dionysians does one meet? How many devoted worshippers of Thor? Subjective personal experiences may be weak, unconvincing evidence on its own, but paired with valid intellectual reasons for believing in God, it amounts to extremely strong evidence worth sincere investigation.

This Meme and Quote are Busted

First the quote falsely claims that theists are atheists, then conflictingly states the obvious that theists believe in a God and atheists don't. Then it engages in a very bad comparison between a philosophically rigorous idea (God) and a whole bunch of weak, vapid ideas (the lesser gods). The reason anyone rejects these gods is a lack of evidence, but the same cannot be said of the Christian God when there are so many good arguments and features of the universe that point to his existence, not to mention his ongoing activity in the world. Meme officially busted.