"You Spend a Lot of Time Fighting a God You Don't Believe in!"

"You Spend a Lot of Time Fighting a God You Don't Believe in!"

I have probably addressed this argument responding to one of the commenters in the past, but if so, I only mentioned the flaw in the reasoning in passing. The statement barely represents an argument, and the idea behind it is virtually never fully articulated from Christians, so I don't generally spend much time dealing with it. In my experience, it is usually a one liner that is thrown out toward the end of an exchange that isn't going well for the believer. It is half baked, and so I don't usually expend much energy refuting it.

Why then am I creating a post to address it now? The reason is because I hear it so frequently. I suspect this is a line pastors and evangelists throw out when they are preaching. Because most churches discourage expressions of dissent or disagreement from the congregation, even if someone from the congregation correctly identifies a problem with the reasoning, their voice is stifled, and the bad reasoning gets propagated in minds of the congregation. Bad ideas thrive in church environments.

As I said, the full argument is not really articulated when this criticism is leveled against atheists who engage with believers on the subject of the existence of their god(s). I suspect that if I stopped the conversation and pressed them to explain what they think their observation implies, I might get a response like Steve Martin's character in this scene in The Three Amigos.

Lucky Day: I'll fill you so full of lead, you'll be using your 'thing' for a pencil.

Elguapo: What do you mean?

Lucky: ...I don't know.

Because this has never been fully fleshed out for me, I'm going to be doing a little speculation here. If you are a believer who thinks this is a legitimate complaint and if you think I have not rendered a steal man of the argument, or if you have heard someone articulate this argument in a way that makes more sense than what I am about to lay out, please let me know.

The argument

Here is what I think believers are suggesting when they say atheists spend a lot of time arguing against/fighting a god they don't believe it. [wink]

> You spend a lot of time fighting against Christianity/the Christian god/the Bible.

> If you didn't believe these things were real, you wouldn't feel threatened/it wouldn't bother you that people believe these things because there is no hell and no ultimate threat to you.

>> You must believe the Christian god/the Bible/Christianity are real/true.

Yes, I know a king cannot checkmate a king in chess...

Checkmate atheists! You're not even atheists!

I think the premises that follow the first one are somewhat intuited. Again, if you think I am missing some important element and there is a better articulation of the implied meaning in those kinds of statements, please message me or comment below.

Problems with the argument

The core issue is the assumption that there is only one plausible motivation for using one's time to try to disabuse people of an idea.

I think Christians frequently struggle to imagine that anyone could genuinely not believe that their god is real, so it might seem natural to assume that if someone spent time discussing or debating the existence of a god, they must actually believe that the god exists.

The truth is there are a variety of motivations for atheists discussing and engaging with believers on the subject of their religious beliefs that do not involve or require the atheist to believe the god is real. Here are a few.

Superstitions can be harmful to individuals

Superstitions can be a waste of time, energy, and resources. If you are spending your money on solutions that don't help to solve the problems you are facing, that will have a negative impact on your life. If you are paying for horoscopes, and I suggest to you that your money is being spent in vain, that doesn't mean I think horoscopes are real, does it? Why would it be different with a god?

The fact that I talk to people and try to disabuse them of religious beliefs is indicative of the fact that I care about people, not that I secretly believe their god is real. If I did, that would be rather silly of me, especially for a god like the Christian god that is supposedly going to torture people for eternity if they don't accept the set of prescribed beliefs and serve him.

If you are a believer, you likely object to putting your religious beliefs in the category of superstitions. That's fine. I disagree. Check out my article that explains why I believe religious beliefs properly belong in that category. If you still disagree, please provide a definition for the term superstition that would not include your religious beliefs without an arbitrary carve out "credulous belief in and reverence for supernatural beings ...except for the Christian god."

Bad reasoning and lack of critical thought is harmful to society

I sincerely believe that faith is a bad way to conclude that something is true. People invoke faith when they run out of good reasons or evidence to justify their belief that a claim is true. In essence, it is a way of saying, "I can't rationally justify my belief, but this is a belief I am compelled to believe it is true."

If there is faulty reasoning at the foundation of your belief system or if you come to rely on bad reasoning to reach conclusions about the world, that becomes a problem in a society where everyone gets to vote. It wouldn't matter so much if there were just a handful of people basing their beliefs on nonsense, but when you reach a critical mass of people in a democratic society who believe things that are not true for fallacious reasons, that is a problem.

I am composing this article in 2021. In the US, we just saw the end of what was likely one of the most corrupt presidential administrations in the history of our country. President Trump was bolstered by evangelical Christians, many of whom were convinced Trump had a special blessing as their god's anointed leader. Because of that, they ignored and shrugged off evidence of his crimes and corruption. They seemed to believe anything he told them regardless of the facts. Unquestioning devotion to a person like that is extremely dangerous, and it ultimately lead to a violent attempt to overthrow the US government on January 6th.

We are also dealing with a global pandemic. People have become dubious of science and don't understand what to believe. Scientists are struggling to keep up with the data because this is a new virus, there are new strains popping up all over the world, and there remains a lot we don't know about how effective the vaccines will be against the variants. People's trust in tested science and news outlets has been intentionally eroded by bad actors and bad reasoning. People are literally dying unnecessarily as a result.

Bad reasoning and lack of basic skepticism is not good for a democratic society.

I want to make clear that I know many believers who compartmentalize their beliefs. They are intelligent and skeptical thinkers outside of their religious beliefs. They accept the science of vaccines and they acknowledge political corruption, even when it involves politicians within the party they support. I am also aware of atheists who lack skepticism in certain realms, or who do not accept science for things like vaccines. The issue of problematic reasoning does not solely rest with theists. And when I encounter it among atheists, I work just as hard to lead them toward critical examination of the things they believe.

Saturation of Christianity (and push for theocratic laws/government) in US

Christianity is the dominant religion in the US. I am confronted with Christian imagery and ideas, seemingly at every turn. I have friends and family who are believers. There are politicians who are believers and whose faith based beliefs influence their policy choices. There are sincere actors, but I suspect there are likely many politicians who weaponize religion disingenuously to gain an advantage despite not believing it themselves. I am quite confident Trump did this to great success.

In any case, I am confronted with Christianity because of the society I live in. I think it is a bone-headed belief system that is riddled with problems, so much of my time is consumed with responding to those ideas. If I lived in a country where a different religion was dominant, I would probably be arguing with people about whether their methods of concluding that other gods were reliable, or whether it was really true that their sacred text was divinely inspired. And if I lived in a society that was predominantly non-religious, I wouldn't likely spend much time dealing with those ideas at all.

Philosophical conversations are enjoyable and beneficial

I know some atheists who do live in predominantly secular countries, but who enjoy engaging with believers. Philosophy is fun and challenging. The practice of engaging with these deep concepts and ideas, spotting errors in reasoning and argumentation is gratifying, stimulating, and it can help practitioners to improve their skills. This is useful, not only in the realm of religion, but in every day life as well. If I get a phone call from a scammer, being skeptical makes me less vulnerable. Being able to discern fact from fiction is extremely beneficial. Even if these other reasons were not sufficient, I would undoubtedly engage in these conversations because I enjoy the activity in and of itself.

I hope you can see that there are many reasons for debating the existence of gods, and that the suggestion that the best reason would be that those people who are arguing against it secretly believe that god is real, is actually an absurd explanation.

Thanks for stopping by,

Gavagai