A revised version of an entry from 26 July 2010.
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I've seen the above-captioned quotation attributed to Richard Dawkins. From what I have read of him, it seems like something he would say. The idea, I take it, is that all gods are on a par, and so, given that everyone is an atheist with respect to some gods, one may as well make a clean sweep and be an atheist with respect to all gods. You don't believe in Zeus or in a celestial teapot. Then why do you believe in the God of Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob?
What Dawkins and his New Atheist colleagues seem to be assuming is that the following questions are either senseless or not to be taken seriously: 'Is the Judeo-Christian god the true God?' 'Is any particular god the true God' 'Is any particular conception of deity adequate to the divine reality?'
The New Atheist presupposition, then, is that all candidates for deity are in the same logical boat, and that this boat is one leaky vessel. Nothing could be divine. Since all theistic religions are false, there is no live question as to which such religion is true. It is not as if there is a divine reality and that some religions are more adequate to it than others. One could not say, for example, that Judaism is somewhat adequate to the divine reality, Christianity more adequate, and Buddhism not at all adequate. There just is no divine reality. There is nothing of a spiritual nature beyond the human horizon. There is no Mind beyond finite mind. Man is the measure. This is it!
That is the atheist's deepest conviction. It seems so obvious to him that he cannot begin genuinely to doubt it, nor can he understand how anyone could genuinely believe the opposite. Belief in God is like belief in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, or Ed Abbey's Angry Unicorn on the Dark Side of the Moon. You don't believe in any of those nonentities, do you? Well, Dawkins & Co. just go one nonentity further!
This morning I received a message from a Canadian reader, C. L., who asks whether Dawkins and friends are begging the question against the theist. That depends on whether they are giving an argument or just making an assertion. It also depends on what exactly 'begging the question' is. If they are just making an assertion then I say: Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur. But suppose they intend the following argument:
1) All gods are on an epistemic/doxastic par: they are all equal in point of rational acceptability. Therefore:
2) If one god is such that its existence is not rationally acceptable, then this is true of all gods.
3) There are gods such as Zeus whose existence is not rationally acceptable. Therefore:
4) No god is such that its existence is rationally acceptable.
This is a valid argument: it cannot be the case that the premises are true and the conclusion false. Does it beg the question? The problem here is that it is not very clear what the informal fallacy in question (pun intended) is supposed to be. If I argue that The Los Angeles Times displays liberal bias because its reportage and editorializing show a left-of-center slant, then I reason in a circle, or beg the question. That is a clear example. But suppose I argue that The L. A. Times displays liberal bias because all mainstream media outlets display liberal bias and The L. A. Times is a mainstream media outlet. Have I begged the question? Not so clear. Surely we don't want to say that every valid argument begs the question! (John Stuart Mill floated this suggestion.) On the other hand, it is impossible for a valid argument to have true premises and a false conclusion which suggests that he who accepts the premises of the second argument above has in so doing begged the question: he has at least implicitly committed himself to an affirmative answer to the question, 'Does The L. A. Times display liberal bias?'
'Beg the question,' I suggest, is not a very useful phrase. Besides, people nowadays regularly conflate it with 'raising a question.' See On Begging the Question. It is becoming a useless phrase.
Regarding the above argument, I would say that, while valid, it is nowhere near rationally compelling and is therefore rationally rejectable. What reason do we have to think that all candidates for divine status are on a doxatic/epistemic par?
In sum, either Dawkins is asserting or he is arguing. If he is asserting, then his gratuitous assertion can be met with a gratuitous counter-assertion. If he is arguing, and his argument is as above, then his argument is easily turned aside.
The fundamental issue here is whether there is anything beyond the human horizon. The issue dividing theists and atheists can perhaps be put in terms of Jamesian 'live options':
EITHER: Some form of theism (hitherto undeveloped perhaps or only partially developed) is not only logically and epistemically possible, but also an 'existential' possibility, a live option;
OR: No form of theism is an existential possibility, a live option.
Theist-atheist dialog is made difficult by a certain asymmetry: whereas a sophisticated living faith involves a measure of purifying doubt, together with a groping beyond images and pat conceptualizations toward a transcendent reality, one misses any corresponding doubt or tentativeness on the part of sophisticated atheists. Dawkins and Co. seem so cocksure of their position. For them, theism is not a live option or existential possibility. This is obvious from their mocking comparisons of God to a celestial teapot, flying spaghetti monster, and the like.
For sophisticated theists, however, atheism is a live option. The existence of this asymmetry makes one wonder whether any productive dialog with atheists is possible. It is probably no more possible than productive dialog with leftists. We live on different planets.
Companion post: Russell's Teapot: Does It Hold Water?
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