Polytheists believe in many gods. Christians believe in one God. Atheists just believe in one less god than Christians.
By the same token, mortalists (e.g. Bill Bryson) believe there are 8,000 ways for you to die, but only one of them will succeed in killing you. Over the decades, medical science has reduced the causes of death.
I think death is an illusion. I just believe in one less way to die than you do.
– Mary Baker Eddy
It’s interesting to imagine a thought experiment. Suppose that an atheist is visited by God. The atheist now knows that God exists, but he doesn’t know *which* God. The atheist is given one year in which to think about it. At the end of the year God will return to hear what the atheist has to say. What the atheist does know is that his decision will have important consequences. The atheist now has a year in which he can study the subject. He must decide whether the Iliad and the Gospels really are of equal historical value. This is an important point because the atheist used to say that the Christian God was no more likely to be real than the gods of Homer. Perhaps the atheist can just flip coin; or perhaps he will need to reconsider his opinion on the matter.
ReplyDeleteBut what about all the gods that the atheist has never even heard of? Well, the fact that he has never heard of them may itself be significant. The atheist will have to ponder this and various other factors. The clock is ticking…