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In this episode Trent responds to memes and quotes from new atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens that are still getting shared online.
Narrator:
Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers apologist Trent Horn, and today I want to talk about quotes and memes from the New Atheists, although by now I feel like they’ve turned into the old atheists. I’m talking about Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris. These were the new atheists that came out in the early 2000s. I’m grateful now, though, that a lot of the more popular atheists online, people like Cosmic Skeptic, Rationality Rules, my friends, The Real Atheology. They at least want to engage the arguments for theism and not just scoff at them. If you read The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins treatment of the arguments, the existence of God, it is laughable. The Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga once said, and he’s a good biologist, but to call Dawkins work on God sophomoric would be an insult to sophomores everywhere.
That’s what Plantinga said in regards to Dawkins, but I’m grateful that we have those now who are willing to take the argument seriously and really engage in good discourse on that. I think that moves the conversation forward. Unfortunately, I still see online these memes and quotes from the so-called New Atheist, the Dawkins type from the early 2000s that have still stuck around and what inspired me, the first meme I’ll show you was the one that inspired me to do this episode because I saw it online and I thought, “Who couldn’t stop to think for five seconds to see what’s wrong with this argument?” But not a lot of people are willing to do that. My more thoughtful atheist friends are willing to do that though.
Let’s jump into it. But actually, before I do that, I want to recommend a book to you dealing with this subject. John DeRosa from Classical Theism podcast has a book published with Catholic Answers called One Less God Than You: How to Answer the Slogans, Cliches, and Fallacies That Atheists Use to Challenge Your Faith. That’s a good book I’d recommend. John DeRosa’s Classical Theism podcast is outstanding as well.
All right. Let’s jump right into it, then. This was the original meme that I saw that inspired me to do this episode. Christopher Hitchens, I only checked one of these quotes because it’s very controversial. I haven’t checked all these. They might be apocryphal, but the point is, the ideas are out there, and we need to engage them even if the quote turns out to be apocryphal. Hitchens says, “Since it is inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.”
No, that’s not the most reasonable conclusion. The most reasonable conclusion is that some religions are more in conformity to reality than others. Not that they’re all wrong. You could say that they all have errors in them. You could be an atheist who says, “Yeah, they all possess some kind of error.” But that wouldn’t keep one of them from being primarily or almost entirely true, even from an atheist perspective. You could see, it doesn’t mean you have to say they are all completely wrong, because essentially, if you say that, that doesn’t make any sense at all.
Compare that to other fields where people disagree. Since it is inconceivable that all moral positions can be right. I think about all the different moral disagreements. Now, the argument here is basically, there’s religious disagreement, therefore all religions are wrong. But then you could say there is moral disagreement, therefore all moral views are incorrect. There is political disagreement. Therefore, all political positions are incorrect. There is historical disagreement. There’s different views about what happened in history. Therefore, all historians are wrong.
No, that doesn’t follow at all. Maybe we can’t know who is right in some cases, but it would be presumptuous to say that they’re all wrong. I can’t believe this can only sound intelligent if it comes from somebody smoking a cigar with a really nice British accent. Otherwise, why would anyone consider this to be a good argument is beyond me. A similar vein of argument is the one less God objection. Richard Dawkins says, “We are all atheists about most of the gods humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” Ricky Gervais, a British comedian, was in the British Office. He says, “There’s 2,870 of the supernatural beings. 2,870 are considered deities. Next time someone tells me they believe in God, I’ll say, ‘Which one? Zeus, Hades, Jupiter, Mars, Odin, Thor?’ If they say, ‘Just God, I only believe in the one God.’ I’ll point out, they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don’t believe in 2,870 gods. They don’t believe in 2,869.”
This is similar to Hitchens argument. If they all disagree, what are the odds? One of them is right. It’s better to say that they’re all wrong or, they don’t exist. Once again, this is kind of an argument. How does that make sense? Imagine a defense attorney who says, “Ladies and gentlemen, there are 2,870 people who live in this town who could have committed this crime. You all think that Bob committed the crime, but you don’t think that Susie committed the crime. You don’t think Frank committed the crime? You don’t think Thaddeus committed the crime. You believe in 2,869, not guilty people. I just believe in one more not guilty person than you.”
What? No, the idea that, “Oh, all of these other people didn’t commit the crime, therefore nobody did. All of these other candidates are not the true God. Therefore, there is no true God.” The argument doesn’t work. It’s similar to say, “Oh, so you believe in democracy, but you don’t believe in republics or dictatorships.” You disbelieve in all kinds of government. I’m an anarchist. I just believe in one less government than you. No, anarchy is a radical view. It has to be defended. You can’t just say you don’t believe in other governments. I just believe in one less. I just believe in one less moral position, so I am a moral. I believe in one less value judgment, so I am a nihilist. No, the complete denial of these things, the radical views, that have to be defended. This argument is silly in that regard when it tries to go in that direction.
I would also say that classical theism, the view that God is not just a being among other beings or that God is a being itself, really neutralizes this objection because I would say to Dawkins and Ricky Gervais, “All right, let’s take the word God out of the equation. Does a perfect being exist? Does a maximally great being exist? Is there something that exists which is infinite in existence, in knowledge, in power, in goodness, is unchanging, is not affected by anything, it’s not limited by space or time? Is there a maximally great being, perfect being? Is there just something that’s infinite being, the foundation of reality? We see things around us that have limits. Is there something that exists that has no limits at all?” That’s the question.
I look at the world and say, “Yeah, there is something like that that exists that explains why the world exists.” But why don’t you believe in Thor? What are you talking about? You believe in this perfect being. Why don’t you believe in these other so-called perfect beings? Because Thor, Odin, Zeus, and Krishna are not perfect beings. They are imperfect. They’re not God with a capital G. They are limited in power, in knowledge, in existence, in goodness. They are immoral. They are ignorant of things. They can be defeated. Some of them come into existence, some go out of existence. They are not the candidate for the perfect being that explains all of reality or infinite being itself. I believe in God. They don’t even meet the definition of God with a capital G. Now, once I arrive at the conclusion, there is one infinite God, that is compatible with other classical non-Christian theists.
You could have Jews, Muslims, or Aristotelians who believe in one infinite act of being, but instead of 2,870 gods, we’re down to the gods of maybe five or six belief systems. Then I look to history. Has God revealed Himself in history and in the person of Jesus of Nazareth? I think that He has. That breaks the deadlock there. But even there, it’s only a handful. Most of these other so-called gods are gods in name only. They don’t satisfy the definition of the perfect being, the maximally great being whose existence that I wonder about.
Here’s the next one from Hitchens. “Do I think I’m going to paradise? Of course not. I wouldn’t go if I was asked. I don’t want to live in some celestial North Korea, for one thing, where all I’d get to do is praise the dear leader from dawn till dusk.”
Now, I agree, you shouldn’t treat people like they’re gods. The leader of North Korea is similar to the Roman emperors. Their gods are divinized, almost. No, we shouldn’t treat human beings like they’re God. We should treat God like God. That makes sense. I’d ask someone like Hitchens, “Is there anything in this life or anyone who fills you with awe, wonder, or gratitude even for a short amount of time? Does any person or thing, a sunset, a mountain, a mountaintop, fill you with awe, wonder, gratitude? Is there a person who’s very smart and wise that you just want to sit at the feet of and learn? You’re just enthralled by them.” Hopefully, and it’s not just yourself. Hopefully, there’s someone or something like that.
All right. Then logically, if you experience awe, wonder and you want to just sit and listen and be at the feet of this person who’s greater than you, who’s finite, then if God exists and God is infinite goodness, beauty, truth, knowledge, and power, if God is infinite in majesty, then there’s only one infinite thing we can offer in response, and that would be unending awe, wonder, and praise. Aren’t you going to get sick of it? No, because let’s say at this instant, I feel 10,000 units of happiness and awe and wonder if you’re just stuck at 10,000, you might get ahead of the plateau. But the next moment I feel 20,000 units, and the next moment 30,000 units, it keeps getting better and better. Guess what? Eternal life can keep getting better and better because there’s no last day of heaven, just like there’s no last day of heaven, just as there’s no highest number. It’s infinite. It’s unending. We’ll talk about that if I bring up the Kalam argument and again about what’s an infinite or not. That actually has changed my view about how to defend the Kalam argument.
That’s a subject for another time, but it’s unending and keeps getting better and better in that regard, so no. What we do in heaven, I don’t know. Will we do adoration? Exactly how will God share his goodness with us in heaven? I don’t exactly know, but if he’s unlimited in power, knowledge, and goodness, I really have nothing to worry about, I think I’ll be okay. You should not give a man the allegiance due only to God, like the North Korean dictator. I agree with that. But even for Hitchens, I’d say, “Hitchens.” He’s dead now, but if they were alive, I’d say to him or to anyone else who has this attitude, “All right, you don’t want to have a dictator in your life like God. How do you make decisions? What standard do you follow?”
He’d probably say, “I just do what reason and common sense tell me.”
“Oh, so our reason and common sense, your dictator, you unquestioningly follow?”
“Yeah, because they always point me to the right answer.” Maybe not. You can make errors in reasoning, and sometimes common sense things are actually not correct. But I’m sure someone like Hitchens would say, “Goodness and reason, that’s my dictator.” Fine. If God just is goodness itself, if God is all-knowing, why wouldn’t you follow God in the same way you follow your own reason and your own sense of goodness in this life? Just a thought.
Here’s the next one. This would be Sam Harris. This is the only quote, it’s controversial. I checked it. He did say this, and he qualifies it. “If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion.”
Oh, boy. These are things that even people who are not religious today would probably cancel you for, especially in the Me Too generation. He was asked, he goes on his website, on his controversies page, he talks about this, that he was making an analogy about people who say that religion is a good thing. He says, “Maybe.” But he says that the benefits of religion don’t outweigh the costs. He tries to go on to say that a lot of… He even tries to say something like, “Many, if not the majority,” I can’t remember the exact word he used, “attributes rape to religion.” It’s true that there are religious fanatics who use rape as a weapon in religious wars and things like that. This is a point that Harris makes when he’s taken out of context. Harris says at one point, “There is nothing as natural as rape.”
Oh, here’s where it happens. He is misquoted. He’s not saying rape is a good thing. People will say, “Isn’t religion a natural instinct?” And Harris says, “Sure. Rape is a natural instinct. Just because something’s a natural instinct doesn’t mean that it’s good.” That’s actually a fair argument. You could say homosexual behavior is a natural instinct, but just because something’s a natural instinct doesn’t mean that it’s good. I agree with Harris on that point, but then he goes further to say, “Yeah, they’re both natural instincts, but I’d rather get rid of religion.” He thinks that religion has caused more harm than rape. Of course, this is offensive because rape is intrinsically evil. There can never be anything good about rape. But surely there are things that are good about religion. Surely there are.
It’s not just in spite of religion. They came from religion itself, that gave people this thought. If you go back to ancient Rome, for example, it was Christians, not the Romans, who were rescuing infants who had been abandoned in the wilderness, who were starting hospitals for the poor. It was Christians who were doing that, not the Romans, for example, not even their particular brand of religion. I think many non-religious people would be offended by this. If you asked people on the street, this would be an interesting question. Would you rather live in a world without rape or without religion? I think most people would pick rape. Also, I think what he was saying in that quote, also in his follow-up trying to attribute rape to religion, there are cases of that, but in the vast majority of cases, it’s just evil. It’s just sin. It’s just biological urges and the desire to dominate and hurt others.
Because rape is in the animal kingdom. Animals forcibly copulate with each other. But it’s rape among humans because we have reason, we should know the natural law, we have acted to that, we are held to a higher standard. We have human dignity that God gave us. This kind of stuff, I do think, is going by the wayside more as the New Atheism hits its eclipse, if you will. But it’s important to point that out that when people try to tie harm to religion, like when they say, “Religion is the cause of most wars.” No, the cause of most wars is nationalism and a desire for resources. Animals go to war with each other. You’ll have insect colonies that go to war. It’s for resources. Religion has been a minor role in the vast majority of conflicts in human history.
The next one I want to talk about is about the word faith, about how the word faith is misused. In Peter Boghossian’s A Manual for Creating Atheists, he says, “Faith is pretending to know things you don’t know.” Easily the most uncharitable definition of faith I’ve ever heard, because faith is just trust. That’s all it is. Faith is trust. They’re synonymous. Religious faith is a trust in God or a trust in God’s revelation. But when George Michael says, “I’ve got to have faith, the faith, the faith, I’ve got to have faith, the faith, the faith.” He’s not talking about being in church. He’s talking about confidence in another person. I have faith that my equipment is going to record properly this time. It didn’t record last time. I had to restart this. Faith is just trust. That’s all it is.
If you say, I have faith in God, it just means I have trust in God. I trust what the Bible says. I trust a religious experience that I had. Sometimes the trust is misplaced. Our faith in people in this life can be misplaced. Sometimes our religious faith may be incorrect, but it’s just trust. That’s all it is. To say I have faith, you might have faith in something you shouldn’t have faith in, but that doesn’t mean faith itself is a bad thing. Pretending to know things you don’t know also implies, someone who has faith is lying. They’re pretending, which is a very uncharitable definition. Most people I know with faith sincerely believe they’re right, even if it turned out they were wrong.
Richard Dawkins says, “Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, and even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” No, faith is not made in spite of evidence. Faith is trust. Now let’s say your loved one is put on trial and they are accused of murder. You might say, “Look, I have faith in you. I have faith that you didn’t do this.” Now, is that in spite of evidence? Yeah. Faith is just trusting in the evidence. If the evidence is not conclusive, if it looks bad for them, but to say, “I know this person, I have access to other evidence people don’t have, I’ve known them. I have trust.” You might have to reassess that in light of new evidence, but you can still have trust. But faith is not, “Oh, here’s the evidence. I’m going to ignore it.” Or, “I’m not going to have it.”
It’s going on the evidence that you do have and putting trust or confidence in it. Sometimes it’s subjective evidence. If God reveals himself to me in prayer, that’s not good enough for you to believe in God, but it could be good enough for me. I have faith, even if it’s something you can’t observe for yourself. But some people will say this, “If you had evidence, you wouldn’t need faith.” That’s not true.
Let’s say you go skydiving and you watch your parachute being packed. You have four safety people covering everything. You have all evidence. You have a statistical analysis that 99% of skydivers survive their jumps. It’s very, very safe. You have a tandem person. You have overwhelming evidence that you will survive the skydive. Now, when you step out of the plane, do you need to have faith? Yes, you do, because you could still choose to sit in your seat saying, I don’t believe it. Even in spite of massive evidence, you’re going to be fine. You still have to trust the evidence and make a step, make a leap of faith. That’s similar when you get married. When you get married, you don’t have perfect knowledge of your spouse. We don’t have perfect knowledge of ourselves, but you trust, you have faith in the evidence that has been presented to you. Faith is just trusting in the evidence, whether it’s subjective or objective.
Let’s go on to the next one here, Ricky Gervais again, “If we take something like any fiction, any holy book, and destroy it, in a thousand years time, that wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all, in a thousand years, they’d all be back, because all the same tests would produce the same result.”
Your typical scientism versus religion, but this is wrong on multiple fronts. First, there are some religious things that would definitely come back. Let’s say you got rid of all the reasons to believe in God. There’s a holocaust… I’m sorry, like an apocalypse if you will, and we’ve lost a bunch of human knowledge. People would still have the same philosophical reasonings to believe in God from contingency, the beginning of the universe, moral values, regularity in the universe. The philosophical arguments for God, people would still think those same thoughts. They would come back, maybe in slightly different forms, but you’d still think about the same things.
Now, some science would not come back. Not all science can be perfectly replicated. That’s true in physics and chemistry. But there’s a lot of things in social science that people will publish papers, then try to replicate the results, and they can’t get the same results. That’s called the replication crisis in science. It’s not the case. You would get the same science. Some sciences come to us through cultural developments, through certain inventions that have been made through different cultural artifacts. If culture is different, if things evolve differently, we may not discover the same scientific truths again.
But that doesn’t mean science is wrong, of course, but it doesn’t mean that it’s just this perfectly reliable guy that will always show up no matter what.
Also, when it comes to religion, you’re right. If you destroyed holy books, they would not come back in the same form because many of those holy books, take the Bible, it’s a historical record of how God intervened in history. If you destroyed history books in general, they would not come back because history does not repeat itself. But so what? That doesn’t prove history never happened. It just proves, when history happens, it’s recorded, and we do our best to reconstruct the past. Holy books, they typically function on talking about how God acted in history, or they have timeless wisdom. The timeless wisdom would often come back as well, because you find that in the natural law.
For Gervais, I would say, “Yeah, you’re right. Many historical religious books would not come back because history books wouldn’t come back.” But if you destroyed them all, God might re-reveal himself. Then what are you going to do then? It sounds profound, but when you think it through, you’ll see, no, it’s not really profound at all.
Here’s the last one from Dawkins. “I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.” I wonder where does he get this idea from. Some of the most brilliant scientists past and present were religious because they knew, Nicolaus Copernicus, for example, was a Catholic cleric, he had heliocentrism. Nicolas Steno, I think he was a geologist, father of modern geology. Gregor Mendel was an Augustinian monk or friar. He was an Augustinian, and he’s the father of modern genetics. Georges Lemaitre, father of the Big Bang. He was a monsignor.
When you see, the world is rational and God made it, it’s a puzzle, and there’s an answer. You’re willing to find it out. In an accidental universe, who knows if there’s an answer? It could be random. It could have no answer at all. But God creating the world gives us encouragement to want to study it. There’s no teaching in religion that says, “Oh, we’re just not going to look into that.” No, there are some things about God that are mysteries we’ll never fully comprehend in this life. But there’s nothing in the Catholic faith that prohibits us from exploring the natural world and learning about it more deeply. Maybe some fundamentalists think that way. Of course, there’s no surprise that some of the most fundamentalist atheists are deconverts, X-Christian fundamentalists. You just swapped your fundamentalism for something else. It doesn’t teach us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.
Atheism doesn’t mean you’ll want to understand it. There’s a lot of atheists who just enjoy technology and live a hedonistic lifestyle. There’s Christians who are also hedonists, but religion in and of itself fills us with wonder, to want to understand the world that God created. Are some Christians close-minded? Yeah, but there’s close-minded people everywhere. It doesn’t mean that religion itself is wrong in that regard. I hope this is helpful for you. It was a joy. Not really. It’s something I have to do to get through this stuff, to engage this. Definitely check out the DeRosa book if you want more on a lot of this. But I hope it’s helpful for you. Then hopefully, in the near future, we’ll do some higher-order critiques of the new New Atheism that has thankfully gone beyond what these old New Atheists were saying. Thank you, guys, and I hope you have a very blessed day.
Narrator:
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