Battleground God
My brother took the Battleground God quiz, so I thought I’d see how I did, too. I “bit a bullet” twice (meaning according to them I hold onto beliefs that are logically consistent but most people would find odd or offensive) and took no “direct hits”—meaning all my answers were logically consistant (again, according to them).
If you want to take the test, you should do it before reading my (or my brother’s) results in detail. Spoilers follow…
OK, here’s what I got. [responses edited somewhat for clarity]
Bitten Bullet 1: You say that if there are no compelling arguments or evidence that show that God does not exist, then atheism is a matter of faith, not rationality. Therefore, it seems that you do not think that the mere absence of evidence for the existence of God is enough to justify believing that she does not exist. This view is also suggested by your earlier claim that it is not rational to believe that the Loch Ness monster does not exist even if, despite years of trying, no evidence has been presented to suggest that it does exist. There is no logical inconsistency in your answers. But by denying that the absence of evidence, even where it has been sought, is enough to justify belief in the non-existence of things, you are required to countenance possibilities that most people would find bizarre. For example, do you really want to claim that it is not rationally justified to believe that intelligent aliens do not live on Mars?
The key here is “rationally justified.” In my opinion, the only rational opinion you can have is that it’s unlikely that intelligent aliens live on Mars. Or that it’s unlikely invisible pink unicorns exist. Anyone who says otherwise is making an unscientific, irrational statement. Glen makes a good point: black holes didn’t pop into being the moment we found proof they existed. The planets didn’t start revolving around the sun the moment we proved they did. So it is with the existence of God. If most people find that bizzare, it’s because most people (including me) aren’t always rational. Which oddly enough leads to the second bullet:
Bitten Bullet 2: You are consistent in applying the principle that it is justifiable to base one’s beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, regardless of the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity this conviction. The problem is that it seems you have to accept that people might be justified in their belief that God could demand something terrible… but as Kierkegaard also stressed, this makes the act incomprehensible from a rational point of view. The rational alternative – that people should require more than such an inner conviction to justify such a belief – is more attractive to most people, but you reject this alternative and bite the bullet.
They’re right that I’m biting a bullet, but I think they’re wrong about which one. I’m not certain the “rational alternative”—which would essentially require one to be agnostic—is attractive to most people. I think people would be more willing to accept that Diety would ask for something that appeared to be terrible, but was not from a larger, non-human perspective. This is the “ways of God are beyond our ken” argument, and it’s something most people who believe in religion are willing to buy. In fact, you pretty much have to buy into it to believe in God. That bullet is no bullet at all. If you believe in God (or gods) but think they will always require cheery happy butterfly things of you, you have not been paying attention.
Unless…
Unless you think God is not necessarily omnipotent and not the final arbiter of what is moral and what is not. Which was what I claimed when I said “false” here:
If God exists she could make it so that everything now considered sinful becomes morally acceptable and everything that is now considered morally good becomes sinful.
Which means I believe God can tell people to do things that are morally wrong, which means he can insist people act immorally. That’s an idea that would be taboo to most, but it wasn’t strange to most early people. Polytheistic religions aside, even in the Old Testament God allows himself to be tempted by Satan into tormenting Jude.
That concept of God—not only not omnipotent but not morally perfect—that’s one most people become athiest rather than believe.
