I just believe in one less God than you
The "I just believe in one less God than you" is an argument popularized by the new atheist Richard Dawkins and the atheist Stephen F.Roberts.
Specific quotes from Dawkins and Roberts are:
"When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen Roberts[1]
Problems with the "I just believe in one less God than you" argument
1. There are a number of schools of atheist thought (see: Schools of atheist thought and Atheist factions. Therefore, theists adhere to one less school of atheist thought than atheists do.
2. C. Michael Patton writes:
| “ | Whether we are speaking of this from a political or rural position, the commitment to religious pantheonism (note: not “pantheism”), especially of the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman world, don’t have as committed adherents as we often think. The religious culture that Christianity demands needs to be distinguished here. People did not really believe in Shu, Nut, Hercules, Baal, Wearisomu, Enki, Utu, Diana, and the like in the same way that people believe in Yahweh. Their belief was more of a social convention which included all the pressures that such a system demanded. Their gods were more “faddish” than anything else. Their existence was rather fluid, changing and even morphing into other gods and sometimes moralistic ideals such as “justice” and “reason.” This is why the Caesers could so easily deify themselves and expect people to jump on the bandwagon. Did these people really suddenly believe Caeser was a god? If so, what does this say about the type of belief they had? Both in the philosophical world of the day and among the laity, “belief” as we think of it, was not present.
Don’t get me wrong. I know that we have “faddish” Christianity today where people follow the tide of the culture in believing in Christ the same way that people believed in these ancient gods. In this social folk religion, there is a parallel. But the basis for belief in these other gods was founded on social convention, not philosophical, rational, and historic necessity as is the case with Christianity. Christianity exists not because of rural pragmatism, but because of historic events.[2] |
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