False Dilemmas and Religious Thinking

Last week I was hit by a huge surprise. Suddenly, my brother – like my aunt before him – starting placing loads of posts on his Facebook timeline (the new designation for the social medium’s “wall”) containing prayers and references to his faith in Jesus and his newly-discovered attention to religious conviction. The newest post in the series featured a picture of Romans 1:16 highlighted in a King James Bible: “I am not ashamed of the gospel....” It was probably the first time my brother had ever come across this verse, given that he doesn't read or understand the Bible.

It turns out that he recently attended a Promise Keepers convention, which reminded him of his bad life decisions, convinced him of his need for a savior and swindled him into committing his life to Jesus – the obvious choice for a savior that one hasn’t investigated. Since then he’s been attending church regularly, tithing, praying, blah, blah, blah.

I was simply stunned, and my reaction (“Why?! No! Don't be hoodwinked!”) may have been a bit strong, but among the replies to my response was a girl who attempted to insinuate that I was “persecuting” my own brother (whom I love dearly) and to lay before me a lame version of Pascal’s Wager. This post is intending to lay out the assumptions involved in that famous wager and also C.S. Lewis’s famous “liar, lunatic or Lord” dilemma.

Atheism and Religion

There are many different perspectives that various Atheists take on the practice of religion and how they approach religious people.

Some choose to act like there’s no problem. You’ll never convince anyone anyway, they argue. They believe that the ideal is absolutely to live and let live, that each person will ultimately make up her own mind. I can appreciate this stance, and in a world not dominated by superstition and governed by foolishness, I would totally agree.

Others prefer to attack religion and to make religious people feel foolish for believing. They’re almost the antitype of the missionary, not content with not believing but looking to spread unbelief with force of opinion. They are the belligerent ones that we often find on Internet forums. They give a bad name to atheists, just as missionaries and polemicists give a bad name to Christians. It seems that this type of thinking takes hold as the result of the realization of the extent to which religion has been foisted onto the masses and as a reaction to the amount of lies spread in the name of faith. I can certainly understand the anger and the desire to go on the offensive, but this attitude must also be overcome so that we do not become bitter and insensitive to the natural tendency of the majority of mankind. Religion is, after all, the result of the misfiring of biological processes, as Richard Dawkins clearly argues.

I really think we must do our best to be balanced, to show respect and yet speak the truth. What is the truth? Simply put, mankind has been enslaved by conceptions of deities and by superstitious rituals and beliefs for far too long. There is no evidence of any deity, and every religion that has been built up around belief in such a being or group of beings stands on the same footing with every other religion. That is, no one can more rightly claim that Taoism is true than that Christianity is true. There is no evidence for any of them, and the only evidence we have for any religion is its holy book (whether that is the Bible, the Tanach, the Qur’an, the Gitas or any other set of documents purported to have been delivered by inspiration of God or gods).

In other words, the only real evidence that can be or is put forward for the authenticity of Christianity must stand or fall on the accuracy of its holy book. The Bible is, as we can easily see, full of inaccuracy from beginning to end. Thus, Christianity fails.

A sensitive and sympathetic Atheist must present the fact of religion’s failure in a way that is at the same time convincing (rational), confident (not wishy-washy) and compassionate. I hope that I can live up to this goal at least the majority of the time.

Pascal’s Wager - The Pride of the Simple

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French religious philosopher and physicist. Part of his apologetic works, published after his death under the title Pensées (French for “thoughts”), took on the Enlightenment force in Europe and its humanistic tendencies. He took up the question of the existence of God and first brought into the argument the idea of probability. He basically assumed about the argument of God’s existence that it had only to do with the God being argued among philosophers, specifically philosophers who had grown up within the Christian tradition. Most of the philosophy of the Enlightenment in France dealt with existence from an atheistic outlook, most often with a Christian backdrop. Arguments for and against the existence of God popped up in the writings of the authors of this period, and Pascal basically set things down as a probabilistic decision that all people are faced with.

In the discussion of God’s existence, Pascal set out a simple definition of “God” as being limitless and incomprehensible, and thus we are unable (since God is without bounds or limits) to determine rightly if God exists or not. So far, I would agree with him – that we’ve generally understood “God” (that is, ὁ θεός in the Christian or Jewish sense, as opposed to one of the many θεοί that are said to exist among the worshipers of the stars) to be defined in negative terms. This is the definition provided even by the great Maimonides and by the Kabbalistic tradition, which states that we cannot understand the Eternal (אֵין סוֹף) in positive terms, since all definitions of terms that we create can only describe God in a limited way. Thus, arguments for God’s existence would fail, since we cannot really know what kind of existence God could be said to have. I agree with Pascal that, should we posit the existence of an eternal God, then we must agree that we cannot define him in any positive terms or really understand what his existence would entail. (Most modern arguers who take up some form of Pascal’s Wager do not even understand this about the God of the tradition – that attempting to define God as “good” or “perfect” or “loving” is really nonsense. This is acknowledged by all serious thinkers regarding this topic.)

From there, Pascal goes on to posit that either God exists and we cannot sense his existence or prove it, or he does not exist (in which case, we should not even expect to sense his existence or be able to prove it). We are given a fifty-fifty choice. Either God exists or he doesn’t. And this is good logic. It is always true (a tautology) that P ∨ ¬P is always the case – either a thing is true or a thing is not true. There is no in-between. In Logic, this is called the law of the excluded middle (Wikipedia). By this law, either the Christian God exists or the Christian God doesn’t exist. One or the other must be true. By the same law, either fairies exist or they do not exist; either unicorns exist or they do not exist; either aliens exist or they do not exist; either trees exist or they do not exist. These are statements that are always true (either it is the case, or it is not), but they do not prove anything.

Again, so far I’m in complete agreement with Pascal. Either an eternal, unknowable, perfect, transcendent being (God) exists, or it doesn’t. That is clearly true. The problem is when we get into the details. There are several deities competing for the claim of eternality and perfection. The God of Christianity may be claimed to be the same God as Judaism, but the fact is that these two deities have different claims for themselves. For example, the God of Judaism does not have a son (even as part of himself), nor does he come down to earth as a human being to die for man’s sin, nor does he claim that all of humanity needs to believe anything about him in order to be “saved.” In order to believe in the God of Christianity, one must believe in the coming of Jesus as a sacrificial atonement for their sins. In order to believe in the God of Islam, one must believe in the mission of the Prophet Muhammad and the revelation of the Qur’an. These are very different claims, and each of them reflects the character of the undefinable God that they attempt to define. While it might be the case that the Christian God either exists or doesn’t exist (that is, P ∨ ¬P), it is also the case that the Islamic God either exists or does not exist (again, P ∨ ¬P). And again, it is the case that the Goddess of Wicca either exists or doesn't exist (P ∨ ¬P), and by these means we come to far less than a fifty-fifty chance for the existence of one of the gods or the other. The only way that we could maintain Pascal’s original scale would be to eliminate all of the other gods who are competing for attention. In other words, the only way that we could come to 50-50 odds would be to assume that the claims of the Christian God are true before making our decision.

How can we eliminate one of the gods from the competition? By proving the claims about that God incompatible with what we know about the world. Does the holy book that represents this God contain mistakes or contradictions? Does it contradict real life experience and scientific evidence? Can we accept what is claimed about this God in light of what we know about the world? Does belief entail a contradiction of our own consciences?

The problem that I’ve found with most people who propose something similar to Pascal’s Wager (though normally less contemplated) is that they always case it in terms of either the God of Christianity or Atheism. The issue isn’t quite that simple. Why do they reject the God of Islam? Because they believe that the Qur’an is wrong in how it represents God? Most of them reject Islam because they grew up as Christians – plain and simple. But, we must be more nuanced than this. We reject Islam because we know that the Qur’an is imperfect, because the religion that spawned from Muhammad is imperfect, because this way of looking at the world allows for superstition and rejects modern thinking. We reject Islam because it is wrong. So, why do people not reject Christianity? It should be rejected just like Islam is rejected – because the Bible is imperfect, because the religion that spawned from Paul (not Jesus, we find) is imperfect, because the Christian way of looking at the world allows for superstition and rejects modern thinking.

So, what of Pascal’s wager? He said that we had two choices before us. We can take a chance either that P or that ¬P. That is, either that God exists or that God does not exist. If we take a gamble and cast our lot for the idea of God’s existence, we will give up pleasures in this life for the chance of having pleasures that will last forever. However, if we take a gamble and cast our lot for the idea that God does not exist, we will get pleasures in this life but take the chance that we will be tormented forever. In the first case, if we are wrong, we lose nothing except for temporary pleasures in this life. In the latter case, if we are wrong, then we lose everything for eternity and will be subjected to torture. It is clearly better, if these are our only options, to chose to believe in God. This is what Pascal’s Wager involves – a choice between believing and not believing.

But, as we have just seen, the choice is not this simple. It is not just a choice between believing or not believing. It is between believing in the God of Islam, the God of Christianity, the God of Judaism, the Gods of Taoism, the Gods of Olympus, the Gods of various tribal groups in Africa. It is an infinite choice, just as there are infinite gods placed before us for consideration. Indeed, if I can find no evidence for faith and yet choose to believe just because I think there is a chance that it will benefit me in eternity, is my faith really faith? Do I really believe, or am I feigning belief (as per Richard Dawkins) in an attempt to save my ass from becoming toast? Would an all-knowing (omniscience is also a negative definition, when rightly understood) Deity truly accept my faith as good enough for salvation if I am simply ignoring my doubts for the sake of my “salvation”? It seems to be, truly, that we either believe or disbelieve entirely of our own natures by what we are convinced by from our experiences. However, I reject the Christian (and the Jewish) God in the same way that I reject the Muslim God and the Taoist Gods. I reject them all in favor of a better wager: that if nineteen out of twenty are wrong, what is the chance that the twentieth will be right when it is so similar to the rest in all ways?

Liar, Lunatic or Lord?

In the passion narrative, Pontius Pilate is said to have asked a question which has haunted mankind ever since: “What shall I do with this Jesus who is being called Messiah?” (Matthew 27:22). Over the last two millennia, many have troubled themselves with this question, and it is posed by missionaries today as if it were the most important and relevant question a person can answer in this life. Muslim missionaries would, of course, think that the question of what to decide about the prophet Muhammad is of even more importance than that of what to think of Jesus, but I grew up in a Christian country, where what you decide to believe about Jesus can make you either “saved” or “damned.”

If you ask a non-Muslim who grew up in Egypt or Saudia Arabia what they think of Muhammad, most of them have been conditioned to answer in positive terms, unlike Americans who think of Muhammad as a pervert (for marrying a little girl) and murderer (for wiping out the people of Medina, for example). The same is true of Jesus in Christian countries. We have been conditioned to answer in only positive terms because of the social consequences should we decide anything negative. Thus, most non-Christians in Christian countries will answer that Jesus was some kind of great moral teacher or even the greatest preacher ever on the topic of moral principles.

This was also the case when Clive Staples (C.S.) Lewis was around. In the course of his preaching, he would ask people what they thought of Jesus, and they would invariably answer in positive terms, saying that he was a great teacher. This surprised Mr. Lewis because of the things that he read in the New Testament coming from the mouth of Jesus. In the gospels, we find remarks to the effect that salvation is only possible through Jesus, that he is the only way to God, that anyone who attempts to get into the “kingdom of God” by any means other than him is a robber and thief, that he himself is the resurrection and the life, and much more. Lewis concluded that no sane person could ever make the claims about himself that Jesus made, unless he really were the source of life, as he said.

If Jesus claimed to be the resurrection and the life and he was not, then we could only conclude that he was lying (because he knew that he wasn’t really divine) or that he was insane (because he thought he was divine but was not really). Otherwise, he could have been telling the truth, which would make him much more than a moral teacher. If the claims of Jesus recorded in the Bible are claims that Jesus really made – that is, if the Bible is an accurate account of the deeds and sayings of Jesus – then no one can rightly claim Jesus to be a good teacher, since he would either being lying or insane (were his words untrue) or the actual source of life (that is, God). One could not claim that he was just a good teacher, given the claims of the New Testament.

This argument has come to be referred to as a “Trilemma” since Josh McDowell wrote his famous Evidence That Demands a Verdict and referred to C.S. Lewis’ argument there.

We find, though, that the argument hinges on the claim that the Bible is an accurate record of the Jesus’ words and acts. If Jesus really said and did these things, then the argument is true. However, the New Testament is not an accurate accounting of the life of Jesus. Much of what we find there (nearly all of it, I would wager) is false information. The text has been written with the intent of turning a Galilean preacher into a deity, and because of this we should add a fourth option to the argument: Legend. We are not in a position that we have to choose whether or not Jesus was a liar, a lunatic or Lord of all. The claim that most of what is said about him is simply legendary may also (and rightly) be accepted.

Did Jesus really claim to be divine? We cannot know. Did he claim to have resurrected the dead? We cannot know. Did his first followers claim that he was the second Person of a Trinity? Surely not. The unreliability of the New Testament as a historical witness to the life of the real Jesus undermines the strength of Lewis’ argument, and we are left with freedom from any pressure to call Jesus either a lunatic or a charlatan (which nearly no one raised in the West would feel comfortable with) at the expense of giving up on calling him Lord. Indeed, we are on very good footing when we reject the claims of missionaries over our souls and turn from Jesus as from every other god of superstition.

False Dilemmas and Life

When I was in Bible college, I really bought into the C.S. Lewis argument. I remember using it several times when I would speak to people about their faith. (Yes, I did mission work with people on busy streets and traveled with college friends for ministry activity. It was what I was planning to make my living from, after all.) I would ask them what they thought of Jesus, and when they answered (as they inevitably did) that they thought that he was “a good teacher” or “a great man,” I would launch into some version of Lewis’ argument, that Jesus cannot be said to be a “good” anything if he said the types of things that he is recorded as saying about himself. He had to be lying, insane or speaking truly. There was no fourth option, given the conditions. However, it is in the conditions themselves (that the Bible provides an accurate record of the sayings of Jesus and the events of his life) that we find the weakness in the argument, as I’ve already stated.

With all this in mind, I hope you – my beloved reader who still clings to faith – can see how we Atheists feel when ultimatums about faith are put to us. There may be other ultimatums out there similar in nature to the two discussed in this post, but they can always be broken down in this way. What it all comes down to, in my opinion, is the reliability of the Bible. If the Bible is perfect, then the ultimatums are true. If it is fallible, then so are these arguments and ones like them, which depend on the truth of the Bible for their strength.

So, the question goes from Pilate’s “what would you do with this Jesus?” to the more readily answerable and less subjective “is the Bible really infallible and inerrant?” That’s the most interesting question in the world to a person like me, and I hope to take it up throughout this blog.