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I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Stephen Roberts
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
Richard Dawkins
I've seen statements like the above quoted by a number of atheists. Some seem to see it as a serious argument, others as simply a clever quip.
But a little thought will show that, as an argument against Christianity, it is seriously flawed.
Consider this "argument", based on the same logic:
"The traitor is really no different from the patriot. The traitor is just loyal to one fewer country than the patriot. We all show no allegiance to many countries, some of us just show allegiance to fewer countries than others."
There are about 196 countries in the world. (We could debate the count, but that's not the point here.) The patriot is loyal to one of these and has no loyalty to the other 195. The traitor has no loyalty to any of the 196. Does that mean that the difference between them is miniscule?
The idea behind this argument is apparently that if there have been, say, 100 religions in the history of the world -- again, we could debate the number, the exact number is irrelevant to the point -- and you agree that 99 of them are false, then by the same reasoning you must concede that the 100th is false also. If numbers 1 through 99 are wrong, then number 100 must also be wrong. As Mr Roberts says, "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
Does that really follow? Suppose you were taking a multiple-choice history test, and you came to a question like this:
Who was president of the United States during the Civil War?
- George Washington
- Abraham Lincoln
- Ronald Reagan
- Winston Churchill
- None
Would it be reasonable to say, "Hmm, there are a bunch of names there. They can't all have been president at the same time. At least three of them must be wrong. So if at least three of the four are wrong, the fourth is probably wrong, too. The U.S. must not have had any president during the Civil War. The answer must be 'None'."
That would be silly. The fact that three of the names are wrong doesn't prove that all four are wrong. Just the opposite. The fact that one of the answers is right -- Lincoln, for those of you who are weak on American history -- makes the others wrong.
So sure, Christians say that Hindus and Moslems and Zoroastrians are wrong. Hindus say that Moslems and Zoroastrians and Christians are wrong. Moslems say that, etc. But to say that this somehow proves that all of them are wrong and atheists are right doesn't follow at all. For every question, there are many wrong answers.
Indeed, the atheist makes much of the fact that all the answers to the question except his are very similar. Christians, Moslems, Hindus, etc, all agree that there is some sort of God or gods out there. The atheist then says that if, as a Christian (for example), you believe that all these other answers are wrong, you must concede that by the same reasoning your similar answer is also wrong. Therefore the atheist, with a very different answer -- no god at all -- must be right.
If anything, this proves the opposite. 99% of the people in the history of the world have come up with very similar answers to this question. This includes many very smart and well-educated people who have studied the question very carefully. The atheist says that because they all come up with very similar answers but disagree about the details, that this proves that they are all completely wrong.
How so? Suppose we ask, How much is 10 + 12 ? One person says 21, another says 24, another says 21 1/2. All these answers are very close to each other, but they are all wrong. Does that somehow prove that 22 is also wrong? Does the fact that there are many similar wrong answers all in the low 20's prove that the right answer must be 0 ? Umm, why?
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