“But everyone is religious”

By Arron Bergeron

Man is incurably religious. Of this there is no doubt. Some scientists suggest our brains are hardwired that way.  Those who believe, by faith, in the evolution story assert this bent is a leftover survival mechanism from our ancestral roots.  Some go as far as saying it was a crossed wire in the brain which has since been passed on from generation to generation. Whatever the case, it seems skeptics who pride themselves on being rational and scientific have nothing but unproven explanations for this, and despite such a lack of proof are unwilling to allow the possibility that something greater then man might be the actual cause of this phenomenon.

“Belief in gods seems to be nearly as much a part of being human as music and language are. Was our tendency toward belief carved into our minds by evolution because it fostered tribal unity during prehistory? Or could it simply be an odd idea that stuck, gained momentum, and never looked back? We cannot yet say with certainty. One thing is clear: belief is popular. So popular, in fact, that many people find confirmation for their god in numbers alone.”¹

Is it not possible this apparent unanimity of religious hungering points to God? I believe man has this hunger simply because the hunger can be satisfied. It seems that whatever man has an appetite for, there is a corresponding something which exists with which that hunger can be satiated; if it is information, education exists; if for nourishment, food and drink exists; if  for intimacy, close relationship and/or sexual intercourse exists. Every appetite of man has a corresponding source of satisfaction. Why is it so difficult for skeptics to accept the religious bent of man is any different? Perhaps it is because their worldview will not allow for an immaterial component in mans make-up which is doing the hungering.

Whatever the case may be, extrapolating from this hunger to a specific deity or deities is not reasonable. I would agree with Harrison on this point. However, no theist I know would argue as such, and I must admit it is doubtful many would. I believe this is a straw man argument. At best the statistics weigh in favor that it is more probable there is something to religious hunger than not. The mere fact that consensus has often been wrong in the past should be proof enough consensus could never prove any one particular set of religious beliefs.

“Religious” is too loose a term

It may be argued that “religious” is too broad a term to be applied in this debate, in this context, to support belief in a god. I also don’t see how, at least how I argue, this could be the case. If someone wants to use the phenomena to support a specific God, then I am inclined to agree. Buddhist’s for example are religious and supposed to be non-theistic. Hindus believe in many gods. Add to this the religious folk who are pantheists, and we should see it is unfair to lump these all together. How does this affect my argument for a deity based upon man’s incurable religious bent? It doesn’t.  As I’ve already stated this religious hunger at best, in my worldview, suggests there must be something or someone which or who transcends the immediate reality we are immersed in, and we hunger for a connection that transcendence. That would be the simplest answer, it is the least ad hoc. It needs fewer just so hypotheses added to the mix in order to make sense of it all.

“Another problem with the ‘everybody is religious’ justification for belief is that ‘religious’ is a loose term that applies to many different beliefs. The extraordinary diversity of belief does not make for a unified front for all religions”²

This is so true, but the skeptic shares in this religious bent equally. I also believe, since we are making note of them, these differences are precisely why it is not fair in many respects to argue against a god or gods by lumping all forms of theism together. While it comes across as an attempt at fair play on the part of the atheist skeptic, as Harrison attempts it in his book³ , these differences make all the difference. I mention it to point out how simply the lines can change when engaging in debate with the skeptic. To Harrison, all gods are equal, but when “religious” points to something other than a mere material world, the attempt is made to remove it from the debate completely by acknowledging religions are different.

While I graciously allow this on one hand, why on the other do I believe is it unfair to debate as though all gods are equal? As I’ve said, the differences make all the difference. Judaism and Christian beyond all other religions are based inseparably from the historical data found in scripture. They do not hide behind obscurity. It is especially true of the New Testament that it invites itself to be thoroughly scoured and tested historically. As such, this becomes a criterion for falsifying Jehovah God, which may not be available to other gods. This serves to elevate the God of the bible into a category of His own in the debate.

We also cannot forget that not all systems of belief allow themselves to be tested via logical consistency. Some theistic belief systems allow for a departure from reality by escaping the rational realm. If this is the case, I’m certain we can agree that deity is necessarily false. Christianity not only invites itself to be falsified historically, but also by the criteria of logical consistency. I must add to this it also provides a rational foundation for such a test that skepticism never could, thus elevating Christian theism as a superior worldview.

You just believe because your parents do!?

If God is the ultimate reality, why is so much effort put into propagating faith in Him? Stated differently, how and why is religious belief propagated? One answer of many atheists is faith is passed on from parent to child.

“It is important to keep in mind that all the world’s believers are not continually discovering the same gods on their own generation after generation. Virtually every believer today believes in the same god or gods that their parents taught him or her to believe in. Religious beliefs are learned not discovered.”⁴

This is patently absurd and untrue. What of the flower power movement of the 1960s? What of the documented historical records of revival in nineteenth century England? What about the simple historical fact that atheism has never been taken seriously as it is today?  That alone is a dramatic departure from the instruction of thousands of years of previous generations.  I can also assure you I wasn’t raised to be a believer in Jesus Christ, and neither were most of my Christian friends.

Added to this is the simple yet profound truth that this is a slight of hand. What matters is whether or not belief is true. Whether I discover it myself, or my parents taught it to me, so long as belief is in something true what does it matter where we find the origins of said belief? Discounting belief for this reason is stupid, plain and simple. This is just regurgitated atheist rhetoric. Atheists and theists alike teach their children murder is wrong.  This could never be discovered as a moral imperative by the scientific criteria required by men such as Harrison.  Does that mean our children ought to doubt this immaterial truth, because they didn’t discover it, but instead was propagated by the parents? Discounting a belief by denouncing it’s origins is classically referred to as the genetic fallacy, or simply stated, faulty and poor argumentation.

Believers can’t agree

In line with the foolishness of supposing a consensus proves God exists, or that belief in God ought to be doubted because parents taught it to us, atheists often claim all gods are suspect because believers can’t agree.

“Many believers are not too shy to admit that they view other religions as unproven and maybe even a bit silly. And this is despite the fact that these religions have no more or less evidence then their own. What would happen if most people grew up without any belief system imposed on them? Would they see all religions as unproven and maybe a bit silly?

...The world’s believers are not in agreement on even the most basic points.  There is no consensus on which gods are real or how they want us to worship them. Nobody can even agree on what the gods want us to eat or how they want us to dress. Disagreement and disunity is the rule for the world’s believers”⁵

I know I’ve dealt with this claim conclusively in previous articles, but I’ll press the point home yet again. If two men cannot agree on the color of a chair, does that automatically imply there is no chair? What if ten men are in a room through which a bird has flown? Eight of them disagree about the details pertaining to the bird, and two are blind. Are we to side with the blind men and conclude the bird doesn’t exist because they didn’t see it? That would be illogical. Because atheists don’t see any god as obvious, are in the minority, are falsely deemed not religious, and are completely incorrectly viewed as neutral, how does it follow all should begin to doubt God? Clarifying this further, we are dealing with two completely different questions here. The first, we are asking if God does indeed exist and what are the reasons for believing this? The second, we are asking Who is God and what is He like? Disagreement answering the second question doesn’t negate the affirmative of the first. That would be foolish and absurd.

In conclusion, while arguing for the God of the bible from the overwhelming majority who are religious is unwise, there is absolutely no good reason why Christians cannot use this as one reason among many for why they believe God exists in a general sense. It isn’t conclusive, nor does it lead to the cross of Christ, but it is suggestive, and used as such is perfectly acceptable.

Notes and references

1. “Believing”, pg. 23

2. “Believing”, pg. 25

3. “In my view all gods are equal, regardless of how many people believe in them at this moment in history.” “Believing”, pg. 14

4.“Believing”, pg. 24

5. “Believing”,pg. 25