a quote from cs lewis

[earwax]

"If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view."

If one chooses Atheism then one is obliged to provide a naturalistic explanation of why so many people have a religious impulse.

Discuss.

PS I am not trying to evangelize here. Quite the opposite. I just am wondering what good arguments there are against this.

[Tenzing_Shaw]

The argument is invalid.

First of all, we have to figure out exactly what Lewis is arguing. Here is one possibility:

1. If God does not exist, then I will have to believe that most people are wrong.

2. I do not wish for most people to be wrong (since this would not be a "liberal" view).

3. Therefore, God exists.

This is an instance of the fallacy of wishful thinking. Wishing to be able to accept the beliefs of others does not make those beliefs true.

Here is another possibility:

1. If God does not exist, then most people throughout history have been (and are) wrong.

2. All of those people cannot be (or at least are not likely to be) wrong about something so important.

3. Therefore, God exists.

The second premise in this argument is obviously false. Most people believed that the world was flat, that objects tend to slow down unless acted upon by a force, and that the Earth was the center of the solar system. These beliefs also concerned the fundamental nature of the physical world, and were examined by a great many people, yet turned out to be false in spite of that. More fundamentally, the fact that many people believe a statement is, in and of itself, irrelevant to the truth of that statement. At most, one could make the argument that successful action taken on the basis of a theory is evidence for that theory (ex. successful technology as evidence for science). Since a glance at history shows that religion leads to disaster and misery in practice, one could hardly make such an argument in this case.

Finally, I would like to address the statement you made, which I take to be a summary of Lewis' argument:

If one chooses Atheism then one is obliged to provide a naturalistic explanation of why so many people have a religious impulse.

To start with, I don't know what you mean by a "naturalistic explanation". In demonstrating a truth, one is never required to provide an explanation of the psychology of those who evade that truth (this is an entirely separate task). If I prove a theorem in mathematics, for example, then the theorem is true, and I cannot be called upon to account for the behavior of those who reject it in spite of the proof. Their behavior would then be as relevant as the color of the ink which I used to write the proof, or the weather on that particular day. Even if such a burden were present (which it certainly is not), then it would work both ways: I am an atheist, and hence all who believe in God must provide a satisfactory explanation of my atheist "impulse".

I hope this helps.

[fletch]

"If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view."

The not so hidden implication here is that faith frees ones mind from the rigid prison of atheism, when in fact it only offers an irrational escape from the constraints of reality. As for the religious impulse bit, it is hard for me to say why so many people have a such an impulse, since that is something I lack. It might have something to do the fact that for many people, reality isnt such a pretty picture. Religion often provides a suitable distraction and a cause for hope to what has been, and for many continues to be a horrible human condition.

[D'kian]

If one chooses Atheism then one is obliged to provide a naturalistic explanation of why so many people have a religious impulse.

You don't have an obligation to provide anything. Quite the opposite, in fact. The person making the claim must provide the evidence to back it up. I don't speak for all atheists, but as concerns myself I do not believe in God, or any kind of deity, because I've never seen evidence that such a being exists.

PS I am not trying to evangelize here. Quite the opposite. I just am wondering what good arguments there are against this.

Sometimes the large majority of people can be wrong. How many common people in the Soviet Union, not to mention intellectuals and others, believed Communism to be the right way to do things? Did their belief matter?

[DavidV]

If one chooses Atheism then one is obliged to provide a naturalistic explanation

I want to add that one is not obligated to provide a naturalistic explanation for nature either, as many theists claim. When I decided that I was atheist, I was not yet familiar with cosmology, genetics, or the theory of evolution. However, I had implicitly accepted that claims about the world require empirical evidence, and no such evidence existed (or could exist) for supernatural beings.

[DavidOdden]

If one chooses Atheism then one is obliged to provide a naturalistic explanation of why so many people have a religious impulse.

For every religion on Earth, the membership of that religion is a minority with respect to the whole population. If one chooses Theism, one is obliged to provide a naturalistic explanation for why the majority of the worly does not accept your particular faith. The "natural" explanation is that your religion is simply false, and applying that observation to all religions, all religions are false. The actual reason why Other Religions, which are false, persist is that man is not omniscient and he is fallible.

There is not a unified fully explanatory account for why religion is widespread, because the reasons differ depending on context. For example, in the Middle East, one particular religion, Islam, spread very rapidly by force, and it persists because renouncing your traditional Muslim faith can result in the death penalty. Christianity similarly spread by force; it's well known that people will opt for adherence to an evil philosophy rather than be killed. The second most significant factor in the continued presence of religion is the tradition factor, that people will claim to be Catholic or Jewish not because they actually believe particular tenets of those religions, be rather because they (as "a people") have always been Catholic, or Jewish. To reject Catholicism if you live in a Catholic society is to reject an essential part of that society, and many people are intellectually unwilling to take that step. Thus religion depends on intellectual sloth, and now the question reduces to figuring out why intellectual sloth prevails.

The explanation for that is that man is not born with pre-form fully-honed intellectual skills: they must be learned. Who are the teachers? The priests. How do we eliminate religion? Work on replacing the priest-teachers with teachers having active and rational intellects. Religion will naturally wither up and die.

[Guest AtlasShruggedtheMovie]

If one is willing to take the leap of faith that God has existed from eternity past, why could one not take that same leap about the universe. At least some part of the universe is empirically verifiable today. Not so with God.

Mark

"If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view."

If one chooses Atheism then one is obliged to provide a naturalistic explanation of why so many people have a religious impulse.

Discuss.

PS I am not trying to evangelize here. Quite the opposite. I just am wondering what good arguments there are against this.

[Guest AtlasShruggedtheMovie]

Why should I have to rationalize everyone else's opinions and/or philosophies of life. Not my problem. Furthermore, most people don't/can't live consistently with their own philosophical views all the time.

For every religion on Earth, the membership of that religion is a minority with respect to the whole population. If one chooses Theism, one is obliged to provide a naturalistic explanation for why the majority of the worly does not accept your particular faith. The "natural" explanation is that your religion is simply false, and applying that observation to all religions, all religions are false. The actual reason why Other Religions, which are false, persist is that man is not omniscient and he is fallible.

There is not a unified fully explanatory account for why religion is widespread, because the reasons differ depending on context. For example, in the Middle East, one particular religion, Islam, spread very rapidly by force, and it persists because renouncing your traditional Muslim faith can result in the death penalty. Christianity similarly spread by force; it's well known that people will opt for adherence to an evil philosophy rather than be killed. The second most significant factor in the continued presence of religion is the tradition factor, that people will claim to be Catholic or Jewish not because they actually believe particular tenets of those religions, be rather because they (as "a people") have always been Catholic, or Jewish. To reject Catholicism if you live in a Catholic society is to reject an essential part of that society, and many people are intellectually unwilling to take that step. Thus religion depends on intellectual sloth, and now the question reduces to figuring out why intellectual sloth prevails.

The explanation for that is that man is not born with pre-form fully-honed intellectual skills: they must be learned. Who are the teachers? The priests. How do we eliminate religion? Work on replacing the priest-teachers with teachers having active and rational intellects. Religion will naturally wither up and die.