Religion, Hope and Argument

My name is Daniel J. Carabellese and I am an Atheist. I am a first-year student at Adelaide University and am a member of the Godless group of Atheists that operates inside the University. I’m writing this short article to illustrate an argument I’ve seen referred to as the “argument of convenience/desirability”, which suggests that if a viewpoint is more desirable than an alternative, then it is the case. I would hope the flaws in this argument are obvious (certainly I think they are), but I continually see it employed by all manner of people.

Before  I make my main point, allow me to relate an anecdote about my first day of Uni  wherein the argument I’d like to illustrate was first brought to my attention. I’m surprised I’d managed to avoid it for so long beforehand, but never mind that.

On my first day of University, I was approached by a pair of students from the organization “Evangelical Students”, who asked me to take a short survey. A kind way of describing what they were doing would be; ”surveying interest among new students”, a more critical viewer might accuse the society of attempting to convert new blood or harassing people (certainly some of my good friends expressed this opinion). However, I must take great care to point out that I was not harassed and, in fact, was treated perfectly politely.

The  survey (which, regretfully, I cannot provide a copy of) had a range of  questions with answers stratified from; ”I  believe in an Almighty Creator God who created I and all other human beings in  his image” to answers such as ”I  believe human beings are a result of a process of evolution... etc.” To be  more general (as I do not recall the exact content of the questions), there  were Atheist answers and Theist answers and then middle-ground answers  scattered in-between. I’m sure you’ve already guessed which answers I chose. I completed the survey very quickly, handed it back to the surveyors and awaited my tally. The result; Humanist. I was given a small yellow piece of paper and told I could collect a badge which reflected my answer. I did get that badge, for the record, and wore it for the rest of the day.

The piece of paper is where the argument I mentioned in my introduction actually appears. I still have the piece of paper, so I will transcribe the offending article below, before articulating my opinion on the topic.

”A question: What hope does humanism offer in a world plagued by war and human corruption?”

It could be debated for years whether Humanism (or, more broadly, Atheism) does offer some consolation in a world plagued by war and human corruption. The answer is irrelevant. Furthermore, it could be accused of Theism that much of the war and human corruption which is referenced above is either directly or obliquely a result of Religion. This, though a compelling and emotional topic, is also irrelevant.

This argument, from my point of view, immediately soils itself and dies within the first few words. ”What hope does [insert  non-theist philosophy here] offer...?”.  In truth, it is charitable to consider this an argument at all. I will attempt to reconstruct the argument in steps below;

1. A world in which we have hope for a positive future (or an afterlife without suffering) is a better world.
2. Theism offers hope, based on the good graces of a Creator God.
3. Humanism/Atheism does not offer this same hope, as it denies the existence of a Creator God (and, consequently, a paradisiacal afterlife.)
4. This means that a Theist viewpoint offers more hope for a positive future and thus, a better world.

1. Therefore; our Theist philosophy is true and our Creator God is factual.

As I have already said above, point number four is subject to argument. Humanism may well offer hope for the future through Science or other scholarly pursuits and Theism (in some cases) also offers a possible future of eternal damnation.  It is not my position to argue this point here. For the moment, I will take point four as truth and proceed to the conclusion.

Or, I will try.

I think it is patently clear that the leap between four and five is  mind-boggling, to say the least. Here I come to the main point of my  counter-argument and something that I have become, frankly, tired of pointing out to Theists who I interact with on a regular basis.

Let’s assume for a moment that total acceptance of Atheism would cast humanity into a bleak and hopeless pit of unhappiness, apathy, war and corruption. As a genuinely happy, moral and relatively pacifist Atheist, I find this takes some suspension of disbelief, but no matter. It would seem that Theism, then, is a more desirable point of view to take on. However, just because the view is desirable or convenient, that does not make it the case.

I apologize to anybody who has seen this coming the entire time. I agree that it is patently obvious, but this argument comes up again and again. It is appalling how many people are unable to separate truth from something which they desire to be true. In the example above; even if the world may be unhappy with the outcomes of a fact, this does not mean that it is false. Personally, I  find the idea of being able to rise into the air and fly around a room quite  desirable indeed, but that does not make it the case that I can do so, if I want hard enough.

I concede that the question I was posed could also be construed this way; ”Theism prompts people to attempt to improve the world through their morals/charity/prayer/etc while Humanism does not.” This is a topic which could be (and has been) argued for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Are we moral because of Religion? Does religiosity correlate with acts of kindness? Are Atheists inherently bad people?”

I will not even attempt to enter into the endless debates on this topic of Moral Philosophy. In answer to the last question, however, I would point out that I, personally, am not immoral as far as I can consider the concept. While I am only one example, this would seem to indicate that the rule that might have applied is not universal.

This argument has also been employed by people who claim to be “spiritual” or hold some supernatural belief in attempting to refute a rational disbelief in supernatural elements. A brief example can be found in Astrology, whose believers sometimes accuse people like myself of being “boring”, “no fun” or “having too small a world”. The list goes on and on. This argument, though slightly different, follows the same form; it would be a more fun or deeper world if Astrology/Crystal healing/Tarot/Parapsychology/etc. were true, therefore it is the case. This is, if possible, even more frequently argued than the Theism version.

It has been capably argued by Richard Dawkins in a number of his books (particularly “Unweaving the Rainbow”) that Science offers an equal, if not more wonderful world than delusion and superstition. One need only consider the fact that scientific advancement brings with it ever more mysteries to debate and explore as well as the phenomena it explains. Personally, I feel that a rainbow is all the more amazing for having been explained, given the sheer number of variables which converge to produce the result. Incidentally, on the day that the Large Hadron Collider was first activated, a number of my friends and I were (and continue to be) excited to see the results of the impending experiments. I know only what Physics I picked up in High School and yet, the prospect of scientific advancement still brings me excitement. Take this how you will.

In writing this article, it has not been my intention to claim that none of the views quoted above have real evidence. That is an entirely different debate and one which will, quite likely, rage for centuries after I am deceased. I have instead addressed the argument that a view offering hope or being otherwise convenient or desirable causes this view to be true. I have concluded that this is simply not the case. As I have said above, I would have hoped that this view was obvious to all, but in my experience, this has not been the case.