An atheist’s claim, shared on Facebook:
The current “god” myths we have come from earlier human beliefs. We can track the evolution of these beliefs through anthropology and comparative analyses of cultures, customs and myths.
What is the probability that a random myth could coincidentally reflect reality? The unlikelihood of this leads a rational person to reject any “god” claims, including the Christian one.
That’s actually . . . not a good argument.
“The current ‘god’ myths we have come from earlier human beliefs. We can track the evolution of these beliefs through anthropology and comparative analyses of cultures, customs and myths.”
True—for the most part. Obviously there’ll always be a number of unanswered questions; a degree of mystery.
“The unlikelihood of [myths reflecting reality] leads a rational person to reject any ‘god’ claims, including the Christian one.”
This doesn’t follow, as a couple of analogies will demonstrate. Imagine if a detective said, “I’m not gonna bother investigating this murder because the overwhelming majority of people I talk to will be innocent. Therefore the rational stance is to leave this case unsolved.”
Or imagine a student, about to write a multiple-choice exam, saying to the teacher, “The vast majority of options on this exam are going to be incorrect—so the rational stance is to not bother taking the exam.”
Possible analogies are in fact countless: people make false claims about all kinds of things, but we don’t typically use that as an excuse to avoid finding the truth.
“What is the probability that a random myth could coincidentally reflect reality?”
An extremely high probability—depending on how narrowly we define “reflective.” Myths typically were intended to explain something the ancients really had experienced. C. S. Lewis opined:
. . . Myth in general is not merely misunderstood history . . . nor diabolical illusion . . . nor priestly lying . . . but, at its best, a real though unfocussed [sic] gleam of divine truth falling on human imagination. [Miracles, “Appendix B”]
A common example is an ancient or “prehistoric” (note the quotation marks) Deluge: there are Flood myths around the globe. Any one of them, on its own, might easily be dismissed as fiction—but taken together, they represent a strong collective testimony that a major cataclysm along the lines of the Flood in Genesis really happened, and there are cultural memories of it.
Other myths aren’t as clear-cut: many “gods” are just deified ancestors or an animistic approach to natural phenomena (e.g., Ba’al as a god of storms and fertility).
Question #1: If naturalism—the idea that physical and chemical nature is all that exists—is true, then why would the ancients have “deified” anyone or anything at all? Why should anyone have ever thought in categories of “deity” and “non-deity,” or ever have imagined a supernatural realm? From a purely evolutionary standpoint this makes zero sense.
But from a theistic standpoint—especially Biblical theism, which also involves morality and a “fall of Man”—it makes perfect sense: fallen people reject God, yet retain His creational imprint on their hearts, and so they remain religious. Having rejected the Creator, but driven to express their religious nature, they deify the creation (Rom. 1:18-25).
Therefore even the “gods” reflect aspects of reality:
Physical nature on its own cannot explain itself;
A supernatural realm exists;
Humans are in some way morally accountable to this other realm.
Question #2: If one is inclined to “reject god claims,” why lump Yahweh in with pagan gods—since they are crucially different? The very first verse of the Bible is also the most fundamental, and could not be applied to any pagan god:
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
This establishes the most crucial fact about Yahweh: that He is holy—meaning “set apart” or “distinct.” We have two entirely separate categories here: Yahweh . . . and everything else; the Creator and the created.
This category distinction is intimately related to another crucial dimension of reality that demands explanation but which the average person ignores, and which paganism fails to capture: the self. A human being is:
A person (not a thing),
With a rational mind (not just brute instinct),
A sence of morality, and,
A desire for meaning and purpose.
Since raw nature is IMpersonal, IRrational, Amoral, and purposeLESS—it’s the most logical thing in the world to infer that the Source of these human traits must be a Person who is rational, moral, and purposeful. This Person would also have to be outside of nature (therefore not just a natural product), and more powerful than nature—otherwise we wouldn’t be morally accountable to this Person.
Hmm . . . .
Question #3: Since all of their pagan neighbors were steeped in nature “gods” and deified ancestors, and since they themselves had been enslaved and influenced by one of those neighbors (Egypt)—what (or who) inspired Israel to proclaim a holy God . . . ?
Question #4: Since pagan “gods” are deifications of nature—why do atheists commit the same basic error as the ancients by elevating nature above all else?
More food for thought: