The Futility of Arguing About God
And why our descendants will be pantheists
Apparently, we’re still arguing about whether “God” exists, as we’ve been for over two thousand years. But if we’ll always be arguing about that question, it probably means the question is meaningless, and we’re not really arguing about it at all.
Reason alone won’t decide what you believe about “God.” Instead, this “great debate” between “theists” and “atheists” is an exchange of shibboleths and virtue signals. You signal that you belong to this camp, while I signal that I belong to that one. And we’ll stay in our respective camps, occasionally peak over the trench wall like WWI soldiers, and take pot shots at each other.
If you say reason ought to decide whether “God” exists, you’ve just rigged the game in atheism’s favour because reason objectifies and naturalizes, whereas God is supposed to transcend objects and nature.
And if you say reason isn’t enough, and you’ve got to have faith to believe there’s a deity, you’ve made the debate and the argumentation irrelevant.
The social underpinnings of the great debate
The debate about God is almost as political and silly as the developed world’s culture wars about group identity. Each group is proud of its…
