What if You're Wrong?

Atheists often hear the same arguments from many Christians over and over again.  In fact, if an atheist is active in the atheist community eventually it gets to the point where we just don’t hear an original argument any more.  One of the most common is, “What if you’re wrong?”  The argument is that if I am right about there being no God it still does me no harm to believe it.  When it comes time for the afterlife there is simply nothing, like I already believe.  No harm, no foul.  But if I’m wrong and I do not worship then I spend an eternity in Hell for not believing.  According to the argument I’ve nothing to lose by believing no matter whether God exists or doesn’t, but there’s a 50/50 chance I could spend an eternity in Hell if I don’t.

The problems with this argument, of course, are many.  Let’s start with my chances.  While a 50/50 chance sounds reasonable on the surface because we are looking at only two possibilities, that I am right or I am wrong, it is WAY off from any actual chances because what one believes does not have any effect whatsoever on reality.  I could believe that 2+2=17 and you could believe that 2+2=143.  There is not a 50/50 chance for each of us to be right just because we are only looking at two beliefs.  In fact, it does not matter one bit what we believe.  It does not affect the reality that 2+2=4 whatsoever.  In this case there is a 100% chance that we are both wrong.

The same is true when saying that there is a 50/50 chance that I am wrong.  It’s not even close.  There are many, many more gods than the Christian God, and some of them want to punish me for not believing too.  In fact, EVEN IF the Christian God were the one true God, then I would STILL have to choose the correct Christian religion to avoid eternal damnation.  How do I do that?  I would have to look at the options available to me and make an informed decision about what I should believe.  I’ve done that.  That’s why I’m atheist.

Another truth is that I very much have something to lose.  If I’m right and this life is all I have then spending hours a week in worship of an imaginary deity is a waste of what little time I have in this world.  In fact, wasting just 2 hours a week for 60 years, a very conservative figure, I would be throwing away more than half a year of my life doing something completely pointless.  Not only that, I’ve been in a fundamentalist religion before.  I know firsthand what I have to lose and, more importantly, what my children have to lose by being members of some of the wackier Christian religions.  It could potentially be even worse if we were Catholic since priests apparently can’t keep their hands off of little boys.  There have been many instances of children committing suicide as the direct result of abuses by Catholic priests.  So now the question becomes, “What if I choose wrong?”  Not only do I STILL go to Hell by some religious beliefs, but I ALSO waste my life in worship of the wrong thing AND my children may be severely emotionally damaged by a cult-like fundamentalist religion or a grabby priest; maybe even both.

To put this into perspective I like to ask, “Do you believe in vampires?”  Of course not.  That’s laughable.  But…What if you’re wrong?  What if there ARE vampires?  What if you go your whole life not believing in vampires and then one night you get bitten by one, die, come back and kill your family?  After all, you have a 50/50 chance of being wrong.  So, just in case, what would it hurt to sneak holy water out of churches and drink some every night, just in case?  If your blood is filled with holy water then you should be safe from vampires, right?  I don’t understand why EVERYONE isn’t doing that.  If you drink holy water and there are no vampires then you don’t lose anything, but if you drink holy water and vampires are real it could save your life!  Of course the argument is ludicrous, but not one bit less ludicrous than it is when used for religious beliefs.

Most atheists approach this from another angle.  There are thousands of religions on the planet right now and if I were to worship “just in case” I could not be only Christian.  I would also have to be Jewish, Muslim and any other religion where an eternal afterlife of torment, or at least the missed opportunity for an eternal life of happiness was promised if I did not worship.  So, again, the only way for me to determine which religion, if any, I should follow would be to examine them all for their merits and make an informed, unbiased decision based on the empirical evidence.  Again, I’ve already done that with as many religions as I care to and that’s why I’m an atheist.

The most annoying part about this argument is that the person making it has never asked themselves that same question.  They have never asked themselves, “What if there is a god, but not the God I am currently worshiping?”  As any atheist who’s seen all these arguments before can tell you, the person making the argument always excludes their beliefs from the argument.  There’s the argument, “Nothing can come from nothing.  The universe must have been created.”  When asked who created their God they respond, “He always was”, excluding their God from the confines of the very argument they just made, completely unaware that if it works for one thing it will work for another.  If one thing “must” have been created then everything “must” have been created.  If one thing can exist without being created then other things can exist without being created.  Each of these arguments has specific logical fallacies associated with them, but I just call them all “The argument and the exception”.  That description fits an alarming number of theistic arguments.  They will make their argument, then make an exception for their god/religion/holy writings/people/history/etc.  I’ve seen it used in creation, I’ve seen it used in arguments that priests are called and led by God, but child molesting priests are somehow different (after all, why would God call someone to the priesthood knowing that the direct result of his intervention into one man’s life would lead to the molestation of hundreds of children?), I’ve seen it used to refute all “holy” writings except one, I’ve seen it used to explain how religious people are better people but exclude religious people who were not good people…I’ve seen it used in just about every religious argument.  Technical fallacies aside, this description accurately portrays a large number of the arguments I’ve seen.

All theists seem to lower the bar considerably when it comes to their own religious beliefs.  In my experience only atheists are willing to demand the same level of evidence for their own beliefs that they demand for any other.  Most atheists I know will freely admit that they can never know for sure that no gods exist.  If they can’t prove it, they don’t claim it.  If everyone had the same standard we’d all be atheists.  Or at least Christians wouldn’t have this annoying attitude that they are absolutely right and anyone who doesn’t believe it is the enemy.  Personally, I think a lot of the anger and aggravation from theists comes from the fact that they get angry to avoid having to listen to the reasonable arguments that would cement their own doubts in their beliefs.