Atheists are Evil

I wrote the first draft of this article the day before the news that D’Souza was having an affair broke.  It’s a pity, because D’Souza says so many stupid things and he was shaping up as good material.  As a leading apologist though, his days may now be numbered.  Now back to your regular service …

------------------------

There are two fundamental reasons why atheists are evil.  First, because of what they think.  Second, because of what they are.

This might sound like a controversial claim, but it’s not an uncommon claim, although the vast majority of people making the claim don’t state it quite so baldly.

------------------------

Let’s look at the intellectual evil of atheists first, and then we can look at their ontological evil.

For the committed theist, the existence of god is self-evident.  You can see evidence of this in some of their statements and their questions.  There’s an example in the Q&A portion of a debate between Dinesh D’Souza and Peter Singer:

It seems like that when all of the evidence points logically to the conclusion of a God that you tend to come up with a different hypothesis.  So what’s confusing to me, as watching you being the atheist viewpoint, is it seems like, rather than look at the evidence and just see where it leads, you start with the position that God doesn’t exist and see if the evidence can get you there, and when it doesn’t you come up with a different hypothesis and my question is simply is that true what I feel like, you know, or am I wrong?

Peter Singer quite happily told the questioner that he was wrong and that he (Peter Singer) didn’t see any of that “evidence” that apparently points logically to a god but rather a wealth of evidence against the Christian conception of god, focussing particularly on suffering.

Then Dinesh D’Souza had the opportunity for a brief response (I’ve taken his stuttering out):

Look, ultimately here … let’s take one more look at this issue of suffering because in a sense it’s demounted as Job did as a complaint against God and the argument would go something like this: “God, why don’t I have both my hands?”

Now the question you have to ask is, if it is the case that there is a God and if it is the case that He created us, all living creatures have been given something to which they are not entitled in any way, namely life itself.

Even the person who has little, or is suffering, is often clinging to life, which is to say life is valuable to us.  We’re still in the plus column because we want to keep living, and so what I am getting at is do we really have a legitimate complaint against God by saying, in a sense, “I’ve only got one hand, that guy has two. Why did you make me a one-hander?  Why did you give me cancer so I only have 47 years of life when I could have had 70?”

It seems to me that these complaints ring hollow when you consider that our entire life and everything we have is in fact a gift from God so, on the premise that God exists, which was his (Singer’s) premise, it looks to me that He has not done anything to any of us that has put us in the negative column.  We’re still in a sense on the positive side of the ledger because we still have something to which we have no claim and have no right against Him, namely the gift of life itself.

Note carefully what D’Souza is implying here.  Singer has argued throughout the debate that the Christian conception of god is inconsistent with the evidence and presents as his primary case the argument that suffering of non-human animals due to non-human causes is inconsistent with a benevolent god.  He follows a chain something like this:

If your god is omni-omni (my term, not Singer’s meaning omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent), why is there suffering?

-       Response, free will is so brilliant that all the suffering in this world is worth the cost, it’s just not possible to implement free will without suffering as a side-effect and, in any case, the longer term goal of salvation makes the suffering inconsequential.

Ok assuming that your arguments are valid; why, if your god is omni-omni, do animals suffer when they don’t have salvation as a pay-off?

-       Singer’s conclusion is that, if he exists, then god is either incompetent or evil, which is not part of the Christian conception of god, therefore god as the Christians conceive him does not exist (another option is that god simply doesn’t care, but that brings god into line with Darwinian evolution – the Christian god apparently does care)

Singer is arguing that the inconsistency in the Christian conception on god is evidence that that particular god does not exist.  Singer is not having a hissy-fit, pouting his little lips and declaring that he’s angry at god because there’s some suffering in the world.  D’Souza however seems to think that if (in Singer’s estimation) God were a bit better at preventing suffering, then Singer would begrudgingly acknowledge Him but until then, Singer’s going to be an atheist just to spite God.

Some theists seem to be unable to get their heads around the idea that atheists simply don’t believe in a god.

My theory is that this is related to the phenomenon by which some theists are locked into their faith, that is by means of a form of wishful thinking – they simply would not wish to live in a universe in which there is no god looking after them.  There’s a beautiful Swedish song, Du Måste Finnas, or “You Must Exist” in which the singer pretty much begs god to exist (this is my translation, not that on the video):

You drove me out, God,

I was ripped from my homeland,

I am refugee and a stranger here

And I find myself in the wilderness*

But you took my child

And now you take me from my husband

I can no longer see a meaning to it all

What is it that you want?

What should I believe …?

My thoughts are dizzying

Before me there is an abyss

I am in turmoil and want to say “no”

[But] the question has been raised.

And now my soul shakes in anticipation of the answer

That you don’t exist

Even though I believed in you.

Who will help me survive this life?

Who will give me the strength that I need?

Who will comfort me, so insignificant in this world?

If you don’t exist,

Yes, then what should I do?

No, you must exist,

You must,

I live my life through you. 

Without you I am no more than a ripple in a stormy sea. 

You must exist,

You must. 

How can you forsake me? 

I would be nothing,

I would be nothing if you didn’t exist.

Never before have I had it in word or thought,

The little word that scares and plagues me so,

The word is “if”, if I prayed all my prayers in vain

If you don’t exist,

Then what should I do?

Who would sense my repentence and later forgive?

Peace in my soul, yes, who would grant me that?

Who would receive me after death?

If you didn’t exist

Then what should I do?

No, you must exist,

You must,

I live my life through you. 

Without you I am no more than a ripple in a stormy sea. 

You must exist,

You must. 

How can you forsake me? 

I would be nothing,

I would be nothing if you didn’t exist.

* Note: there’s a play on words here, “ödet” which I’ve translated into “the wilderness” while strictly meaning “desolation” also means “fate”, “the wilderness” works on both a literal and a figurative level, since she’s in pioneer era Minnesota, a long way from home, and she’s also metaphysically adrift as the following verses indicate

Note that the character is rather conflicted.  In part, she is angry at the god she believed in (for forcing her from Sweden, killing her child, putting her in the wilderness and so on).  But she expresses something which I think a lot of recovering theists probably feel at some time or another – a notion that a universe without god, even a god that one is angry with, is undesirable.  Julia Sweeny vividly describes a form of vertigo experienced while she was losing her religion in “Letting Go of God” (or the TED version).

This believing because not believing would be so terrible is a mirror image of what I think D’Souza and people like him believe is going on with atheists.  D’Souza assumes that there are people who, because of ignorant pride or inappropriate priorities, decide that an existent god is not doing a good enough job and who, as a consequence, decide quite irrationally that the universe would be better without god.  These people, according to D’Souza, therefore adopt the intellectual stance of believing in the non-existence of something that obviously exists – thus becoming atheists.

If this were the case, it would be a type of evil.  If god, being the omnipotent and omniscient creator of everything and the source of all good, were to exist (and that existence were self-evident) but insignificant vermin such as humans took it upon themselves to judge god and turn away from god, that would indeed be an evil act on their part.  No questions about that.

(This might be part of the reason that apostates are looked upon so unkindly, although a better explanation is that the policy of treating apostates poorly – up to and including torturing them to death – makes apostasy a somewhat less attractive option for others, which in turn makes it easy to lock people into your in-group.)

However, as far as I know, this isn’t how the vast majority of atheists see things.  Some atheists are particularly disenchanted with the religious, and they do mock theists by saying that even if god did exist (which, they make clear, he doesn’t) then he’d not be worth worshipping because of all the suffering, or because of how much of a megalomaniac butcher he was in the Old Testament, or because gay people are people too, or whatever.

But … a person who is seriously pissed-off with God for His mismanagement is a pissed-off theist, not a pissed-off atheist.

So, that’s the intellectually evil atheist, or rather the straw-man of the intellectually evil atheist.

-------------------------

But atheists are not just evil because of what they think, they also evil because of what they are.  The nature of an atheist is inherently evil.  Fortunately, this inherent evil is not unique to atheists.

I wrote before about a miracle testimonial event that I attended at the urging of a Christian friend.  I was sorely disappointed that I didn’t hear about people being miraculously cured of amputations, or third degree burns, or even cancer.

 (I guess remissions don’t always last – it’s somewhat dark humour, but I have in my head the voice of my friend telling me that I should have come last year, because there was this great speaker, a young woman, who had talked about how she had been miraculously cured of terminal cancer, and that I would have enjoyed that.  Oh, yes, I ask, what happened to her?  The cancer came back and she died, my friend tells me – oblivious to the fact that he is telling me that the miracle that I would have liked to listen to was not, in fact, a miracle at all.)

All the “miracles” that evening were mundane stories about how people in the congregation had been nice to each other.  Now I am all for that, I like people being nice to each other and I really like it when people are nice to me, but that’s far from miraculous … unless you have a rather twisted view of humanity.

In the debate between D’Souza and Singer, D’Souza tries to argue that the Ten Commandments are not made up.  I’ve heard him make the same argument elsewhere, but in this particular instance, he makes a comment to the effect that if he were to be a member of the committee responsible for making up the Ten Commandments, he’d toss three of them away for a start (I don’t know how many he’d finally end up ditching) – because D’Souza doesn’t like to be told not do things.  I don’t know which version of the Bible he’s talking about, but it sounds to me that he’s talking about tossing three of the commandments that appear after honouring your father and mother (in the context of the debate, I can’t imagine that he meant that he’d toss out the first three “I am god” commandments or that he has a burning desire to dishonour his parents).  That leaves him with:

Thou shalt not kill

Thou shalt not commit adultery

Thou shalt not steal

Thou shalt not lie

Thou shalt not covet houses

Thou shalt not covet wives, manservants, maidservants, oxen, asses, etc

To be kind, we could assume that D’Souza is very much into coveting.  He enjoys a good covet.  So, that’s two of his three and he’s got one more commandment to discard.  If he’s got any sense at all, he’d go for “Thou shalt not lie”.  Now that lying is ok, along with the coveting, he can happily lie about all that killing, adultery and stealing he does.

(News reports out today, the day of my editing of what I wrote yesterday, indicate that D’Souza could have wanted to ditch “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not lie”, I guess that leaves him scope to take out “Thou shalt not covet wives, manservants, maidservants, oxen, asses, etc” – I’m not currently aware of the marital status of D’Souza’s squeeze.)

The point is that D’Souza was basically implying that he would keep the commandments, as silly as half of them are and as bleeding obvious as the other half are, because he’s Christian and he believes that god wants him to obey them.  Without them, he would be like the caricature of an atheist that he depicts: uncaring, totally amoral and intensely covetous.  (Edit – actually, even with them he’s a bit like that.)

It seems to me that people like D’Souza should be theists and even atheists should want people like D’Souza to be theists, because they are psychopaths who are only kept in line (edit – to a certain extent) by a comforting fairy tale.

This viewpoint, that without theism, humans are like wild beasts, is a recurring theme.  D’Souza even went as far to claim that, before the advent of Christianity, there was no compassion.  So, what he’s specifically claiming is that if you are not a Christian, you are highly likely to be an uncaring, dishonest, vicious, baby-discarding, cannibalistic, light-fingered, indiscriminately copulating and covetous beast.

I bet they don’t put that in the travel brochures.

-------------------------

Please note, I am not really saying that atheists are evil.  Other than Ayn Rand, of course.

-------------------------

D’Souza really made a mess of the last section of this – it seems that even if you are a Christian you can still be a bit of a beast.  It just means that you are a hypocritical beast.

The Logic of a Mystic

I have, more than once, had the unmitigated pleasure of debating with a theistic mystic.  But what, I hear you ask is a “theistic mystic”?

Put it this way, if I were a theistic mystic, I would ask you what you thought a theistic mystic was.  Fortunately I am not a theistic mystic (TM).

What I mean by the term is a theist who tends to argue by putting out statements that appear deep and then when asked to clarify a term asks what the questioner thinks the term means.  If the person seeking clarification falls into the trap of presenting a definition of the term, the TM then says no, you clearly don’t comprehend and you need to do some more research.

The TM will usually then make a new statement related to either the original, still as yet unclarified statement or the attempted definition.  Sometimes, the TM will attack his/her opponent based on the attempted definition, as the opponent had made a statement of position rather than trying to get clarification.  This can, for the unwary, trigger a defensive reaction leading to an apparent defeat since few people can successfully defend a position that they don’t really hold (and the TM will claim that the opponent is retreating).

What a skilled TM will never, ever do is properly clarify.

neopolitan (in a discussion with someone else) – … the right thing to do really depends on the circumstances of the situation.

dyster (the theistic mystic, or TM) – So you are a moral relativist.

neo – Well it depends on what you mean by “a moral relativist” …

dyster – What do you think “a moral relativist” is?

neo – I’m guessing you mean someone who is not a moral absolutist.

dyster – Are you trying to tell me that you don’t believe in absolute morality?  What about rape, is that not always wrong?

neo – We-ell, rape is clearly not always wrong to the person perpetrating rape.

dyster – So rape is ok in your world, what about killing children or torturing puppies?

neo – I didn’t say that rape is right, I ...

dyster – Yes you did, you condoned it.

neo – No, no, I didn’t.  Look, you seem to say that there is an absolute morality.  On what do you base this absolute morality?

dyster – Logic.

neo – Logic?  But what are your premises?

dyster – Look … some things are true, ok, and some things are false.

neo – Ye-es, but what are your premises?

dyster – Are you now trying to say that nothing is true?

neo – What? No, I’m …

dyster – So some things are true, some things are wrong and some things are right.

neo – But if you are going to say some things are right and some things are wrong, you are going to have to have some basis on which you make the determination.

dyster – Aren’t you listening?  I just told you the basis, logic.

neo – You still haven’t given me any of your premises.

dyster – You clearly don’t understand logic, you need to go away and do some study.

---------------------------------

This was pretty much how a real conversation went, although it was longer and a little more heated.

As you can (hopefully) see, the logic of a mystic is on a whole different level to that of an apologist.  You know what the TM is claiming, but it is never clearly articulated.  This may tempt you to try to short circuit it thus:

---------------------------------

neo – Look, you are just saying that things are right or wrong based on what your God thinks about it.

dyster – What do you mean by God?

neo – It’s your God, not mine, you’d need to define it.

dyster – I didn’t bring God into the discussion, you did.  You need to define your terms.

neo – Hang on, you didn’t define your terms before.  What do you mean by a “moral relativist”?

dyster – Really?  You just want to run away from the discussion now and go back to an earlier point that we’ve already discussed at length?

neo – Alright, have it your way.  The God I think you mean is the omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent God one of the Bible.

dyster – Your dismissive tone just indicates that you need to go study some theology.  How can we have a profitable conversation if you don’t understand what you are talking about?

(neo ducks off to spend 4 years in seminary college)

neo – Right, here is the definition of the God that I think you meant ...

(neo downloads 4 years’ worth of theology)

dyster – Oh, that’s not the understanding of God that I have, you have to study more widely …

(Early the next morning, the mystical Mr dyster is found nailed to a tree with a little sign saying “Is this the sort of God you meant?”)

---------------------------------

All you can really do with a TM is remain politely sceptical as long as humanly possible and be dogged in your demands for clarification and evidence.

Then, if the TM doesn’t crack, you buy a hammer.

On Flew and Ehrman

While investigating William Lane Craig I came across two people whose names were not previously well known to me – Bart Ehrman and Antony Flew.  I had a bit of a closer look at them and found them to be interesting cases because they both moved on the atheist-theist spectrum as illustrated below, but in different directions.

This spectrum illustrates a range of possible positions between “strong atheism” on the top and “literal fundamentalism” on the bottom.  I might not have accurately captured all of them.  It should be noted that as you get closer to the bottom, you approach a specific God and in the context of this discussion we can assume that this is a Christian God.  As you approach the more fundamentalist position, evidence disappears as a factor.  I don’t mean that evidence itself disappears, but rather that evidence is looked at differently by people with these positions – evidence becomes something that needs to be explained, rather than being an essential element of an explanation.  (See my article on evidence.)

For ease of reference, we can consider this spectrum in light of a nine-point scale:

These are my own descriptive terms.  None of them are intended to be pejorative, with the possible exception of “Agnostic Fence Sitting”.  This category is for those who want to apply Pascal’s wager but, despite trying their best to believe in a God so as to not be punished eternally for failing to do so, are still not able to really truly believe due to the lack of evidence.  In other words: “there’s not really any evidence, but I’ll lean towards the God premise just in case”.

Let’s compare the history of Ehrman and Flew.

These are based on rough estimates.  Bart Ehrman’s crisis of faith that cured him of fundamentalism happened in the mid-1980s and was followed by about 15 years of liberal Christianity.  Flew was tending towards a deistic belief, or a belief in an “Aristotelian god” or a First Cause, in his mid-70s as early as 2001.

In 2007, There is no A God was published by Harper One under Flew’s name, even though the book was largely written by the “co-author” Roy Varghese and “copy edited” by Bob Hostetler.  Flew’s contribution seems to have amounted to granting approval and allowing earlier work to be incorporated in the book.

Note that Flew’s regular publisher was Prometheus Books, whose publishing goal is described as addressing “the educational, scientific, professional, library, popular, and consumer markets”.  Prometheus does have a few books on the topic of religion, but a brief look at the titles indicates that they have a skeptical orientation, in line with the founder’s intent (Paul Kurtz also founded the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, an organisation of which Flew was a fellow).  Harper One’s area of publishing interest is described as “the full spectrum of religion, spirituality, and personal growth”.  It doesn’t take much skepticism to think that perhaps Harper One was selected as the publisher because Prometheus would not have been able to provide editors who would be as “accommodating”.  

I am perhaps being a bit unfair in labelling Ehrman as a weak atheist.  It is true that Ehrman explicitly denies being an atheist, is antagonistic to New Atheists and claims to be an agnostic.  However, when speaking to Justin Brierly on Premier Radio’s Unbelievable program, Ehrman described his position in terms that correlate with weak atheism.  Ehrman is certainly not a strong atheist but, given that his position is sufficiently similar to mine, I feel justified in asserting that he is a weak atheist.

(Update 30 March 2023: in his discussion with Sam Harris on Making Sense, Ehrman said "I'm an atheist too", indicating that his position is similar to that of Harris.  That might indicate that he is now at the stronger end of weak atheism.)

The question of whether Ehrman is an atheist (of any type) or not is related to another sort of question: where exactly is the line between “atheists” and “others” and the line between “Christians” and “others”?

I would have thought that for a Christian, the line depends on the nature of their belief.  If a Christian is a fundamentalist, then a wishy-washy type who is willing to interpret the Bible (and is not born again) is not a proper believer.  For an atheist, someone who thinks “there is probably something out there” is suffering from precisely the same type of delusion as the fundamentalist; just not to the same extent (we could call this “Deluded Lite”).

The moves that Flew and Ehrman made on the spectrum are, I believe, as illustrated below:

Now, on this diagram, it looks like Ehrman has undergone a significantly greater change, but there is no real scale involved.  To get a better understanding of the major changes of position, we perhaps should look at them differently.

So, in other words, Erhman went from someone who believed it all, to someone who reckoned that there is sufficient evidence to support the assertion that there was a human known as Jesus, but not much else.  Despite this, I’m reluctant to count him as a true opponent to William Lane Craig in a debate because he seems to shy away from the most likely explanation for a story as amazing as that of Jesus in the almost total absence of any supporting evidence outside the Bible.  That it is fiction.

Flew, on the other hand, went from someone who didn’t believe a thing to someone who was willing to credit God with creating the universe, but not much else.  Despite this, there are plenty of people willing to claim that Flew’s conversion is a great victory for theism (even though he specifically did not convert to theism).  Why is this?

Well, let’s look at a few interesting facts.

Biola University is not known for being a deist university.

------------------------------

Now I have previously stated that I don’t really count Ehrman as being a true “opponent” to William Lane Craig.  This also means that I don’t count Ehrman as a “convert” to atheism, even though his position is almost completely consistent with my atheism.

A small part of my reasoning relates to the fact that Ehrman remains a New Testament scholar, who believes there actually was a Jesus and who seems ambivalent about the Bible.  However, the vast majority of my reasoning relates to the single fact that it does not matter who Ehrman was before losing God, or indeed after.  My personal lack of belief is neither strengthened by a conversion of a theist to agnosticism nor weakened by the conversion of an atheist to deism.  The pope could convert to atheism, and it’d make no difference.  Richard Dawkins could come out as a closet fundamentalist, and it’d make no difference.  My atheism is an entirely personal lack of belief on my part.

Now that that is out of the way, I want to state that I am appalled by the way some people treated Flew.  It is very sad to watch footage of a man who was clearly showing signs of mental deterioration, evident as early as 1998 during the debate with Craig at Biola University, as he is paraded around by smug theists.  (Remember footage of tired and confused allied soldiers making televised announcements on behalf of Saddam Hussein?  It’s rather similar, except Flew was never returned.)

There is a notorious interview between Lee Strobel and Flew in which Strobel shamelessly, and relentlessly attempts to put words in Flew’s mouth (when the interview was held is unclear but the first reference on the internet that I could find is dated November 2006).  Of particular interest in this interview is that not only does Flew appear to be not at his best, but he also clearly states twice that he is not going to write a book and implies it a third time.  Flew does not mention having just written a book (There is no A God was already mentioned as being circulated in pre-print as early as September 2006).
 

·         4’:39” onwards

o   Flew: “I haven’t even begun to think about this book that I am certainly not going to attempt to write”

o   Strobel (jocular): “We’re going to get you to write it”

o   Flew: “Oh no you’re not”

·         5’:11”

o   Flew: “I’m not going to write the book”

·         9’:05” onwards

o   Flew: “Well, I think, ah, if we were involved in a discussion for this book, that would have to be considered, yes.  I think it’s a reasonable thing for someone to argue.  It doesn’t mean it’s the right, but it’s certainly right for someone to say that, that”

o   Strobel: (incomprehensible vocalisation but probably) “Yeah”

o   Flew: “Yeah and I think that that is in fact what theists would want to say in some way, wouldn’t it, the whole purpose of this creation was to produce believers.”

I strongly recommend that people listen to at least two debates, one between Flew and William Lane Craig from 1998 and a more recent one between Ehrman and Craig.  Compare the clarity of thought exhibited by Flew and Ehrman and just ponder whether the likes of Craig and Strobel should be fisting the air and claiming victory for the Lord because Flew became a deist.

-------------------------

One last thing … I’ve tried, but I’ve not been able to find any reference to claims by high profile atheists that Ehrman becoming an agnostic should be considered as some sort of victory for atheism.  For anyone trying to prove me wrong, I’d happily accept something said by Dawkins (and any who post articles at the Dawkins Foundation site), Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, Smith, Krauss, Law and Shermer.  The clarity of the statement should approach the title of Gary Habermas’ article (Atheist Becomes Theist – Exclusive Interview with Former Atheist Antony Flew) or that of the book crafted by Roy Varghese (There is no A God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind).

-------------------------

This article blends information freely available from Wikipedia, Richard Carrier’s blog, Mark Oppenheimer’s NY Times article, and audio and video of debates involving Strobel, Craig, Flew and Ehrman.  My thanks to the people who made this information available.

Creeping Theism

I’ve observed an interesting phenomenon recently, which I call “creeping theism”.  It might not have started with William Lane Craig, and he doesn’t seem to be the only one exhibiting it, but I noticed it first with his debates.

I have spoken to many Christians about religion in my time: at beach mission, at Sunday school, at High School, at university and in day-to-day interactions.  Until only quite recently, I had never heard any of them describe themselves as a theist.  They never talked about theism.  It was Christianity all the way.

In recent years, however, Christians seem to have introduced this new usage of “theism” wherein theism is cast as being directly opposed to atheism.  While this is consistent with the original usage of the term – that is in opposition to emerging deism in the 1700s – it’s curious for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, the people who use the term “theist” do not consider themselves to be theists per se, they are Christian, or Jewish, or (potentially) Muslim or even some form of Hindu.  Theism is a collective term which includes beliefs that the individual “theist” almost certainly holds to be untrue.  Even a Universalist will hold the exclusivity of the individual faiths to be invalid.  A Christian doesn’t believe “theism”, but rather Christianity.

Secondly, atheism does not have to oppose “theism”, not even strong atheism (or “new atheism”).  Atheists are neither restricted nor inclined to address theism as a whole.

It is this latter point that I think is key.  Creeping theism appears to be an attempt to defend an individual faith by hiding among other similar, but apparently false, faiths.  The “one form of theism among many” argument goes a bit like this:

1.      While you might have some legitimate argument against my form of theism, you can’t possibly prove every single form of theism to be false.

2.      Therefore, it is possible that one form of theism is true.

3.      Insert Plantinga's Ontological Argument here to prove that one form of theism is true (while hoping that no-one notices the logical fallacies involved).

4.      If one form of theism is true, then it must be the best form of theism.

5.      My form of theism is the best form of theism.

6.      Therefore, my theism is true.

On the face of it, this doesn’t seem to make any difference since if you prove the theist’s individual form of theism to be false, then it’s false.  However, this ignores the mental gymnastics of the average Christian.  Say someone (an atheist or some alternate theist), knocks down a vital pillar of a Christian’s world view – for example by convincingly arguing that the errors and inconsistencies in the Bible show that the Bible is in error thus eliminating confidence in the prophesies foretelling the arrival of a messiah and indicating that the Gospels are likely to have been made up.

The Christian may be assailed by doubt, but she will not necessarily be crushed.  She activates the “one form of theism among many” argument, noting that it is unlikely that the specific Biblical errors and inconsistencies raised will affect all forms of theism equally.  Since there is no evidence which successfully addresses all forms of theism, there is therefore refuge in some hypothetical form(s) of theism.  Naturally, the Christian believes that if any form of theism is true then it has to be hers.  Not all forms of theism have been shown to be untrue and, therefore, her "best form of theism" must be true.

I know, it doesn’t make sense but the Greatest Living Christian Apologist regularly deploys equally weak and logically invalid arguments.

If anyone has any other theories regarding creeping theism, why the term "theism" has started to get so much traction in the Christian apologetics world, I’d be interested to hear them.