Pagan Apologetics

"If I were asked to prove that Zeus and Poseidon and Hera and the rest of the Olympians do not exist, I should be at a loss to find conclusive arguments."

- Bertrand Russell, "What Is an Agnostic?" 1953

While looking around for a bit of bait for which to attach myself, I came upon a request for theistic or agnostic responses to the atheistic response to the "you can't prove a negative" objection to atheism. Seeing a good opportunity for myself to have a bit of fun in the middle of the night at home, I chose the longest of the essays to examine and (hopefully) refute. Quite to my surprise, the article opens with a quote from Bertrand Russell (whose "Why I am not a Christian" I refuted previously). The odd coincidence is this: the very Gods which Russell could not find conclusive arguments against are the very Gods which I believe in.

It is refreshing to find an essay which does not "prove" the non-existence of "God" by "disproving" Christianity but by taking into account the fact that most of the world (especially throughout time) has believed in Gods other than the one proposed by the Christian religion. It is the purpose of this paper to prove why you cannot disprove that a God (especially relating to the Olympians) exists.

Machines with Souls?

Lowder says that "If a contradictory of an article of faith could be proven, then by the law of noncontradiction the article of faith would be disproven." His example is essentially this: if any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from that which occurs naturally, then that which occurs naturally does not exist.

Such an argument would be easily refutable. However, his argument applies only to the Christian concept of a uniquely human soul rather than the Pagan concept of common spirits. The Christian concept of the human consists of a trinity - the body, the intellect, and the soul. The Pagan concept is singular - the body - or dual - the body and spirit. In the Pagan view, humans are not unique in having a spirit. Specifically, in Hellenic view, there are three races: Gods, Men, and Beasts all of which are alive and have spirits. Animistic religions ascribe spirits to all things, even plants and non-"living" things. Also, the Christian would respond, "The machine is only imitating the human intellect, it still does not have a soul." or possibly "The machine is only giving the appearance of an intellect because it is following instructions given to it by a human programmer who has a soul." Therefore, the hypothetical that a machine could imitate a human intellect would not hold up in either a Christian or Pagan view.

Two Proofs, Two Errors

Lowder claims that there are two ways to prove the non-existence of something. The first being that it leads to contradictions, and other is "by carefully looking and seeing."

The first pitfall is easy. Lowder says that if one God exists than another cannot. For example if Christianity is true then Islam cannot be. However, this argument breaks down both in a polytheistical system and through the examination of human experience and faith. A polytheistical system does not deny the possibility of other Gods who are not known to the followers of the system. It does, however, acknowledge that their own system is fully complete and does not need any more Gods. So, I would say that Christianity's claim to a single God named Jehovah would be an unlikely proposition but I am basing my beliefs on my own personal experience and I do not refute the possibility of my being incorrect. The human experience is different for every single person on the planet and every single person has a slightly different concept of the Divine.

One accepts by faith all things. If you are reading this, then you might accept by faith that I am a human just like you and that this paper did not come from nowhere and is not a fluke of the universe. You have faith in the Law of Gravity because if you didn't then you would be quite paranoid much of the time. To prove the existence or non-existence of something, the scientist would say that you have to use your senses to examine something to prove its existence. However, one cannot necessarily trust his senses and something can exist without being sensed. So thus it is impossible to conclusively prove anything!

Agnosticism vs. Atheism

Lowder tries to refute the claim of agnostics who say that you cannot make a statement based on the facts about the existence of a God. Hank Hanegraaff says that you would have to be God to say there is no God. Lowder replies that Theists do not feel that they must be omniscient and omnipresent to make the assertion that there is a God.

We then go into the fact that people only hold knowledge of a fraction of one percent of the world's knowledge and, as Ron Rhodes says, "it is logically possible that God may exist in the 99.9 percent that is outside your [the atheist's] pool of knowledge and experience". Lowder replies and says asks if it is logically possible that a knock-down, deductive disproof of your god may exist in the 99.9 percent that is outside your pool of knowledge and experience. There error here is this: if you have a pencil sitting in front of you then you can conclusively say that, even though you have an extremely limited knowledge and experience, that there is a pencil sitting there. There are also things which I have not seen but I believe are there. For example, I have never been to China but I have faith that it is there. A child who has never even heard of such a country might not think that there could be such a place but that does not prove that it does not exist. Therefore, again it is impossible to conclusively prove anything.

Can You Disprove Polytheism?

Lowder quotes Bertrand Russel as saying

"None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of Homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof."

So, science does more to prove the existence of Gods than it does to disprove them!

Conclusion

In this paper, I have shown how it is impossible to disprove the existence of of the Gods. Lowdel even says that "some possible gods (e.g., the Greek Pantheon)... do appear to be unfalsifiable." By his own admission I have won the argument. He has admitted to defeat against the encroaching tide of reality and science. However, he does say that it is possible to disprove a specific God. I would like to take him up on that and actually disprove the existence of one of our Gods.

Blessed Be,
Tyler Roberson