World Views and "Choosing a Religion"

By:  Erick Nelson
Last Updated:  December 30, 2007

From my friend.  He sees a "Heinz 57 Varieties" set of competing religions (my term, not his), and sees it as somewhat absurd that we tend to pick the one we grew up with and never take the others seriously.  (The argument has often been made that Christians blindly accept the miracles of the Bible while rejecting all other claims of the miraculous out of hand - a different but similar point.)

(By the way, as Dawkins would say, you too are an atheist: about Zeus or Isis or Thor. You know just how it feels. I simply have added one more to my list than you have.)

I mentioned Occam's razor. It seems to me that the burden of proof falls to proponents of theism. We--Christians and secularists alike--greet Muslim, Hindu, Mormon, and animistic doctrines with something like intuitive derision, never really considering their origins, precedents, or specific beliefs with anything approaching the serious analysis which we apply to Christianity (say, the date and destination of Galatians). Again, as Dawkins might say, you and I are both satisfied atheists regarding Shiva, the djinn, Moroni, or dead-but-present ancestors. If we were to start with a blank slate and objectively examine the claims of all of these doctrines--including atheism--alongside Christianity, and if the evidence weighed in on the side of any one of them, then a case might be made for belief.
 
But nobody does that. Nobody, that is, except for atheists. (I'll admit an exception, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, whom I admire hugely, but he isn't considered mainstream by most Christians. And even he, with all his ecumenism, still comes down without argument on the side of Christianity.)
 

Here's how I see it.  Some if it is borrowed, I suppose, from C.S. Lewis; a lot of it comes from my philosophy background and reading and lots and lots of reflection.  I'm sure you're aware of most of this, maybe all of it.

 
There are four types of world view:  polytheism, pantheism, theism, atheism.
 
Polytheism
 
As I understand it, many of the gods of the Greeks and others were consciously mythical - that is, no one thought you could walk up to Mount Olympus and meet them, and the things told of them were just stories.  But lets say that everybody believed that Poseiden, Zeus, Aphrodite, and all of these really existed as super-personages.  They were called "theos", but none of them was the absolute Creator and Author of all existence.  They are characters with the universe - super beings, but still finite and within the created order.
 
Whether they exist(ed) or not has nothing to do with the question of God's existence; any more than alleging that Martians with super-human powers exist has to do with God.  One could certainly believe in them and not accept a single infinite Creator.  One could believe in a Creator and see these as some kind of angelic beings (as in the C.S. Lewis science fiction trilogy), whether good or evil.  Justin Martyr, I believe, contended that at least some of them really existed and that they were demons.
 
I would say that if you want to present evidence affirming, say,  Pan's real existence, I would consider it the same was as I consider the NT documents and other Christian evidences.  Let the facts be made known and let the chips fall where they may.
 
Pantheism
 
Pantheism, as you know, affirms that the whole universe IS God; that it has some kind of spiritual essence, as opposed to naturalistic materialism, for instance.  As the universe, as far as we know, is vast but finite, I would say that pantheism deals with a vast but finite "god."  Again, as it denies a Creator, which is infinitely "bigger" and "above" the creation, it may be technically said to be atheistic.  In history, pantheism has been combined with polytheism, with gods such as Shiva or Krishna appearing as super-personages in the drama.
 
Theism
 
Last, theism says that the universe is not all there is, and that behind it and above it there stands a Creator who is infinite, intelligent, eternal, and super-natural.  There are traces of philosophical theism in the Greek writings and other places, but by far the historical crux of this is the "revelation" to Abraham and his lineage.  This is the beginnings of Judaism, and offshoots Christianity and Islam.  I completely disagree with people who say that these three traditions worship different Gods.  They point to the same infinite Creator - not a demi-god super-hero or merely the whole created universe, but the Power behind it all.  They see him as merciful, all-knowing, loving, communicating, caring, ancient, ... all that stuff.  But they also differ as to some of his attributes and what he has revealed.  Obviously, Christianity thinks that God came to earth, while Judaism continues to wait for the Messiah; Islam was eager to conquer by the sword, and opinions differ as to whether that is essential to the faith or only one historical appropriation of it.
 
Finally
 
At any rate, with Theism, there is One God who either exists or doesn't.  I think it is really mis-characterizing the whole issue to line up all "gods" as if they were the same, and then say that the Christian is an atheist of all but one, while the true atheist disbelieves in that "one more."
 
So if we're playing the "Heinz 57 varieties game", I'm not very objective, but I would start by examining world views that seem the most plausible.  To me, coming from outside but known most of what I know now, I would be repelled by Islam, Mormonism, the kind of Christian fundamentalism that starts with an inspired Bible or says you just "have to believe", Judaism, and the forms of polytheism I know about.
 
I would have a respect for the experiential version of Hinduism/Buddhism, but would see the claim that "God exists and came to earth and we can know what he was like and we can come to experience him" as personally appealing, and would want to take a hard look at it.  That's just me, but it makes sense I think.
 
As far as atheism is concerned, it may wind up to be true, but it wouldn't make me very happy.  I remember in college, after reading Sartre's "The Wall", walking around all night long realizing that after I die nothing will matter, and that would not be good news to me.  I guess I'd accept it as a fall-back position if nothing else were to be confirmed to me.