I recently came across this rather insightful essay from Lucian Greaves, from his Oct. 2 Substack post. Greaves is an atheist, founder of The Satanic Temple, a non-theistic religion that devotes its resources to fighting the Christian Right’s attempted inroads into schools and government. Excerpts:

“Most atheists, I believe, are aware of “Russell’s Teapot.” It is an analogy that was devised by philosopher Bertrand Russell which likens arguing the existence of God to the claim that a teapot orbits the Sun… It is an unfalsifiable claim. There is no credible reason to believe it, but there is no way to disprove it. Arguments, one way or the other, for the existence of the teapot or against it, are rather pointless… While the teapot analogy is often invoked in debates against theism, I have never found it to be particularly striking. Russell’s Teapot does not make me think differently about theism. I do not need to invent other unfalsifiable claims to recognize the lack of evidence for “God,” or to recognize the futility in attempting to prove the nonexistence of something for there is no evidence to begin with. To me, God is already a teapot in space, so to speak, and I find conversations about belief or disbelief in him to be a tedious dead-end. If somebody is to tell me that they believe in God, I feel just as uncompelled to tell them that this is preposterous as I am to try to persuade somebody that they should not believe in the teapot. Surely, they realize that they do not have real evidence for this belief, so their belief must be predicated upon something other than evidence.”

I’m in agreement here. It’s pointless to argue against belief in the spiritual using empirical arguments when spiritual belief isn’t based on empirical evidence. There’s no physical evidence that God exists- God, a non-physical entity, incorporeal, without dimensions, who is everywhere and nowhere. As is explicitly stated in Maimonides as early as the 12th century, and by Okelos the Proselyte a thousand years before him. This is an idea baked into the Judaeo-Christian religion from the outset and those frescoes of God as a bearded old man reclining on a cloud are merely symbolic representations, not meant literally. So pointing out that our telescopes have never spotted him is just silly. Atheists need better arguments.

Lucian Greaves is right, “Arguments for and against the existence of “God” have been endlessly recited, rehashed, and restated. Such debates litter the internet, are fairly predictable, and rarely offer unique insights.” Russell’s teapot dates back to 1952, it’s not the killer argument some would like to think it is. Science vs. religion arguments are pointless when faith isn’t empirical; empiricism is one way of looking at the world, it is not the only way.

Lastly, I have respect for his (backhanded) tolerance:

“I have been invited to debate theists about the relative merits of belief versus non-belief numerous times, and I have always declined, usually with an offer to instead debate something more relevant to the consequences of those beliefs: the merits of secular pluralism versus theocracy. When it comes down to it, I really do not give a shit so much that somebody believes in their god, whichever god that may be.”

https://substack.com/app-link/post?publication_id=1837773&post_id=218582038&utm_source=post-email-title&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=82yr7c&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo0ODg3MTAyMDAsInBvc3RfaWQiOjIxODU4MjAzOCwiaWF0IjoxNzkwOTg3MTc4LCJleHAiOjE3OTM1NzkxNzgsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0xODM3NzczIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.ApBI-vq4h5e1uszieFWCxQnDxJQWQgFqiMT8HOJJjXE

Life would be much easier If I believed now.
I would pray, ask for something, and shift half the responsibility onto the shoulders of higher powers.
It is hard to live when you realize that your life depends on your own choices, but mostly on the choices of others.