Greta Christina’s Pretentious Pseudo-Evidentialism

Famous lesbian/Atheist Greta Christina pretends to create scenarios that would convince her to leave Atheism for theism. Her convicting instances are as she summarizes toward the end of a very long list of what would not convince her, which can be summarized thus: nothing theists can actually offer. Her list is here:

“The whole reason I don't believe in God is that every piece of evidence anyone has ever shown me in support of the God hypothesis has completely sucked. The whole reason I don't believe in God is that these criteria -- criteria that would be completely reasonable for any other hypothesis -- are not being met.

As many atheists point out: If God were real, we wouldn't be having this discussion. If God were real, it would be freaking obvious. If God were real, nobody would be an atheist. Nobody would even disagree about religion. The most obvious explanation for God's existence not being ridiculously self-evident is that God does not exist. As Julia Sweeney says in her brilliant performance piece Letting Go of God, "The world behaves exactly as you expect it would, if there were no Supreme Being, no Supreme Consciousness, and no supernatural."

And it's absurd to argue that this bar is too high. If God were real -- if there really were a God who created the universe and/or intervenes with it magically -- none of this would be beyond him. I mean -- he created the entire, 93- billion- light- years- across universe out of nothing! Surely he could make hundred-foot-high letters appear in the sky, or create a sacred text with scientific and prophetic accuracy, or consistently answer the prayers of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod! To argue that any bar is too high for him, that any standard of evidence is too rigorous for him, is ridiculous on the face of it.

Besides, just because God hasn't offered these pieces of evidence so far doesn't mean he never will. Maybe he'll decide that he tried sending his message with the flood, and he tried again with Jesus... but obviously none of that worked, humans can be kind of thick-headed sometimes. So hey, why not try that "hundred-foot letters in the sky" thing this atheist chick keeps gassing on about?

If he does, I'll change my mind.

In the meantime, I remain unconvinced.”

Well, only a small part of that is her list of what would convince her. Like the rest of her article, what she mostly is on about is stuff that cannot convince her. Why? Well, because she rejects it using various inapplicable standards such as “falsifiability” (which she obviously doesn’t comprehend), vague references to Materialism and Scientism, and “completely sucked” as logical arguments.

So let’s trim all that off the carcass and look at the three main things which would, in her terms, convince her of the existence of a deity.

First is her need for hundred foot high letters in the sky, readable in all languages, visible to all humans presumably simultaneously. This is one form of the “cheeseburger demand”:

The Atheist Cheeseburger Demand: if I were God, I would perform to the specified demand of some random Atheist denialist, to provide him with a material sign of his designation (e.g. hand him a cheeseburger on demand) just so that he will quit vilifying me and my existence. Yes, indeed; I would bend over backwards just to meet this one denialist’s demands on me. Why? Well, remember, I AM the denialist who is pretending to be God and know what God SHOULD do.

Unfortunately, pretending to be God and pretending to know what God SHOULD do has no possible bearing and no logical bearing on what an actual deity SHOULD do. This (circular) argument is one indication of an intellectual immaturity which is almost spectacular to behold.

Second, Christina demands a “sacred text with scientific and prophetic accuracy”. Christina is obviously a religious Scientismist blind-belief holder, who doesn’t understand science in the least but regardless, uses it as if it were an intellectual weapon. But this is akin to not knowing which end of a gun to point yet pulling the trigger anyway. Greta, science is never “true” and is never to be taken as “true”; it is always and forever contingent. So there is no point in demanding that scientific truth be prophesied; that demand is absurd. Further, the demand for such from a literature which does not pretend to do so is irrational.

The second part of her demand is based in a selective belief in historicity: If a prophesy of X was made, and later X actually happened, then the prophesy was valid. But all that is in the past; it is historical and we must either believe the history to be accurate or not believe it to be accurate. She said she would believe that if it were presented to her. Christians point to all the prophesies in the Old Testament which the birth, life and death of Jesus fulfilled. Undoubtedly Christina will not accept that, and will find excuses not to. But the fact remains that her specific demand has at least one documented instance of fulfillment. I suspect that her next caveat would be a demand for empirical validation, a demand which by its nature would nullify any claim of belief in historicity which is not susceptible to empirical replicative testing, and which then nullifies the premise of her whole demand.

Her third demand is that God “consistently answer the prayers of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod”. Her presumptions here are that God has NOT answered the prayers of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and that the deity considers their prayers deserving to be answered with affirmation of a material nature, with the affirmation available for Christina’s personal observation and validation. Both presuppositions are necessarily false, since Christina cannot possibly know either of those to be true. But what Christina was actually doing here was taking a casual shot at prayer under the presumption of its ineffectivity, purely for the benefit of her Atheist minions.

Christina has blustered confidently in her presupposed knowledge of what a God should do for her, specifically for her, in order that she believe the most basic and fundamental aspect – the deity’s existence. But every case she has given here is predicated on her a priori knowledge of what a deity is, and how her deity SHOULD behave, not on any attempted understanding an actual deity.

But she also addresses how her deity WOULD behave if her deity existed:

“As many atheists point out: If God were real, we wouldn't be having this discussion. If God were real, it would be freaking obvious. If God were real, nobody would be an atheist. Nobody would even disagree about religion. The most obvious explanation for God's existence not being ridiculously self-evident is that God does not exist. As Julia Sweeney says in her brilliant performance piece Letting Go of God, ‘The world behaves exactly as you expect it would, if there were no Supreme Being, no Supreme Consciousness, and no supernatural.’”

Actually, the physicalist universe and everything in it would be purely deterministic in its behaviors. That means that there would be no free will, no agency, no intellect, no creativity, no qualia, no appreciation for music because there would be no music, etc. There is no possible deduction which can proceed from the physical laws of deterministic mineral behavior to the non-deterministic behaviors of living creatures. Even Schrödinger’s “negentropy” theory of life cannot account for the non-determinism or the intricacy of the necessary complexities simultaneously inherent in the most simple of living creatures, and especially including first life.

So the Atheist complaint that a deity is not self-evident, that the universe is exactly as one would expect a purely material universe to be, is blindingly and necessarily false.

Christina is not a philosopher, not a logician, not even a diligent Atheist apologist. Her main appeal is that she is a lesbian who talks as if she knows something about which she speaks. There is always a market for that amongst the perpetual ignoranti. But with an application of logical analysis and actual existential evidence, her claims fall as if they were protons in the Hadron Collider, smashed to bits.

HT to JBSptfn for the link