The Best Argument Against Specific Religions

[David Sklansky]

is not the philosophical ones or the science-math arguments regarding a personal god. Because to adequately espouse them or refute them requires specialized knowledge that most people do not have.

But the argument that everyone can understand is the fact that there are so many religions, none are subscribed to by more than a tenth of the population (a fifth if you lump all Christians together, which I don't think should be done), and that the great majority of practioners choose the religion that they were born into.

The above does not prove that a specific religion is incorrect. But it is overwhelminging evidence that no religion can rightly claim that its tenets are obviously true. Or that they are obviously true if someone will study them.

Now since I have not studied specific religions there is a miniscule chance that the above statement is wrong. Just maybe if I studied all the religions, I would come to the conclusion that one was certainly correct. But it is a trillion to one shot. And the reason has nothing to do with religion per se.

It has to do with the fact that no other subject on earth has sane certain advocates of minority positions when such a large contingent of intelligent people disagree. Especially on subjects that are at least in theory, not a matter of opinion. Regarding any other subject, when most people disagree with you, you have to allow for the significant possibility that you are wrong. In cases where there are lets say ten different theories, its OK to think yours is the most likely to be correct. It may even be OK to think your chances are more than the others combined. But to think that the evidence for your theory is so strong that it is almost certinly right when 90% of the other people disagree is chutspah of the highest order and only makes you look like an idiot.

Of course there is a semi exception. I speak of those times you can point to reasons why your opinion should be given much more weight than others. Perhaps because you have studied the subject to a greater depth. But that won't work as far as the religion debate is concerned because all of them have practioners that have studied their religion and even sometimes many religions to a great depth.

You might also claim that while many have studied the subject like you, you are smarter. That works in cases like mathmeticians contradicting coaches who punt too often. The coaches opinion can be dismissed because they don't know how to figure these things out. But there is no analogy in religion. On a similar vein, you can claim that even though you have a minority opinion, it isn't a minority opinion among the best thinkers. Again though, this won't work regarding religion (except for possibly atheism). There is no religion that more than 50% of the best thinkers belong to.

Finally one could conceivably point to a very large defection rate toward your theory in spite of cultural bias. That might be strong evidence that your minority opinion is right. But again that applies to no religion except possibly atheism.

It is important to understand that my words apply only to those who have a specific religion, and the belief that a hypothetically neutral evidence evaluator, would agree that the tenets of their religion, is much more likely to be true, than the combined likelihood of any of the other religions being true. I claim that such a stance is ridiculous, given that the vast majority of educated people who have studied the subject, religion or otherwise, think you are wrong.

There are two ways to escape this argument. One is to admit that the evidence for your specific religion is not strong enough to objectively think it is more probable than the others combined. You can still claim that it is most likely.
The other is to back off on the specifics and subscribe instead to a more general personal God with a lot of unclear attributes. If all religious people coalesced into such a stance, they would be in the great majority and they would at least avoid the slam dunk argument against them that a even six year old can understand.