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Why ‘atheists believe in one less god than theists’ is poor philosophy
Some atheists in the popular (importantly, not the academic) sphere propose that they merely believe in one less god than theists. Ricky Gervais, for example, claims that Christians are more or less as atheistic as him, because there are some 5,000 recorded deities that civilisations have formally written or thought about, and while Christians do not subscribe to 4,999 of them, atheists simply go one step further. This is sometimes referred to as the ‘one less god’ argument, and is meant to be an argument for atheism.
This is a poor argument. Here’s why.
Firstly, imagine running the same argument in any other domain in which people have allegiances or subscriptions. Take, for example, football. There are more than 4,400 professional football teams in the world. Alice supports one of them. Bob doesn’t support any. ‘Wow!’ Bob claims, ‘Alice pretty much isn’t a football fan at all! She doesn’t support 4,399 teams and I simply support one less! Aren’t we so similar?’
Sure, despite the fact that Alice spends 2 hours watching her team play–twice a week–attending every other match in person, 3 hours a week travelling to and from games, 4 hours a week reading football articles and books, and 5 hours listening to podcasts. She buys team merchandise, celebrates when they win, cries…
