Consensus Argument
When lots of people reach consensus on a topic, we should grant their judgment due consideration. That’s just common sense. Unfortunately, that commonsense dictum has a cancerous mutant form known as the consensus argument. One proponent of the consensus argument expressed it like this: “The burden [of proof], in science (and society generally), properly belongs on whoever is attempting to change the consensus viewpoint.”[1] Peter Kreeft says that most Americans believe in God and that that should count for something: “To be an atheist, you have to be a snob.”[2]
To reject atheism because atheists are snobs is to commit the fallacy known as ad hominem. To embrace theism because it’s the majority opinion is to commit the fallacy argumentum ad populum. The burden of proof does not fall exclusively on someone expressing a minority position. It falls on any party issuing a claim. Failure to demand proof constitutes the fallacy argumentum ad ignorantiam, also known as an appeal to ignorance.
A religious advocate who respects her burden of proof will present arguments for God’s existence. The skeptic, by asserting that an apologetic argument fails, issues a positive claim and thereby assumes his own burden of proof, which is met by offering a counterargument. The rules of this game have nothing to do with how many players are on each team.
Regardless of how popular an opinion may be, one needn’t accept any claim issued without a defense. As Christopher Hitchens said, “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”[3] This is called Hitchens’s razor.
We never do, or even could, believe every theory or proposition until it’s disproved. It is illogical to say, “I believe in Thor because no one can disprove his existence.” A statement in this form is illogical no matter which god is referenced.
The consensus argument, by teaching that our default response should be to yield to the majority, reflects a mob mentality. In his book The Wisdom of Crowds, author James Surowiecki describes circumstances in which popular judgment is often reliable—that is, when all of us are smarter than any of us. Surowiecki specifically warns, however, against groupthink. Deference to the crowd must not extend to topics where expertise is required or about which people are generally ill-informed.
People are generally ill-informed about religion. If you think that statement validates Peter Kreeft’s labeling of folks like me as snobs, then put it to a test. Ask the next believer you meet about the cosmological, teleological, ontological, and transcendental arguments. Unless you run with an unusual crowd, you will get back a blank stare. This isn’t a vocabulary test. It’s a measure of the typical believer’s intellectual disengagement from the ultimate questions of life.
Christians memorize Bible verses that apply fruitfully to their lives and fit snugly into conversation, but they rarely dive deeper. The Pew Research Center conducted a survey that revealed, to no one’s surprise, that atheists and agnostics know more about religion than do believers.[4] Few Christians, for instance, know the four noble truths of Buddhism, five pillars of Islam, or three treasures of Daoism.[5]+
Worse yet, most Christians can’t name the Ten Commandments, five books of the Pentateuch, four Gospels, or the languages in which the books of the Bible were originally written.[6]+ Nearly half of Protestants don’t know Martin Luther’s role in the Protestant Reformation, back in the sixteenth century. Four out of ten Catholics don’t know that transubstantiation isn’t mere symbolism—that adherents consuming the communion wafer are literally chomping on Jesus’s kidneys, spleen, toenails, and testicles. Bon appétit.[7]+
Bill Maher asked his audience, “Did you know that only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That’s right. Half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.”[8]+
Stephen Prothero, author of the book Religious Literacy, observes that one out of ten Americans believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. One out of three believe the Sermon on the Mount was delivered by Billy Graham. Many highschoolers believe Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple.
Prothero suggests that atheists know more than believers because, as a minority, they get challenged to defend their position. I can attest to getting challenged. From the moment I began to identify as an atheist, I have received impromptu Sunday school lessons from insurance agents, plumbers, and cashiers.
Yet the mere fact that atheists, as a minority, get challenged to defend their views cannot explain why they are more religiously literate. The number of atheists in America is greater than the combined number of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Hindus. If religious literacy were a function of a group’s minority status, all these smaller groups would outperform atheists on knowledge surveys. They don’t.
What matters is not the size of a group, but rather its intellectual tenor. A group that promotes learning and questioning will outperform groups that venerate doctrinal fealty. A study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology found that religious belief is correlated with poor understanding of our physical world.[9] Atheists study the real world. They perform better on religious literacy tests precisely because they are not focused on defending their particular worldview.
Majority opinion is unfit to be trotted out, as it is by Peter Kreeft and C. S. Lewis, as though it were a principled objection to disbelief. The consensus argument preys upon our aboriginal fear of being ostracized. The festering impulse to punish and exclude nonconformists is the character lesion from which this noxious argument oozes. Thanks to the consensus argument, every independent thinker confronts a hostile world. If you dare to think for yourself, you risk attracting metallic stares, as though you were an unassimilated alien. Your fate is sealed, your character impeached, the instant you ask a serious question and demand a sensible answer.
The pious embrace the orthodoxy that salvation is attained by one method alone: accepting dogma. You can never get to heaven by merely asking questions, no matter how ingenious. You can’t be redeemed by exploring all options with an open mind. You earn no kudos from the Abrahamic god or from his sycophantic followers by conscientiously aligning your beliefs with evidence. Ultimately, you must terminate your researches and accept the preapproved answer, even when the preapproved answer is slobbering twaddle.
According to the pious, you’ve been graciously endowed with free will and a fully functional brain. But it all seems a bit extravagant for the task, given that you have only one basic choice: believe or burn.
Let’s be frank. This never was meant to be a free choice. It’s extortion. The threat of eternal torment hangs over your head. The victim of extortion isn’t invited to sit back and have a leisurely think on the matter, weigh all the particulars, and decide dispassionately according to what satisfies the intellect. That’s not the tone in which religious dogma is promulgated.
When a church offers to “entertain questions,” it’s usually a pretext for expounding upon some doctrinal spiel or impugning tenets peculiar to competing sects. Tempers flare as Christians squabble over interpretive minutiae. I’ve seen fire ants that are more civil.
Yet these quarrelsome Bible-bangers unanimously attest that salvation mandates signing on the dotted line. We’re commanded by 2 Corinthians 10:5, “[Take] every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (NASB). This doglike obedience is directed not toward God, but only toward the prevailing conception of God. It represents acquiescence to the mob. Submit your pledge of tribal loyalty or prepare for unending torment. Hurry up and submit. The horse must be broken before it performs tricks for its master. The soldier must salute his commanding officer before receiving his marching orders. Christians are like guided missiles: the path they follow is less important than arriving at their preordained destination. Getting the “right” answer is more vital than getting the answer right.
Doubt, the necessary impetus for thinking and the inevitable concomitant of thinking, elicits churlish references to eternal hellfire from otherwise civil neighbors. You must subordinate your mind, heart, lifestyle, resources, and moral integrity to public opinion to be embraced as a full member of the community.
The alternative, which I recommend, is to welcome the charges of snobbery. Take the insults in stride, or even with pride. Learn from your critics’ emotional reactions, but do not bathe yourself in them. Speak calmly, with neither malice nor restraint. And remember Mark Twain’s advice: “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”[10]
[1] Dwight, “Antony Flew Is Dead,” Atheology, September 16, 2010, https://atheology.com/2010/09/16/antony-flew-is-dead/.
[2] Peter Kreeft, “Rationality of Belief in God,” December 25, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK_71C3C-30 (video no longer available).
[3] Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 258.
[4] Dalia Fahmy, “Among Religious ‘Nones,’ Atheists and Agnostics Know the Most about Religion,” Pew Research Center, August 21, 2019, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/21/among-religious-nones-atheists-and-agnostics-know-the-most-about-religion/.
[5] Four noble truths of Buddhism: suffering, attachment, release, and the eightfold path (right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration). Five pillars of Islam: profess, pray, give, fast, pilgrimage. Three treasures of Daoism: compassion, frugality, and humility.
[6] Ten Commandments: (1) No god before me; (2) No icons; (3) Don’t take God’s name in vain; (4) Remember the Sabbath; (5) Honor your parents; Don’t (6) kill, (7) cheat, (8) steal [or kidnap, according to the original Hebrew], (9) lie, or (10) covet. Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Old Testament in Hebrew; New Testament in Greek.
[7] These organs are made of a divine substance, but the recipe is kept secret.
[8] Bill Maher, “New Rule: Smart President ≠ Smart Country,” HuffPost, May 9, 2010, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-rule-smart-president_b_253996.
The Protestants’ Old Testament and Jews’ Hebrew Bible contain the same books, but in a different order. The Catholic Old Testament contains the Apocrypha, so it’s longer (seventy-three books as opposed to the Protestants’ sixty-six books).
[9] Dan Broadbent, “Study: Religious Beliefs Linked to Poor Understanding of Physical World,” A Science Enthusiast, https://ascienceenthusiast.com/study-religious-beliefs-linked-poor-understanding-physical-world/.
[10] Mark Twain, Notebook (1907), Harper & Brothers Publishers, NY, 1935, p. 393.