If Atheism Is False, Then...

Occasionally, someone will ask me what I would do if Atheism were untrue. Frequently, what the questioner really wants to know is why I don't just play it safe (a la Pascal's Wager) by maintaining a position that asserts theistic belief but also recognizes important issues that would lead anyone to have questions or doubts. To the questioner, these issues usually include the problem of evil, the contradiction of science and religion, and the lack of direct and verifiable evidence of God's existence.

Setting aside Pascal's Wager, however, I think the original question is very interesting on its own and deserves attention. If Atheism is untrue, then theism is true. And then...

**Insert Television Dream Transition Waves Here**

(1) There exist in our world one or more gods, immortal beings able to control and transcend the laws of physics, and able to understand the thoughts of mortal beings.

(2) One or more gods is responsible for beginning of the universe, for everything in it, and for everything that happens in it.

(3) Other supernatural beings exist, although they may not be fully divine. Angels, demons, cherubs, and so on, all inhabit the world. Often, they are invisible. Ghosts, too, probably exist.

(4) Other realms exist, such as heaven and hell, and they lie beyond space and time. They exist invisible and undetectable in our world.

(5) People and perhaps other beings all contain an invisible and undetectable soul, which existed before life and exists after death.

(6) After spending a relatively very short time on Earth, every single immortal soul becomes judged by one or more gods for the actions of the human who housed that soul. The results of that judgment determine the soul's permanent residence in either heaven or hell.

(7) Human knowledge of time, space, history, medicine, law and life all become invalid because our perspective is wrong and our data leads to false conclusions.

(8) One or more human religious traditions describes the revelation of the divine to some or all humanity.

(9) Human activity and energy should be spent on an unceasing quest to establish which religious traditions, if any, express the true relationship of humanity to the deity or deities. If we people don't know how to relate properly to the divine, then our souls will perish and be punished for ever. So we need to know the right religions: we should study them all carefully and have tools to distinguish more accurate from less accurate traditions.

(10) The vast majority of humanity has already found their souls condemned eternally. Now, just stop and think for a moment about the number of human beings who have lived on this Earth and died over the past thousands and millions of years. We're talking billions upon billions of people, are we not? Reflect on what percentage of these people are now suffering in hell and what percent are playing badminton in heaven if Atheism is untrue.

I imagine that we could easily expand this list, some of the items above could be explained more or tweaked in this way or that, but the bottom line is this:

If Atheism is false and God exists (or gods do), then our world is actually nothing at all like we experience it in our daily lives or like we know it through our sciences.

Forget Pascal's Wager! People should be more concerned about the Common Sense Wager: If Atheism is false, then you (yes, you) are very probably going to spend eternity in hell!

I note with some sense of irony that #9 makes a very good reason to develop science and scientific methods. Because of scientific methods and processes we seem able to learn about the universe. We seem able to increase our knowledge in it and of it. We seem able to devise ways to overcome our natural limitations (physical, intellectual, rational) and arrive at better models of the truth of things. For these reasons, I have confidence that the Atheist conclusion is correct and the theist conclusion is incorrect. Furthermore, I see theist beliefs -- all of them -- becoming harder and harder to justify.