All Apologies: Laughing at the Devout

Abstract

A prominent contemporary cultural trope is the use of humour by the critics of theism against their opponents, in the form of satire, sarcasm, ‘zingers,’ whimsy, and ridicule. The journalist Christopher Hitchens and the philosophers Daniel Dennett and Galen Strawson are well-known examples from within the cultural and intellectual context of critics that employ the tool of humour. This cultural trope is interesting because it occurs in the academic context as much as popular cultural media such as stand-up comedy and satirical news shows like The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight. This article outlines some ‘ground rules’ for the use of humour as a rhetorical ploy in religious debate. I argue that the use of humour is (1) permitted but (2) ought to be backed by good argumentation when it is used in ‘truth tracking’ contexts. I then use these heuristics to criticise two sorry examples of satire and ridicule employed by the biologist Richard Dawkins and comedian Shaun Micallef.

1. Introduction

There are today book-length works that address various issues within the philosophy of humour (Carroll 2014; Critchley 2002). Some people have emphasised that having a sense of humour, especially towards oneself, is a useful coping strategy, and that having a sense of humour is a “complex virtue that operates through the elicitation and expression of a range of emotions” (Alfano et al. 2024, p. 660; see also Bell 2019). The central question of this article is not the sociological and psychological role of humour, but its logical role: the role that should humour ought to play in philosophical debate and exchange about religion—Christianity in particular.

Christian apologetics and debate are practices as old as Christianity itself. The practice of satirising Christianity as a form of critique rose to prominence in the Modern period thanks to authors such as Kierkegaard and Shaftesbury (Amir 2015). Today, openly mocking and deriding Christian belief systems is a part of the cultural Zeitgeist.

This article is a work in philosophical cultural critique. What occurs below can be analysed into three broad movements:

• Identifying that there is a phenomenon in the cultural milieu that is philosophically interesting and providing some background to my discussion (i.e., the phenomenon of using humour as a rhetorical tool in apologetic debate about religion). This step occurs immediately below, in Section 2. The Section 1 of this article discusses how various forms of humour such as satire, ridicule, zingers, and whimsy1 are employed by atheists against Christian theists today. I also show how the alliance between humour and critique has spilled over into popular culture. My central resource for extracting examples from within the cultural milieu in this section is videos from the popular cultural platform YouTube.
• Providing a detour through the history of philosophy for the purpose of identifying some lessons and heuristics about the use of humour as a rhetorical tool in apologetic debate about religion. This occurs in Section 2 and Section 3. Section 3 discusses two inadequate but common ways of responding to this use of humour, thus demonstrating the need for further inquiry. In Section 4, I respond to the critical reception of humour by outlining that there are two good heuristics for using satire on one’s intellectual opponents: the first is that humour is permissible but, second, only when backed by solid argumentation and the capacity to back your satirical comments up with reason. My resources here are documents outlining an example of exchange from within the history of ideas. This example is worth exploring because it contains numerous intellectuals using humour to deride their opponents, responses to this tactic, and reflections on the tactic.
• Critiquing two examples of this cultural phenomenon based on the lessons and heuristics identified in step two. In Section 4 and Section 5, I use the two heuristics identified in Section 4 to evaluate the use of humour by atheist apologists, before finishing with some general and summative remarks (Section 7). My examples here are drawn from an article written for the cultural critique periodical The Monthly and Richard Dawkins culturally popular atheist apologetic work The God Delusion.

Let me briefly add some comments about methodology before we proceed. Unlike empirical works, it is rare to begin works in philosophical cultural critique with discussions of methodology. Nevertheless, given the interdisciplinary nature of this journal, I will characterise what occurs in this article as employing three broad methodological approaches:

• Philosophical argumentation. My philosophical argument is as follows:
  Premise 1: There is nothing intrinsically problematic about using humour during the art of philosophical warfare, but in truth tracking contexts humour ought to be backed up by solid argumentation.
  Premise 2: Richard Dawkins and Shaun Micallef do not back their humour up with solid argumentation.
  Conclusion: Dawkins and Micallef misuse humour as a rhetorical tool.

It is worth pausing to reflect on the type of evidence that could fittingly be provided for a normative ‘ought’ claim like the one made in premise one. Premise one is about argumentation and rhetoric, and these types of normative disciplines can’t be substantiated by any series of factual observations no matter which area they emerge from. Thus, my method is not empirical. To provide some justification for premise one, I employ my second methodology:

b.

Recounting a noteworthy and relevant event from within the history of ideas.

In Section 4, I draw on the resources of an historical debate between prominent intellectuals in order to highlight some morals that emerged from that exchange that apply to the general logic of rhetoric and can therefore be transposed over to the topic at hand. Finally, rigour is added via the implementation of

c.

Critical dialectic.

The critical dialectic involves constructing and examining potential counterarguments to one’s position. The dialectical method exemplifies critical thinking by preemptively engaging opposing viewpoints, adding rigour and clarity. This article periodically engages in critical dialectic throughout Section 5, Section 6 and Section 7.

Finally, one proviso is that I am centrally concerned with attacks on Christian theists, though the uses of humour I will detail below are generally directed at all theists. It’s also worth saying at the outset that I am sure that the use of humour against atheists by Christians is common. I think less so but cannot answer that type of question without a different method than the one this article employs. I am interested here in capturing a particular cultural trend, and all the normative comments I make about the use of humour in the middle parts of this article apply vice versa.

2. The Context

Terry Eagleton (2009) has coined the portmanteau ‘Ditchkins’ to label the two intellectuals whose names are synonymous with the derision of theism—Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. The very title of Dawkin’s most well-known polemic against theism—The God Delusion—already intimates tongue-in-cheek derision. Theists are not just incorrect but positively deluded. Many of the most savage attacks occur during Ditchkens’ interviews. Hitchens mocking responses to theists even has its own portmanteau—a ‘Hitch-slap.’ A prominent example occurs during an audience Q&A following Hitchens’ debate with Al Sharpton at the New York Public Library. In response to an audience question which probed why Hitchens would want to challenge religious worldviews which provide meaning for a significant majority of people, Hitchens opens with “Umm, well, what an incredibly stupid question!” (resultingly, the crowd erupted with laughter and jeering) (ChristopherHitchslap 2011, 1:15:30). Another example is when, in response to a question from Fox News’s Shaun Hannity about the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, Hitchens sardonically remarks about Hannity that “you give me the awful impression, and I hate to say it, of a person who hasn’t read any of the opinions against your position ever” (Snaves 2015, 06:00). For Dawkins, during Q&A sessions he is prone to say things like, creationists “stick their fingers in their ears and say la la la.” He derisively characterises Kurt Wise’s intellect as “well, a disgrace to the human species” (Molac 2013, 3:11). These types of remarks are attempted ‘zingers’—lively, witty remarks designed to invoke laughter and amusement through scorn.

This derisiveness is by no means limited to spoken conversations that are edited into YouTube videos for clickbait, however. Take, for example, Dawkins’ mocking rendition of Anselm’s ontological argument in The God Delusion. Dawkins writes, let

“me translate this infantile argument into the appropriate language, which is the language of the playground:

‘Bet you I can prove God exists.’

‘Bet you can’t.’

‘Right then, imagine the most perfect perfect perfect thing possible.’

‘Okay, now what?’

‘Now, is that perfect perfect perfect thing real? Does it exist?’

‘No, it’s only in my mind.’

‘But if it was real it would be even more perfect, because a really really perfect thing would have to be better than a silly old imaginary thing. So I’ve proved that God exists. Nur Nurny Nur Nur. All atheists are fools.’”

(Dawkins 2006, p. 80)

Similarly, in the same passage, Dawkins recalls that he “once piqued a gathering of theologians and philosophers by adapting the ontological argument to prove that pigs can fly” (Dawkins 2006, p. 84). Dawkins comments wittily that these theologians and philosophers “felt the need to resort to Modal Logic to prove that I was wrong” (ibid). Notice here that Dawkins does not attempt to refute the use of modal logic.2 Instead, the tactic here is to jokingly quip about the fact that theologians resorted to the use of modal logic (in desperation one assumes—for why else would someone resort to modal logic if not out of desperation?).

Often academics are at their polemical heights when looking down on Christianity. The eminent intellectual Daniel Dennett remarked in an article in The Guardian that “you don’t have to be religious to be crazy, but it helps. Indeed, if you are religious, you don’t have to be crazy in the medically certifiable sense in order to do massively crazy things” (Dennett and Winston 2008). Galen Strawson is another prominent and otherwise-respectable academic who removes the gloves when it comes to handling Christians. As Graeme Richardson observes, Strawson’s review of two philosophical works on theism (Saving God and Surviving Death) in the London Review of Books employs wordplay and rapier wit (Richardson 2011). For example, Strawson states these books

are a slap in the face for many who may be attracted by their titles: regular believers, supernaturalists, are likely to feel suckered rather than succoured. But really it’s the other way round. They’ve already been suckered; the question is whether they can be succoured.

(Strawson 2011)

Even more harshly, in the same review Strawson off-handedly refers to educated Christians as “moral babies” who ought to be ashamed of themselves and makes the sweeping remark that theists are “morally worse” than atheists (Strawson 2011). These comments positively drip with disdain.

This academic habit is notable for the extent that it translates over into popular culture. Popular culture examples include Woody Allen’s satirical essays in Mere Anarchy and the magazine Charlie Hebdo. The latter satirically critiqued organised religion, courted extreme controversy,3 was the subject of various terrorist attacks in response, and received applaud from organisations promoting secularity.4 It is easy to find examples of the cultural phenomenon of using humour to critique religion by reviewing YouTube videos with titles like Richard Dawkins Destroying Religious Zealots for 10 Minutes and Great Atheist Bomb Drops, which make for attractive clickbait for the popular atheist community. Memes containing sardonic attack on theists are common currency.

Often it isn’t just academics writing zingers, but comedians making comment within their comedy. A striking example of this hybridization is standup comedian and TV personality Ricky Gervais, who is frequently invited to make comment in serious forums such as discussion panels (Center for Inquiry 2020). A more particular example is an article that appeared in the May 2023 edition of The Monthly (an Australian magazine that purports to covers politics, the arts, and society). In that article, Shaun Micallef (a popular Australian comedian) dedicates a full two pages to disparage and mock Christianity. For example, he writes that

It’s a big responsibility, trying to bring order and meaning to your life, and I can see how choosing to believe that someone or something is looking after you, or that things will be better when you’re off singing alto in the choir invisible, would be comforting—even inspiring. Look at all the beautiful art and music and architecture and statues and monuments that religious devotion can lead to. Deluding yourself to that extent seems positively liberating.

(Micallef 2023)

The context of The Monthly is different from the set of a television comedy programme or the stage of a stand-up show. Given the context in which one finds Micallef’s article it (i.e., in the pages of a magazine that portends to be a forum for the discussion of ideas), I think we are safe to say that it is not purely or only intended to be funny. Similarly, the interviews that Dawkins and Hitchens give are not entertainment (at least, not designed to be so).

The blurring of the distinction between dry educational/informational contexts and comedy is even more pronounced since the emergence of news entertainment shows that intently intermingle factual content with humour, shows like The Colbert Report, The Weekly, The Daily Show, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. In all these contexts, the bedfellow of humour lies alongside bona fide critique and comment, and is often put towards the end of providing polemical critiques of elements of the Chrisitan worldview (examples can be found here: Braaksma 2014; ABC iview 2024; LastWeekTonight 2015).

3. Potential Responses

Some commentators have responded in two ways to the uneasy alliance between factual comment and fictional humour. I think both responses are inadequate. As Morreall has recently outlined, although society values humour, philosophical accounts can often be critical about humour, and this applies even more so in the case of the Christian tradition (Morreall 2024). The first type of response is therefore just to reject the use of humour as a form of apologetic. We see this type of response exemplified by Richardson’s response to Strawson’s review, which points out that attacks like Strawson’s are clearly ad hominem—“trolling in print” as Richardson calls it (Richardson 2011). Therefore, we can just dismiss these satirical criticisms of religious worldviews out of hand for that reason. As we shall see as this article unfolds, I do not think making fun of one’s opponent in debate automatically means that the criticisms one make should be rejected.

A second type of response is to suggest we ought to ‘lighten up,’ and to not put too much stock in the offhand humorous comments made by what are otherwise serious authors or half-serious comments made by what are otherwise comedians. There is something to this response. Comedy alone does not need to stand up too closely to scrutiny. The premise of a good joke need not necessarily be true or accurate. There isn’t much ground to be gained by arguing that some joke is unfunny just because it is inaccurate or that it misrepresents the position at which it jests. Comedy has no requirement for the butt of one’s jokes to be represented fairly, and good jokes often exploit a stereotype. Some of the most successful comedians today, notably Bill Burr, Chris Rock, and Dave Chappelle, exploit stereotypes to which they themselves are subjected. Noting that an exploited stereotype is inaccurate, i.e., by arguing that Scots are really quite generous or that Donald Trump was actually quite an effective leader, says more about your own sensibilities than it does the joke. So, whether the premise of a joke needs to be true in order for it to be funny is something that can only really be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

But my point is that the contexts above—the contexts Micallef and Dawkins are in, for example—are not simply comedy contexts. If Micallef’s prose, for example, had been delivered on the set of his satirical TV show Mad as Hell (which, unlike, say, John Oliver’s show, is obviously and purely a spoof), then I wouldn’t bother to look at it in greater detail, because truth doesn’t always matter in that type of context. Context counts. Moreover, the overall aesthetic value of some jokes, sometimes the most biting and humorous, relies on an underlying truth claim, even when they are delivered in what are ostensibly purely comedic contexts. I think many of the authors and comedians I have outlined above—Gervais, Chappelle, Dawkins, for example—would heartily endorse the idea that the jokes that they have made fall exactly into the category of having bite because they are underwritten by more than a kernel of serious truth. In all these contexts, humour is not anathema or irrelevant to truth but mobilised in service of it. The idea is to persuade readers or listeners—to persuade them of a truth—and to use humour for this purpose. Comedians like Gervais are quite obviously and openly wearing their epistemic heart on their sleeves when they step on stage and mobilise their comedy towards doxic ends.

The remainder of this article aims to come to a reasoned position concerning the conditions in which humour ought to be employed in truth tracking contexts and to evaluate, based on these conditions, whether it has been correctly employed by two of the authors just discussed. Thus, I am not writing here to refute someone whose positions differ from mine. I am decidedly not trying to convince my readers, or Micallef, or (God forbid) Richard Dawkins, to be a theist. What I am doing instead is attempting to outline the conditions under which humour should be used in intellectual debate, because I do think that such conditions exist.

4. Two Rules for Satire in Academic Exchange

Allow me to take a brief tangent to begin to answer the question concerning the role of humour. If you take a course in the history of twentieth century philosophy, you will most likely hear about the acrimony between the two great traditions of philosophy that have dominated the twentieth century—the Continental and the analytic. Broadly speaking, Continental philosophy is mainly practiced in Germany and France and takes consciousness, experience, and existence as its main themes. Analytic philosophy is an Anglophone practice and is primarily characterised by a focus on rigorous logical argumentation and a favourable conception of empirical science. Over the course of the twentieth century, there have been many head-to-heads between these two traditions and low blows have often been exchanged.

The Continental/analytic split is a helpful locus for meditating on the role of satire and within academic debate, because the relationship between these two philosophical camps has been openly hostile at times. Moreover, this hostility was often expressed by the use of the rhetorical tool of satirising and deriding each other, and so it is a prominent example of the phenomenon under consideration. The use of the rhetorical tools of humour amongst this historical context can be, and was, reflected on and discussed at the time and I will provide some key take-aways from these events within the history of ideas. For instance, Bertrand Russell said some unkind things about Hegel;5 Ayer and Carnap said some unkind things about Heidegger (See Carnap (1932) (Carnap’s claims are then repeated nearly ad verbatim in Ayer 1936)) and, more recently, everyone piled in on Derrida.6 But the things these authors said were not only unkind, at times they were downright funny, and they were intended to convince philosophers that the target of their attacks should not be taken seriously.7

One of the most well-known hostilities actually occurred within the analytic camp and came with the publication of a now infamous book: Words and Things by Ernst Gellner (1959). The work was highly critical of the analytic tradition of ‘ordinary language philosophy.’ Not only was Gellner critical, but he also openly employed the tools of derision and whimsy on his opponents. The Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle—a proponent of ordinary language philosophy and therefore one of the targets of Gellner’s criticisms—refused to review Words and Things for Mind, the journal for which he was editor-in-chief. Ryle’s act in turn sparked a series of exchanges in the letters section of The Times, an exchange involving no fewer than 19 letters written by the who’s-who of the Oxbridge intellectual community, which subsequently spilled into numerous popular magazines and journals (an excellent overview of this event can be found in Mehta 1983).

Ryle defended his refusal to review Gellner’s book by saying that “Abusiveness may make a book saleable, but it disqualifies it from being treated as a contribution to an academic subject” (reproduced in Uschanov 2002, p. 43). Ryle therefore took the same position as Richardson does on Strawson, arguing that anything that smacks of an ad hominem attack can be disregarded. Ryle was personally offended by the book on the grounds that it cast stones at many Oxford philosophers who could be identified from Gellner’s criticisms.

On the other hand, Sir Leslie Farrer wrote in one of the letters to The Times mentioned above that

Ridicule is one of the oldest and not the least effective weapons of philosophic warfare, but yet we find Professor Ryle… propounding the dogma that making fun of members of the Sacred College of Linguistic Philosophers is mortal sin.

(reproduced in Mehta 1983, p. 5)

What Sir Leslie points out is that ridicule, satire, whimsy, etc., is a useful rhetorical ploy. It has been around at least since Aristophanes lampooned Socrates in The Clouds. It is worth making a distinction between rhetorical ploys and fallacies. Fallacies always lead to falsehood. Rhetoric can indeed be used to persuade people of falsehoods but, on the other hand, it can also be marshalled in the service of truth.

Thus, the first rule of academic fight club is that satire, whimsy, wit and any other form of humour are not off-limits to the intellectual, nor is there any opponent who is automatically exempt. It’s ok (or at least permissible), sometimes, to attack the man and not the ball. However, as we see below, such attacks are permissible only under certain conditions.

The irony of Ryle’s refusal is that he himself was no stranger to ridiculing his opponents. Ryle was a participant at the now-infamous 1958 Royaumont Colloquium, which was attended by leading proponents from both the analytic and the Continental traditions, a failed attempt at opening conducive lines of communication between the two camps. Ryle, attempting to explain the difference in attitudes towards science that characterise the Continental/analytic split, suggests that, at Oxford, scientists and philosophers take their lunch alongside each other in a convivial atmosphere. On the other hand, Ryle said that Edmund Husserl (arguably the great grandfather of Continental philosophy) “wrote as if he had never met a scientist—or a joke” (Ryle 2009, p. 189).

As someone who wrote their PhD on Husserl, I found this comment tremendously funny. Husserl writes with that dour weight that only the Germanic spirit can muster. Husserl’s prose is quite dull, especially in comparison to some analytic philosophers. This remark by Ryle is an example of an author combining satire and critique in equal parts in twelve pithy words.

Ryle’s comment was challenged, however, by another attendee at Royaumont, Father van Breda (a Franciscan friar and the man who, incidentally, established the Husserl archives by smuggling Husserl’s manuscripts out of Nazi Germany). Van Breda agreed with Ryle’s evaluation of Husserl’s sense of humour (how could you not?) but duly took Ryle to task for his evaluation of Husserl’s engagement with science. As van Breda pointed out, Husserl was deeply engaged with the science of his day. Ryle’s response was not to argue the point, but rather to say that “I would hope that this debate does not degenerate into another colloquium on Husserl” (reproduced in Overgaard 2010, p. 903).

In this exchange with van Breda, Ryle comes across as something of a sore loser. If Ryle did not want to engage seriously with Husserl, then why write a paper on his philosophy, and especially one that makes its point with the confidence of wit? It’s one thing to use a bit of humour to deride one’s opponent, but you can hardly then claim parlay when the premise of the joke is challenged. And the reason Ryle comes out looking like a bad sport is this; Ryle is no stand-up comedian delivering one-liners that obviously have no grounding in the truth. If he had been, then it would perhaps have been right for him to tell van Breda to ‘lighten up.’ But Ryle was using humour in a truth-tracking context, and he is therefore answerable.

There are two takeaways from this section. First, what Sir Leslie’s comment on ridicule demonstrates is that it’s OK to use the likes of satire or whimsy or derision, etc—in short, to get your reader to laugh at your opponent—to win an argument. Good writing and intellectual exchange should be lively, and a few LOLs along the way keeps your audience engaged. However, second, what Ryle’s performance at Royaumont shows is our second rule, namely that, if you do want to make a joke at your opponent’s expense, you had better have it backed up with a good argument. If you’re an academic, or if you’re operating in a truth tracking context, then you better be not only funny, but right. Otherwise, it is you who looks like the dupe.

In summary, there are two ways that reason and rhetoric ought never be divorced. Good argumentation knows when to employ humour as rhetoric, but rhetoric is only ever respectable if backed by solid argumentation.

5. Dawkins on the Design Argument

And so, with these two summative lessons from the history of philosophy in mind, we return to the atheists. My point is Section 5 and Section 6 is that often authors who use humour in their critiques don’t meet the standards required for rigorous discourse. My claim is that (1) some academics are guilty of the habits I’m critiquing and (2) sometimes cultural commentators are guilty of the habits I’m critiquing. Richard Dawkins is an example of the former (discussed presently). Shaun Micallef is an example of the latter (discussed in Section 6).

Dawkins dedicates the third chapter of The God Delusion to dismantling eight of the most prominent philosophical arguments for theism. Any serious philosophical thinker will be sorely disappointed when they turn to Dawkins’ actual arguments, however. For example, Dawkins examines ‘the design argument.’ The design argument maintains that we can conclude that God exists because the cosmos exhibits features which seem to have been designed, and all design implies a designer, i.e., God. In his polemic against the design argument, Dawkins states abruptly and with typical verve and decisiveness that

Darwin blew it out of the water. There has probably never been a more devastating rout of popular belief by clever reasoning than Charles Darwin’s destruction of the argument from design. It was so unexpected. Thanks to Darwin, it is no longer true to say that nothing that we know looks designed unless it is designed. Evolution by natural selection produces an excellent simulacrum of design, mounting prodigious heights of complexity and elegance.

(Dawkins 2006, p. 79)

Dawkins’ response looks pretty good at first glance. What Dawkins is saying is that we need not invoke a creator to explain the order of the biological world because such order could have arisen through evolution and not the designs of a divine creator. But first glances often lack critical, philosophical thinking. Two things we teach the novice student in philosophy is, firstly to be aware of the counterarguments to a position, and secondly to always choose the best counterargument (otherwise you can be accused of attacking a strawman). Dawkins’ refutation suffers from a flaw so fatal that it basically renders it otiose.

The counterpoint to Dawkins’ refutation is that many of the phenomena which seem to exhibit design in the universe are non-biological. Richard Swinburne has made this point in print (Swinburne 1979). Swinburne argues that scientific explanation generally bottoms out not at the biological level, but by reference to the molecular, atomic, and subatomic levels. Often, we can refer to these micro levels to explain the behaviour of macro level biological entities (much as we can refer to the chemical properties of DNA molecules as the mechanism which underlies evolutionary processes). Yet we find just as much order and design at these micro levels as we find at the biological level. We even find this order among the atomic levels, and many of the things which atoms compose are, obviously, not biological. So, even though biological features of organisms can indeed be explained by reference to evolution, more general chemical levels explain evolution, and atomic levels explain chemical levels, and the order of the molecular or atomic worlds cannot be explained by evolution. As Swinburne further points out, it is even true that a scientific explanation can be provided of why the subatomic level of electrons behave the way they do “in terms of more general powers and liabilities possessed by all bodies” (Swinburne 1979, p. 195). In other words, we can explain “why a particular natural law holds in terms of more general natural laws” seemingly ad infinitum (ibid).

Of course, if this process were truly to go on ad infinitum we would be stuck in an explanatory regress. Swinburne states that what science cannot explain is why all bodies—all molecules, all atoms, and all subatomic constituents—seem to possess very general and highly uniform capacities. It is with the fact of this massive uniformity “that scientific explanation stops” (Swinburne 1979, p. 195). And so, Swinburne argues, at the point where we reach the most general laws we are faced with two options. We can either shrug our shoulders at the uniformity of nature and say that there just isn’t any sufficient reason for this uniformity, or we can entertain the possibility that these general laws hold because they were ordained by something possessed of purposeful intent—a designer. Swinburne argues that these two options—either chance or design—are exhaustive. Swinburne obviously thinks that the latter option is the most reasonable. Crucially, for our topic, Darwinian evolution is obviously not a relevant explanation for the level of order that we are discussing because molecules, atoms, and electrons do not evolve.

Now, you might not be convinced about Swinburne’s articulation of the design argument. I will say more below about the conviction provided by arguments for and against theism. This is not the place wherein I will attempt to convince you (via the design argument, or any other argument) that you ought to be a theist. The reason I have provided Swinburne’s argument is just to show this; anyone who has taken an undergraduate level course in the philosophy of religion would either have come across this articulation of the design argument or would certainly be capable of finding it with a little research. Richard Swinburne is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford. His articulation of the design argument is found in one his most well-known books, titled The Existence of God, published by Oxford University Press, that has been cited nearly three-thousand times. He is one of the most well-known 20th century philosophical Christian apologists. Thus, Swinburne’s version of the design argument is not an obscure, little-known one. I would expect an undergraduate to mention it if they were writing their essay on the design argument. I would chide an entry level University student writing an essay on the design argument for overlooking Swinburne’s account in the way that Dawkins does.

In summary, Dawkins’ argument against the design argument just is not, by any philosophical standard, very good. Dawkins’ argument is bad not because it is wrong, but because it lacks critical engagement with his topic. It is the sort of response to the design argument you would expect to find in a social media thread. Instead, it is found in a book by one of the world’s leading intellectuals. Most importantly for the discussion at hand, it is found in a book riddled with scorn and satire for his opponents. Dawkins thus finds himself in the same place as Ryle at Royaumont, deriding an opponent from a position he cannot defend.

You might want to defend Dawkins by pointing out that his book is aimed at a popular readership. Perhaps, therefore, the standards we should hold him to can be loosened. In response, I would point out that Dawkins certainly writes as if his arguments are definitive and authoritative. He doesn’t preface his discussion by saying, ‘now, I’m no expert on the philosophy of religion…’ He writes as if we should accept his argument tout court.

Finally, writing for a popular readership just doesn’t justify overlooking serious errors or omitting critical engagement, or grant one the right to jettison sophistication. If anything, the responsibility of public intellectuals to fairly represent their opponents is higher. As I hope to have shown above, Swinburne’s version of the design argument is not terribly difficult to articulate and is accessible to the so-called ‘educated layperson.’ Public writers need to avoid obtuse technical jargon but should not neglect rigour. A balance has to be struck between effective communication with the public (which is often entertaining—and funny) and respecting the rigours of academic content (which demands that we do not straw man our opponents).

6. Shaun Micallef and the Problem of Evil

The next section of this article will examine another example of atheist rhetorical ploys, this time taken from the cultural milieu in Shaun Micallef’s article in The Monthly. What I will show is that, much like Dawkins above, Micallef does not have a good grasp of the minutiae of religious and theistic reasoning.

As I mentioned, Micallef’s article in The Monthly, entitled Beyond Belief: God, the Afterlife, and why the Delusion should be Praised and Embraced in the Modern Age, is a whimsical and dreamy swipe at theists. In this article we find the following critique of theism. The reason why Micallef thinks that theists are deluded is that “there is absolutely no evidence of cosmic justice in the universe, is there?… And it’s obvious that the only principles of equity and fairness available anywhere to anyone are entirely due to our man-made legal system” (Micallef 2023).

Thus, Micallef makes the point that the universe in unjust. He specifies that what he means is that, sometimes bad things happen to good people and sometimes good things happen to bad people. As an example of the latter, he points to the success of Australian retailer Harvey Norman despite overwhelming evidence of business malpractice.

Micallef is articulating one version of what is known as the ‘problem of evil.’ This well-known argument for atheism runs as follows; if God exists, then He must surely be all-good, all-powerful, and all-knowing but, if God were all these things, then surely evil would not exist. Surely, for example, good things would happen to good people only, and bad people would be punished. As Micallef opines rhetorically, if God were good and existed, “why would Harvey Norman still be open?” (Micallef 2023). Seeing as evil does exist, that is, seeing as bad people go unpunished for their misdeeds (i.e., Harvey Norman remains open and profitable), we must conclude that God does not exist. Here, then, is Micallef’s argument, interspersed as it is amongst his satirical article.

The problem of evil has persuaded many people to reject theism but is by no means a knock-down case for atheism. I will lay out some of the response to the problem of evil but not, again, with the aim of convincing anyone, but with the mere aim of demonstrating that, ‘it’s complicated,’ as they say. Much like Dawkins, Micallef seems to be blithely unaware of the ways Christian apologists have responded to the problem of evil.

One response to the problem of evil is proposed by John Hick in Evil and the God of Love (Hick 1966). This theodicy theorises that God does not view us like his pets who are to be dutifully fed each day and sheltered and protected from all harms. Rather, God views us as his children, ones who may one day grow up to join him in His Kingdom. Like any good parent, God wants us to have experiences that fortify our character and lead to the development of moral virtue. Some of these fortifying experiences must be painful to produce the requisite developmental effect, and it is for this reason that God allows evils.

I like the soul-making theodicy because it seems to make sense of and fit the hardships I have personally endured in my life. It is worth saying that the types of evils that Micallef cites—the inequity of the world—are precisely the types of opportunities for self-development that fit the explanatory narrative of the soul-making theodicy. For, the way we respond to injustice does indeed develop moral character.

However, like all theodicies, the soul-making theodicy has certain shortfalls. For instance, it fails to address evils that seem to present no opportunity for the development of souls. Consider, for instance, the great tragedy of small children with terminal illnesses. There is no chance for such innocents to develop from the evils they experience.

There are numerous ways to address the no-chance-for-soul-making objection to the soul-making theodicy. Swinburne, for example, argues that these hardships may not present the children with any chance for development, but that they rather present the souls of the survivors (i.e., the parents) the opportunity to develop (Swinburne 1979). Hick himself postulates that perhaps supernatural malevolent deities—demons, in short—are responsible for evils that seemingly present no opportunity for moral development (Hick 1966). I have never quite managed to swallow Swinburne’s response; it just seems a bit inhumane to me. I also don’t subscribe to Hick’s metaphysics.

My preferred response to the no-chance-for-soul-making objection to the soul-making theodicy is to reason that, any being such as God must be aloof and more than a little mysterious to minds like our own. I therefore hold a certain degree of scepticism about our capacity to fully understand an all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing God. I do not think that it is necessarily the case that we would be able to understand why it is that such a being allows every form of evil as we perceive it. The soul-making theodicy may offer us some reconciliation, but it is inevitable that mystery will ensue at some point. I therefore partially embrace what’s called sceptical theism, which holds that humans, with their limited epistemic perspective, cannot expect to understand all of God’s reasons for permitting evil. This so-called ‘epistemological’ response to the no-chance-for-soul-making objection to the soul-making theodicy has been forcefully argued by Alvin Plantinga (2000).

It’s worth adding here that I do not use my lack of understanding of the mysteriousness of God merely as a useful or convenient apologetic/argumentative strategy, but rather as something that has resulted from an ongoing, personal, and experiential relationship with a God of my own mis/understanding. I have found God’s grace as baffling as it is miraculous. Personal experiences with and the resulting meditations on the nature of God have helped me to reconcile the problems that remain after the establishment of the soul-making theodicy. So, I find this answer to do, for now.

As I mentioned in Section 4 and again at the outset of this section, my aim in the above explorations is no to convince you, my readers, to be theists. I do not expect, merely from what has been said above, for any of my readers to be convinced to accept the epistemological response to the no-chance-for-soul-making objection to the soul-making theodicy. A really convincing response requires more than the scant space I’ve dedicated to the problem of evil here. When I reflect on my own personal religious journey, there are aspects of it that I wouldn’t expect an outsider to accept: I would not, were I in your shoes. I admit that what I have is only what Zagzebski (2001) refers to as a subjectively warranted belief in God’s mysteriousness and not an objectively warranted one. So, it’s perfectly philosophically respectable for me to expect you to disagree with me and luckily a good philosopher is one who does not expect others to agree with them. My intention here is quite different from persuasion. My intention in the foregoing is just to demonstrate the complexity of one theistic worldview (my own).

You see, every person’s position on every major philosophical question ultimately boils down to which premises they accept as true or false. My position on the problem of evil, for example, stated above, depends on which of the problems, objections, and responses I accept, which is based at least partly on my world view and my experience. (The partly aspect of that last sentence requires emphasis because, if everyone’s position were wholly on each individual’s worldview and experiences, then critical discourse would be almost impossible). A person’s position can be defined by which premises they accept and which they reject. There aren’t many positions on many matters that aren’t occupied by someone, because there aren’t many premises that haven’t at some point been pondered and ultimately found convincing by some person (I like to say, only half-jokingly, that there is nothing so stupid that some philosopher hasn’t believed it!). My point is this; what philosophy teaches you is that one can find pretty good arguments for just about anything as a matter of fact, and coming to a considered philosophical opinion rarely amounts to rejecting out of hand opinions that are ridiculous and accepting ones that are obvious. Micallef, in contrast, accepts that the only principles of equity and fairness available anywhere to anyone are entirely due to our man-made legal system because “it’s obvious” (Micallef 2023).

Anyone who thinks that any of this is obvious probably needs to spend some more time thinking.

Indeed, one of the key challenges for training novices in philosophy is to get them to realise—often by metaphorically dragging them kicking and screaming—to recognise that perhaps there is more to a given matter than they had initially thought. Positions are almost always hard-won, and they ought to be, at least in theory, always open to revision and held with a degree of hesitancy. A degree of tentativeness and care is always called for. As a teacher, it is not my aim to lead students to a given position. The role of a teacher of philosophy is to show students different paths of argumentation: paths that diverge along the types of forks I have just plotted above. What one gets out of a good philosophical education is not certainty, but quite the opposite, namely an intellectual humility—a lack of arrogant assuredness—that recognises the tenuous nature of so many forks in the road of our beliefs. Concomitantly, one also respects those who have chosen a different path. At least if one has any good sense, that is.

So, if you are not a theist, that’s fine. Moreover, if you disagree with the way I have interpreted my experiences, or the way that I have weighted different premises to reconcile my burgeoning theism with the problem of evil, then that is also fine. But it’s fair to expect you to respect the thought that I have given these matters—even given the brief space I’ve devoted to them here. Generally, the people who do not understand the maze and minutiae of religious beliefs are the people who have put a lack of effort into understanding their own. Hubristically, these are often the same people who assert their ill-thought-out opinions summarily through ridicule.

7. Conclusions

The only reason for the lengthy excursuses in Section 5 and Section 6 was simply to show this; belief is complicated, and anyone who thinks that any of this is ‘obvious’ is just plain wrong.

Dawkins takes arguments that represent only a meagre starting point of the various debates over God’s existence as decisive and moves promptly to derision on that basis. Foreshadowing the tenor of the whole work, in the very opening sections of The God Delusion Dawkins bemoans the “privileging of religion” and provides a pre-emptive defence of the scorn that he will pour upon the heads of the devout (Dawkins 2006, p. 21). Dawkins quotes Douglas Adams, who says that “We are used to not challenging religious ideas but it’s very interesting how much of a furore Richard creates when he does it!” (Dawkins 2006, p. 20). Adams’ comment that religious ideas often go unchallenged overlooks the megalithic tomes produced by the two-thousand-year-old tradition of religious debate that can be found in all three major Abrahamic religions and beyond. The scholastic period when the first Western Universities sprang up is defined by a culture of disputation that became synonymous with hair-splitting argumentation. What Dawkins overlooks is that he incites furore not because he challenges religious ideas, but because he ham-fistedly derides them and treats them with contempt. The very title of the book section cited above is “Undeserved Respect”.

What Dawkins proves is that open derision and ignorance are common bedfellows. Once one understands one’s interlocutor, even if one continues to disagree with them, one often ceases to deride them because one can at least understand that they hold a coherent position that needs addressing. An often-begrudging respect for one’s interlocutor is one of the outputs of properly grounding oneself in debate. The elimination of ignorance and the cessation of derision thus go hand in hand. This is why reasoned debate normally proceeds on a platform of mutual respect and caution. I discourage my undergraduates from relying on rhetorical flourishes—like whimsy, satire, or insults—too much at all, because they are far more likely to betray their own ignorance, as Dawkins does, than they are to score the desired point.

My complaint with Micallef’s article is not that he jokes at the expense of people like me, or that his jokes are offensive. The jokes aren’t the issue. Nor does my problem lie with the fact that he uses rhetorical devices to engage with his opponents. As hopefully became clear from my digressions into the history of contemporary philosophy, one thing I wanted to impart in this article is the fact that whimsy and satire are valuable rhetorical tools. My problem is, as my excursus into the problem of evil demonstrates, Micallef makes jokes about an intellectual position that he does not properly understand nor that he can even properly discuss in non-mocking terms, much like Ryle at Royaumont. What Micallef does is bring a knife to a gunfight by writing in a context that ostensibly values honest intellectual inquiry armed only with the resources of a clown. Strategically, articles like Micallef’s do not bring any new converts to the church of atheism. But this was never the point, of course. Article’s like Micallef’s are merely high-fiving others already in the atheist club.

The emotion that best seems to encapsulate contemporary atheism is a self-righteous and self-satisfying smugness. The worst trait that gets conveyed in this atmosphere is the sense of being smarter than everyone else, as if any theist must have suffered head trauma. It is the ensuing sense of intellectual and moral superiority that comes from feeling enlightened in comparison to one’s peers that leads people like Shaun Micallef and Richard Dawkins to write so confidently about topics which they are so obviously ignorant of.