Then The Lord Said, "Let There Be Antipasto"

Courtesy of Dr. John Bullas: the sixth day as conceived at Oxford.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FARDDcdFaQ

A brief encounter between Bill O'Reilly and Oxford atheist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins' simple argument against belief in God here, repeated, is “Which God—you don't believe in Zeus, do you?” (Or perhaps, the “Flying Spaghetti Monster”). This makes belief in no God seems simpler and more straightforward than belief in God. It seems to be the central point of Dawkins's entire argument for atheism.

O'Reilly doesn't answer this—he is not a philosopher nor a theologian—but it is bogus, and it ought to be pointed out that this is so.

The religious have no interest in nor need to disprove the existence of Zeus, or any other small-g god. It is not our concern, and has no bearing on the present argument. They are not rival or alternative Gods; any more than cabbages rival kings. They are a different sort of being entirely, as both pagans and monotheists recognize—daemons, ambient spirits, spirits of the middle air between earth and firmament. No Greek ever supposed Zeus was the supreme being.

Conversely, any individual who claims to worship the “one true God,” is necessarily worshipping the same God Christians worship. This is so by definition—by definition, there can be only one supreme being, and his characteristics are not fungible nor debatable, but intrinsic to the concept and to his essence. What word one uses to designate him is arbitrary. While Zeus and Allah are different orders of being entirely, it makes no more sense to argue that “Allah” and “Yahweh” are different Gods than to argue that “God” and “Dieu” are different gods.

If, therefore, Dawkins's “Flying Spaghetti Monster” was indeed the supreme being who made all things, then he would indeed necessarily exist, and he would necessarily be the same being we worship as “God.” He would not, on the other hand, fly, nor would he look like spaghetti.

Have you seen this guy lately?

As for Zeus, I for one believe in him implicitly. As Blake said, “everything possible of being believed is an image of truth.” Zeus is a real spiritual being, an archetype, one of the organizing principles of consciousness and of the universe. One encounters him most often as a personality type; though he is surely also a part of everyone's personality. You have probably met him in the street, perhaps today.