This analogy - like its modern descendant, the Flying Spaghetti Monster - makes a great deal of sense if you believe that the idea of God is an absurdity dreamed up by crafty clerics in darkest antiquity and subsequently imposed on the human mind by force and fear, and that it only survives for want of brave souls willing to note how inherently absurd the whole thing is. As you might expect, I see the genesis of religion rather differently: The story of our civilization, in particular, is a story in which an extremely large circle of non-insane human beings have perceived themselves to be experiencing an interaction with a being who seems recognizable as the Judeo-Christian God (here I do feel comfortable using the term), rather than merely being taught about Him in Sunday School. I am unaware of anything similar holding true for orbiting pots or flying noodle beasts
On one level Douthat's claim is absurdly superficial, as he immediately acknowledges "This is not to say that humanity's religious experiences and intuitions are anything like a dispositive argument for the existence of God"
Just because one belief is more popular and ingrained in humanity does not provide evidence of its empirical existence. And its no surprise either that the most popular ideal of faith is not held to be a inanimate object or weird monster, but embodies human characteristics just on a much higher scale of perfection. An ideal born of our own failings, our own need for something greater to justify or protect.
And yet, as easy as it is to dismiss it out of hand, he does have a point. To disbelieve in god is quite different from disbelieving in knowingly created objects of ridicule which have no followers or claims of involvement. Indeed its even different still from disbelief in the pagan or polytheistic gods of yore, still maintained in some distant grottoes of this world.
The sheer size and scope of human monotheistic engagement and adherence demands a engagement of greater respect and effort than mere dismissal by analogy, such as tried in Russell's teapot or Steven J Gould's famous dictum that: "I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one less god than you. When you see why you do not believe in all the other gods, you will see why I do not believe in yours" also misses the mark.
Likewise, this is not just a debate about the existence of a supernatural being. Humans have tended towards god belief because it gives them explanatory tools for both the natural world (the argument by design) and the organisation of their society (the argument by morality). God is important not simply because he "exists", but because his existence gives us an answer for how the world came to be, and how human society came to be so ordered (or why human society is so imperfect ie the presence of evil). Neither the teapot nor spaghetti monster offer anything like this. In fact neither offers any potential for existence, because they fulfill no role in the universe beyond their own existence, and that, like that of God's simple existence (as opposed to any action he may undertake) is entirely useless.
Again, sheer numbers of followers (and all the various sects and denominations show great confusion within the faithful as to who could be counted as a follower) does not provide us with evidence of the empirical existence of god. But it does mean agnostics (such as myself) and atheists need to be more respectful and less quick to try and simply dismiss through a quick and dirty analogy refutation.
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