Stephen Law is one of my favourite philosophers. He also happens to be an atheist. I ran into this short lecture of his on YouTube recently and found it very interesting. One only need to peruse Twitter for a few minutes to find some type of discussion, usually heated, between a theist and an atheist. From what I have observed, the theist more often than not throws her hands up and accuses the atheist of misrepresenting or failing to grasp the true meaning of some religious belief that they subscribe to. In the end, the theist feels vindicated in the fact that by either obfuscation or by shifting the epistemic goalposts they have somehow “won” the argument. In this lecture, Stephen presents us with three ways that religious people use Wittgensteinian thoughts to immunize their religious beliefs against criticism by, basically, manipulating language to suit their needs. These are:
- Non-Cognitivism: the idea that no claim about reality has been made with the religious belief.
- The Juicer View: the idea that the religious meaning of a belief extends beyond what the atheist is able to grasp.
- The Strong-Juicer View: the idea that the atheist’s understanding of a religious belief has no overlap with the actual meaning of the belief.
- The Ahtiest Minus View: the idea that the atheist’s understanding of the religious belief has added more to the belief than was intended.
It’s an excellent, short, and concise video. Check it out!
