In two separate posts I have addressed a common piece of atheist rhetoric that I like to call the “one less God zinger.” It goes roughly as follows: “We’re all atheists. Christians are atheists with respect to all gods but their own, while I am an atheist with respect to all gods, including your own. When you understand why you reject all other gods, you’ll understand why I reject all gods.”
While this is rhetorically effective, it does not stand up to scrutiny. While much could be said of this zinger, I only want to focus on the first two sentences. Is it true that we are all atheists? Can Christians be properly described as atheists because we deny the existence of all gods other than YHWH? Not at all.
This is a clear abuse of language. Greg Koukl once observed that this statement makes as much sense as a bachelor saying to a married man, “I contend that we are both bachelors. I am just married to one less woman than you.” If the word “bachelor” means anything at all, then there is a world of difference between a man who is married to one woman and a man who is married to none; between not being married to everyone and not being married at all. Being married to only one woman – 
and not three and a half billion women – does not make one a bachelor or even almost a bachelor. A man who is married to one woman is fully married, and in a very different state than his bachelor friend.
Likewise, there is a world of difference between a Christian theist and an atheist. An atheist is not someone who does not believe in the existence of a specific deity or deities, but one who does not believe in the existence of any deity. Someone who believes in the existence of an infinite, monotheistic God can hardly be called an atheist. That ridiculous talking point needs to be hung out to dry.
Thinking to Believe 
December 4, 2012 at 10:00 am
I am an atheist, and I have come to hate this zinger. I now rebut it with a comment on gravity. One can personally believe in any one of many models of gravity: Aristotelian, Newtonian, Relativistic, loop-quantum. Following any of these models gives different answer than following another model.
As it happens, I reject Aristotelian gravity (as does most of science). That is not the same as not believing in gravity.
A religious person rejecting one specific God is not the same as rejecting the concept as a whole.
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December 4, 2012 at 10:04 am
Glad we agree on this, Allallt. I think it’s a simple matter of empty rhetoric, and rhetoric from either side is not helpful.
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December 4, 2012 at 10:10 am
It is empty rhetoric, I agree completely. But it’s worth getting to the bottom of why it’s empty. Rhetoric can be a very useful and honest tool. It’s just that this particular piece is not.
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December 4, 2012 at 10:55 am
It’s as useful as ‘you’re not an atheist, your’re just mad at god’ and other soundbites.
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December 4, 2012 at 11:59 am
While we’re on the subject of conversations that need to be hung out to dry, “You just want to sin” is another one. So is “the fool sayeth in his heart…”
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December 4, 2012 at 12:03 pm
I do see a difference between the “we’re all atheists” rhetoric and the “mad at God” and “want to sin” lines. The latter are often true of many atheists. The problem is not that these statements are never true or an abuse of language, but that they over-generalize to say that all atheists are atheists because they are made at God or because they want to sin.
Jason
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December 4, 2012 at 12:32 pm
All of the statements are empty rhetoric, but they contain a germ of truth.
“We’re all atheists” is not -completely- meaningless. I’ve seen a Muslim argue against Yahweh with an argument that could equally be used against Allah: if that man understood and sincerely meant what he was saying about Yahweh then he wouldn’t believe in Allah either.
And that’s where the zinger you discuss leads: if you understand why you reject the other Gods you understand why I reject yours. The use of the word “atheist” is a little sloppy… but the Romans used to call Christians atheists for having so few Gods.
But not everyone behaves like the Muslim guy that lives down the road from my mum, so the statement is an over-generalisation. Its use of language is pretty poor, but I’ve had a lot of conversations with you so I know you’re clever enough to get to the point of what this ‘zinger’ is about. And there is a germ of truth in it, even if it misses the point.
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December 4, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Allallt, I agree that certain variants of this expression can be used to help others understand your atheism (i.e. how you can reject the existence of any and all gods). Just like they reject the existence of all sorts of gods because they don’t have any reason to believe in them, you reject our God because you don’t see any reason to believe in Him.
What I’m opposed to is saying that we’re all atheists. That’s a misuse of language (as was the Romans’). It’s also misleading if one tries to use the zinger to communicate the idea that the atheist and the theist aren’t that far apart in their beliefs. While they may not be far apart in how they determine whether or not to believe in god X, their worldviews are worlds apart because a world in which even one God exists (particularly the kind of God entailed by theism) is a very different kind of world from one in which no God exists.
Jason
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December 5, 2012 at 4:43 am
I think this part of the reasoning should be addressed, namely:
“…When you understand why you reject all other gods, you’ll understand why I reject all gods…”
My answer to that is:
When you understand why I reject all other gods, you’ll understand why I don’t reject the One True God.
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December 11, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Aaron, I like that response!
Jason
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March 13, 2013 at 10:17 am
We are all theists. I just believe in one more God than atheists. 😉
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