There’s been quite a bit of discussion lately in the skeptical/atheist community about what it would take for a non-believer to believe. Is he/she open to new evidence?

What about me? What would it take for me to believe in a god? I recall once stating that the minute ‘God’ walked up to me and introduced ‘Himself’, I would believe. The covert subtext was this: So there, I am open-minded!

But over time I’ve realized that basing one’s conclusion on a single event — particularly if it pertains to an entire theory and/or worldview — would be irrational.

Roughly one month ago Jerry A. Coyne wrote an opinion piece for USA today, Science and religion aren’t friends. In it he emphasized how doubt is prized by science, but not religion. And that evidence is the trump card. But he also wrote this — in an attempt to show he and all good scientists are fundamentally open-minded, I suspect:

I can think of dozens of potential observations, for instance — one is a billion-year-old ape fossil — that would convince me that evolution didn’t happen

I’m sorry, but that’s not rational. In the rational mind a single anomaly doesn’t topple a tremendous mountain of evidence. It may poke a serious hole in it, causing doubt and motivation for further exploration and examination. But it shouldn’t convince anyone of anything.

Sadly, that same attitude of “one serious head-scratcher can topple an entire house of belief” is active in the minds of Creationists when they argue against evolution: See, see this one thing here. It doesn’t make sense. Therefore, evolution is wrong.

A rabbit fossil found in the Precambrian strata? That is a very serious head-scratcher. But, were one to be discovered, it would be but a single anomaly. Yes, the rational mind would place it on the scales of evidence for and against evolution. But next to the mountain of  ‘for,’ this one ‘against’ wouldn’t tip the balance. Or at least shouldn’t.

Same goes for me and belief in a supernatural entity. One personal experience would go on the scales, sure. But personal experiences are extremely unreliable. And then there is that mountain on the other side of the scales: the countless null results in fair searchers for the supernatural, the scientific knowledge that reduces plausibility to a vanishing small sliver, etc. etc.

In sum: To make a believer out of me, a god’s going to have to do more than make me scratch my head.

It’s hard to find fault with an entity lacking distinct characteristics. This type of a god is impossible to erase from a page because it has no outline. Nothing inside you can assert it is; nothing outside you can argue it isn’t. You can find fault in a god being white-skinned or having use for fingernails. But you can’t find fault with a god who is everywhere and/or nowhere, a god who is everything in this world and/or nothing in this world.

The generally-everything and specifically-nothing god is the god politicians are quick to pledge allegiance to. In effect, they worship an empty word. How else could so many politicians agree?

Here’s the problem: Once a believer starts to define their god, to give it form, suddenly there are bones to pick. Anything beyond the most vague, hence bullet-proof assertion-as fog is bullet-proof-such as “God is the creator of all,” and you get into potentially controversial territory.

For example, ex-president George Bush seemed fond of referring to a god who had blessed the United States of America. This claim rubbed some people in our country, and multitudes in other countries, the wrong way. Why had Bush’s god blessed the United States? If a god had blessed the U.S., this raises other questions. Such as why a god singled out our nation. Why had a god not similarly blessed Ireland? Are the Irish unworthy of a New York Stock Exchange? Why had this god neglected to bless Zaire and Tunasia and Haiti? Certainly, if Haiti had been blessed, it got blessed on a Friday just before the blesser punched out.

While many people pretend there is one god we are all happy citizens under, the god of Abraham, Jesus, and Muhammad can’t be the same god. Each of these ancient prophets described a god with different preferences and plans for his people. If one god’s will, if what one god wants, doesn’t match the will of another god, how can a person reasonably claim that these gods are the same god? Do you fall back to the position that the great messiahs got the details wrong, and only in the fuzzy area of overlap did they get things right?

Sure, it is possible that the Judeo-Christian-Muslim god is a set of conjoined triplets with one heart and three talking heads. Yet I believe it is more likely that what we’ve got is an original mythical creature whom groups of people multiplied into the distinct offspring that religious moderates and liberals fail to acknowledge today. Yahweh, meet your two sons: Jesus and Allah. This is no unified divinity, but a trio of contrasting divinities–each with its own divergent voice.

There are those believers who partly acknowledge the problem. The all-to-common response, however, is to duct tape the whole mess of different religions together and stress bland commonalities. Others tell us that all the religions express different faces of the same god. So all is One. We can put down our stones, swords and rifles and engage in one great, group hug.

No doubt, the fuzzy-fication of the idea of a god–the combing down of distinct characteristics, if you will–began a long time ago. Bible scholars have conceded that the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, was likely written by four different authors. This explains why there are two accounts of Genesis and two sets of commandments. The horse of one tribe was bred with the donkey of another. While one tribe had a specific name for their god (Yahweh), the other had a more general term (Elohim). In the Bible, when we see the words used together, translated as LORD God, (Yahweh Elohim), it echoes the origin of the Judeo-Christian god’s breeding. God has undergone descent with modification, whether or not we choose to recognize it.

One can imagine that in polytheistic times too many gods divided a community. Monotheism had the power to unite. Is monotheism one of the things that unites our nation today? Perhaps. It is certainly debatable. Yet America is monotheistic in jargon alone. We are not a nation with a single god, “Under God,” as we are a nation with a single president. It would be more accurate to say that each of the 50+ varieties of religion in our country has its own, most high senator. When using god-talk, people are really saying these sorts of things: Does Senator exist? Senator bless America. It was Senator’s will. The our gets left out.

I find it interesting, and a bit disheartening, that even scientists will speak of our current-day, catch-all, almost entirely undefined god. As with politics, it is far easier to reach consensus when details are left out. A physicist, for example, may speculate, “If God had made the universe. . . .” Why does he or she not write, “If a god had made the universe”? This would be more honest and more scientific, for it leaves out one incredibly immense assumption: that all monotheists have the same conception of what the word god means. Which they don’t.

People the world over may use a single term, god, for what they worship, but behind the one term are different ideas about what this god provides and demands in return. Gods “A” and “A” are not identical if “A” and “A” are identical in name alone. Glue Porsche ornaments onto all the autos in a used-car lot and you haven’t suddenly created a Porsche dealership.

The real world is a polytheistic world. Though people may find some spurious unity in all the clamoring about a god, once you get into the details the consensus disappears. Sure, every believer thinks his or her god is the god of all. But what about the corollary? Does he or she also believe that the god of other people is their god? Not so much. Beyond the short-term social diplomacy and political peace-keeping it affords, the assertion that “we all worship the same god” is a tremendous barrier to human intellectual progress. In the least it helps legitimize an ultimately vacuous concept.

The almighty god of Christianity is no Sheriff Andy from Mayberry, RFD. He’s a cross between the biggest and baddest Judge Judy and an invisible parental chaperone. He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been jerking off, so be good for heaven’s sake.

Misbehave and no endless Christmas morning for you in the afterlife.

You buy that? I don’t. Which makes me a heretic. Watch out — I’m not afraid of getting coal in the stocking of my oblivion, I’m liable to do anything.

But really. It’s ridiculous to assume that belief in a gavel-whacking god automatically bestows upon individuals the ability to behave. Count the cross tattoos in prisons.

Okay, many don’t find their god/Jesus until they are incarcerated. Maybe he’s easier to locate when hemmed in by four walls, when the thought of escaping to heaven for the next life makes the pious pied-piper’s flute song more enticing.

But what’s the recidivism rate with the baritone commandments of the Big Daddy and/or the melodic promises of Jesus echoing in your ear? What is it when the freed criminal keeps repeating to himself, What would Jesus do? . . . What would Jesus do? . . . Nice set of wheels! . . . What would Jesus do? . . . Yo, check out the nuggets on that happy meal! . . . What would Jesus do? . . . You talking to me, you @$%^#*!!!

That fiery volcano putting up a plume of smoke — what’s going on? Well, electrons are being ripped from here and added there: chemical reactions. Reactions that give off heat (molecular agitation) and light (escaping photons) as electrons find a lower energy state.

That “cold” bolt of lightning — what’s going on? Electrons (the particles of charge) ripping through space and giving off photons — “particles” of light (or are they waves?).

Damn. What a wild planet this is.

By the way. To add a god to the whole affair would be akin to affixing a smiley face sticker to the above image. An improvement? Get real.

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[image thanks to NASA]

When looking into the cosmo many people see the “face of God.” Well, at least the tracks left by their Gawd. Even in the Moon. Oh wait, the above celestial body is not “our” moon. It’s a pic of Neptune’s moon, Triton. I wonder, is it also made out of cheese?

A cheesy moon — pretty ridiculous, right? What about a moon made from godstuff? Is that likewise ridiculous? It reminds me of a ditty I once penned. I’ll share it here:

Survivor – Divinity Island

“Do you believe in god?”

When people ask this question they are not talking about Zeus or Murdock or Shiva. Typically, they are referring to the Judeo-Christian god, recognized as “the” god in this country due to popular vote.

By “god” people do not mean the Egyptian god Ptah, the Polynesian Io. Not Krishna, Vishnu, Indra. And although El, Yahwah, and Elohim may have been precursors, they’re not really talking about them, either. Not Knum, Isis & Orisis, or Adonis. Not Ra, Obatala, Proteus, Coyote, Sedna, Springsteen. Not Wakantaka, Atum, Enki, Chaos, Gaea, or Uranus. Not Hurakan, Tawa, Citlaltonac and Citlalicue. Not Qat, Kinharingan, Wanojo, Negacork, Tien Mu, Wang Chung, Prajapati, Tawhiri-ma-tea, Tane-mahuta, Nommo, Mexitli, Apollo, Spider Grandmother. Not even Thor. Not Li-Ching, not Kassa, Athene, Shamash, Kassa, Kena, or Gananina. They mean God. You know — THE God. Almighty John Doe.

There is only one true god, people will insist. The above bunch, then, must be a confederacy of lesser gods. Or trick gods that have been exposed and tossed aside.

The religious people of this country have advanced, if that term is fitting, to the point where they believe in just one invisible agent. This is called monotheism, or theism, for short. The theist is not one who believes in a separate wind god, rain god, and a god of those things that creepeth upon the earth, such as lizards and cockroaches. He or she believes in a single god of the rain, the wind, and the cockroaches. The theist worships a catch-all god, which is handy because this type of god encompasses everything and can be considered above and beyond everything. It eliminates a lot of red tape and intra-cosmos conflict.

The real world is a polytheistic world, one god per religion, creed, and denomination, though people attempt to find some slipshod unity in all the clamoring about a god. Once you get into the details, however, the consensus disappears. The assertion that there is but one god is a political ploy.

The LORD of the Old Testament was, interestingly, a polytheist. He believed in other gods, of which he wanted to be first. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. What we have in the LORD is a god who reached the sweet sixteen round of the NCAA divinity tournament. He waved his large, foam hand and cried, “I’m number one! I’m number one!” Meanwhile, a squad of uniformly-dressed rabbis shook their pom-poms and rallied the crowd: “Go Yahweh! Goooo Yahweh! Go, fight, win!”

Today’s supposed one god remaining, the sole survivor, has been so vaporized by abstraction that few people can find reason to vote him off the island.

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[image thanks to NASA]