Free Thought Society and Christmas

Relaxing in the presence of God

Vincent J. Curtis


2 February 2009

"God probably doesn't exist, so relax and enjoy life."

The Free Thought Society of Toronto, Ontario, went to court to have this effort at syllogism placed as advertizing on city buses, to "invite discussion," they said.  Upon analysis, it appears that 'free thought' is an empty boast and seems to confirm, regarding 'free', the saying that you get what you pay for.

The syllogism above is a non-sequitor.  The conclusion does not follow logically and ineluctably from the premise.  In the first place, an unqualified conclusion cannot follow from a probable premise, for if it is only probable that God does not exist, it is possible that he may exist, and if He does exist the recommendation to "relax and enjoy life" is the wrong thing to do.  To correct that flaw in the syllogism, the Free Thinkers have to say that "Since God probably does not exist, possibly you can relax and enjoy life."

But even this change does not repair the argument, for there is no immediate connection between God and relaxation, or between God and a lack of enjoyment.  Many Christians, for example, believe that the existence of God is a reason to relax, for to them the existence of God means that life has meaning, that an individual's life has value regardless of what the world thinks, and that the universe is not going to spin out of control and end in a cataclysm tomorrow: because God is there to make sure it won't happen.  The existence of God is comforting for some Christians, and that alone means there is no necessary connection between the existence of God and a state of tension.

But even this does not exhaust the reasons why the argument is a non-sequitor.  There is a missing premise to the syllogism.  Based on the conclusion, the implied premise to the syllogism is that the existence of God requires that one ought not to enjoy life.  Here again, many Christians would find the proposition that God requires man not to enjoy life to be absurd and contrary to reason; and from this alone one can say that there is no necessary connection between the non-existence of God and the chance to enjoy life.

The injunction to "enjoy life" in the context of the absence of God, and therefore of and sin and final judgment, is usually associated with a belief in epicurianism.  This is the belief that all pleasure is good, and the more pleasure the more good.  There is no limit to the amount of pleasure there ought to be in one's life, and therefore a life of self-indulgence is the best life there is.  This seems to be the direction the Free Thinkers are taking the argument.  If that is so, then the Free Thinkers, according to Aristotle, enjoin people to live the life of cattle.

One does not have to be a Christian to believe that there is more to life than simple pleasure.  If there is a divine injunction against pleasure, it is against its excess and that pleasure must be of the right kind and enjoyed in the right way.  These injunctions against bodily pleasures are no more than those reached by the philosophers of ancient Greece.

The ancient Greeks believed that man ought to seek happiness; and happiness was achieved over a lifetime through the accumulation of goods, of which pleasure was one of many.  The supreme good was the most distinctively human activity of all: contemplation.  It is the ability to contemplate that sets man apart from all other animals.  It is this ability to contemplate that enables man to conceive of God in the first place, and for that reason Aristotle (for one) regarded contemplation as an exercise of the most divine part of man.  Christian doctrine concerning sin and prayerful reflection parallels that of Greek philosophy concerning human happiness.

It seems then that God and reason are on the same side of the argument so far as relaxation and the enjoyment of life is concerned.  The injunction to relax and enjoy life because God probably does not exist is a ridiculous caricature of Christian beliefs.  That such a poorly constructed caricature should be offered as a serious representation by a group calling itself “thinkers” goes far to explain why Christians feel slighted by them. What is enraging is not the proffered sham of reason, but the shamelessness of it.

-30-