Growing up in the time I did, I have had plenty of chances to hear atheists -- on talk shows, PBS documentaries, classrooms, debates, YouTube videos, internet forums -- present their arguments, and I've heard almost all of them by now. There are especially some arguments that get brought up rather frequently, and then keep getting repeated for years later.
There's one in particular I want to address, the "One God Further" argument. I believe the argument originates with Richard Dawkins, but I have certainly heard Christopher Hitchens and others make similar arguments on stage. This argument is that we are all atheists about most of the gods anyone has ever claimed to believe in. I'm an atheist about Zeus, Hercules, Mithras, Minerva or any of these other figures. Dawkins simply goes one god further than I do.
And so, to clarify this issue once and for all, let me just resolutely state that I am not an atheist about Zeus.
I'm really not.
I am a monotheist about Zeus.
My issue with Zeus isn't that he's clearly ridiculous and there's no evidence for him. I mean, yeah, Zeus is pretty ridiculous and there's no evidence for him. But that isn't really my objection to Zeus worship.
My objection to Zeus worship is that Zeus isn't the kind of thing that should be rightly called a god, or the kind of thing that should be worshipped.
