One Big Problem for Atheism

Many Worlds Madness

Many Worlds Madness

Here is a titillating consequence of the many worlds hypothesis: It is physically possible that a series of quantum events will occur such that my body will spontaneously decompose and rematerialize outside my front door.  The probability of this happening is of course very, very, very, very, very, very small, but it is non-zero.  Since the probability is non-zero, according to the many-worlds hypothesis, there is a universe in which the event does occur, in which I disintegrate, and rematerialize outside my front door.  In fact, according to the many worlds hypothesis, there are infinitely many such universes.  There is also a universe in which a door dematerializes in front of a surprised peasant, and a universe in which the door dematerializes immediately after the peasant has accidentally pronounced the word “meshmuooler.”  Indeed there is some probability that objects keep dematerializing, just by chance, every time the peasant utters “meshmuooler” and intends to obliterate the object in front of him.  Although the probability is indescribably minute, it is nonzero.  Given such an extraordinary ability, there are universes in which our fortunate peasant rises to become a king by using his “meshmuooler” power.  There are some universes where only he has this power, seemingly as a sudden gift from the gods.  There are other universes where everyone can disintegrate solid objects using the word “meshmuooler” and knowledge of this magic word diffuses throughout the population.  Of course for every universe in which “meshmuooler” works consistently, there are enormously many in which it stops working after having worked a few times.  But it is a consequence of the many worlds hypothesis that some people, somewhere are cloak-wearing mages who know magic words that can disintegrate solid objects. In fact, according to the Many Worlds Hypothesis, every logically consistent story ever told¹ is non-fiction. There is a world in which Harry Potter happened. There is a world in which Santa Claus is real. There is a world in which Chiang Kai-Shek and his BFF, the jackal-headed Egyptian god Anubis have opened a cupcake bakery together. Atheists can reply that these universes make up only a tiny, tiny fraction of all universes, but it remains the case that Atheists believe that somewhere out there, Chiang’s and Anub’s cupcake bakery actually exists. Religious people can comfortably say that we don’t believe any such nonsense. Maybe Atheists believe in Harry Potter, but we religious people just can’t believe such extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence.

OK, so maybe you’re a materialist Atheist who doesn’t believe in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, so you dodge this particular challenge. But the problem of Bizarre Conclusions goes deeper. Part of the original appeal of atheism was that it once seemed that atheist explanations of phenomena were common-sensical, and made religious explanations seem silly by comparison.

• e.g. “There’s no man in the sky.”

• “You’re not a soul; your brain’s just some atoms bouncing around.”

• Wind isn’t caused by the breath of giant cherubs, it’s warm or cold air flowing over the Earth’s surface.

Part of the appeal of Atheist explanations was that they didn’t require you to accept “mystery.” You could understand the explanations with just your own faculty of reason, and Atheist explanations just made sense.

But what if the scientific explanations we’re offered of some things, like quantum physics, don’t make sense? If the explanations we’re offered by science stop making sense, if the materialist science which was supposed to undergird atheism starts producing results that wildly diverge from common sense, that undermines the line of reasoning that led people to atheism in the first place.

Atheists who accept the many-world hypothesis have no leg to stand on when they criticize Christians who believe in the mystery of the holy trinity.

1. Including the stories of the Bible