Review

Atheism

Belief

Culture

27 April 2023

7 min read

David Baddiel's wrestle with the God desire

David Baddiel’s short book is important, writes Krish Kandiah, as it represents an internal wrestling match that many can relate to.

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

A painting depicts two wrestlers on the ring mat, watched by eager fans.

Wrestlers by Abraham Bogdanove.

Abraham Bogdanove, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

I have been a David Baddiel admirer ever since he penned the anthem Three Lions with his friend Frank Skinner. The song has provided a hymn of hope to every England fan since 1996. “Football’s coming home”, I sing to my friends, family and TV screen every time England plays. Fans declare it out over the pitch, as though the louder they sing, the more likely it is their prophecy will come true.

As the author of a song that has sought to inspire faith in the England team it is perhaps ironic that David Baddiel’s new book “The God Desire” is all about why he cannot bring himself to have faith in God.

I really enjoyed reading the book and the subsequent back and forth I had on Twitter with Baddiel. He comes across like the kind of guy it would be great to sit in a pub with and talk about life, faith and football until closing time. I hope I get the chance.
The book, for me, offers three significant strengths and one major topic of contention.

A new tone for the new atheists

Baddiel offers what might be called a ‘New New Atheist’ approach. He differentiates himself from the now old New Atheists like Professor Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchings by challenging their machismo:

“Some atheists divine [sic] – correctly – that what religion provides for human beings is comfort, and then, in a way that can feel a bit adolescent, they feel impelled to say, essentially, ‘Comfort? That’s for babies.’ “

Baddiel refuses to ridicule the consolation of faith and indeed seems instead to long for it. He is kinder, warmer, more polite than old New Atheists, taking a far less dismissive tone. Perhaps part of this comes from his deep and sincere friendship with Frank Skinner who is a devout Catholic Christian. Their friendship is reflected in Baddiel’s robust yet gracious approach to controversial topics. It is an approach that can act as a model for a lot of our discussions in increasingly polarised times.

Baddiel’s critique of New Atheism also has an epistemological angle. He observes that in an age of social media our relationship to the concept of truth has changed. He reflects that in previous eras truths were handed down from authority figures but now there is a democratisation of truth - through social media everyone can share their own truth.

This is one of Baddiel’s most interesting observations:

“In a moral universe dictated by social media, punching up and punching down are the new markers of good and evil, and if religion is no longer considered a vastly powerful and high-status force, but rather a series of fragile and individual identity-based beliefs that only the unkind would mock, then atheists become pariahs.”

I think Baddiel might be on to something important here. For some atheists, religion is still a huge and influential behemoth that needs to be taken down. We can see that in the aggressive antireligious tweeting of Professor Alice Roberts or the theologically ill-informed op eds of Matthew Parris. They “punch up” against the authority of religion. Others “punch down”: from their morally superior position they are prepared to issue something akin to imperialistic judgmentalism against anyone who dares to identify as religious.

But punching up or punching down says nothing about the truth or otherwise of the position. Instead, it speaks to relative social position. Like Baddiel I believe both in the right to freedom of expression, and in the concept of objective truth.

An honest recognition of the desire for God

This new tone permits Baddiel to admit that he recognises in himself the existential longing for the things that faith can provide. He writes:

“My argument, on the other hand, is, in a general sense, psychological. It requires an admission, which frankly most atheists, I’ve noticed, aren’t prepared to make. Which is: I love God.”

Baddiel’s coming out with this brave admission reminds me of these words of Canadian artist and novelist Douglas Coupland as he draws to a close his book “Life After God”:

“My secret is that I need God—that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.”

Some might read too much into Baddiel’s confession. A whole book explaining why he doesn’t believe in God may seem then pointless, as though he “doth protest too much.” But for me Baddiel’s short book still feels important – it represents an internal wrestling match that many people can relate to – wanting to believe in God on one hand but struggling to find the evidence on the other.

A helpful evaluation of the benefits of faith

Baddiel explores three reasons why he would love to believe in God: story, parenthood and immortality.

Firstly, he recognises a longing for meaning in life. He believes that belief in God can provide the possibility of life having an external story, offering not only direction and significance but a source for moral evaluation:

“God also offers story. Humans have a need to organise, to structure, the chaos of existence. They need to feel that life has narrative. Narrative requires satisfactory checks and balances, such as good being rewarded, and evil being punished. God provides all this. He storifies life… With story comes another God benefit: meaning. A sense, on an individual level, that your own narrative has significance: that it matters, in some way. This can only be the case if Someone or Something is taking account of it.”

Second, Baddiel notes that God provides an answer to the longing for there to be a benevolent force guiding us through the universe. Baddiel frames that in the need for a parent-figure:

“God is this: an archetype, a super-projection, of a parent who can be both blissful and terrifying.”

This could be seen as a recycling of the Freudian critique of belief in God as an immaturity, a babyishness as Baddiel might call it. But instead, it reads as longing.

Thirdly, and for Baddiel most significantly, God offers immortality. Baddiel puts it clearly:

“At heart, though, God is all about death. The other issues are spin-offs.”

Belief in God can help us confront the biggest fear that human beings face: the prospect of our own death.

A point of contention

As a Christian, there is much to agree with in the above points. However, my main point of contention is very neatly identified by Baddiel himself:

“The God Desire should not have to lead to the God Delusion.”

Baddiel seems to argue that the very fact that he wants God to exist must mean that he can’t possibly exist, that he must simply be a projection of his own desire. This is the exact opposite conclusion to that reached by CS Lewis following a not dissimilar journey to Baddiel’s:

"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water… If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world…”

Baddiel concedes this line of reasoning but reflects that desire in those cases are met by tangible, visible things - food and water in this case. He summarises that “desire + invisibility = God.” God, for Baddiel, seems to be so utterly transcendent, that he cannot be evidenced, discovered, known. If he cannot be evidenced, then he cannot exist.

But what if God, truly and utterly transcendent, has chosen to make himself known? And what if that revelation is right under our noses in the person of Jesus Christ? This is the central and astonishing thesis of Christianity, grounded in the evidence of Jesus’ birth, his miracles, his teaching, and, ultimately, his resurrection from the dead. This evidence cannot be discovered merely by psychological reflection, as Baddiel has discovered. There are further historical, theological, spiritual, moral and scientific theories that need engaging with.

I hope that Baddiel writes a sequel. In it he would explain why his desire + invisibility equation does not stop him standing up for universal human rights, for example. He would investigate the historical evidence for Jesus and the concrete experiences of millions in their connection with God. He would look further at the explanatory power that the Christian faith gives to life and see why compassion and justice matter. He would admit that his sense of the divine, was evidence of God’s existence. He would discover that his love for God had been met by God’s love of him.

I am hoping one day there’s a warm fire, a cold beer and long night available to amicably talk these things through. In the meantime, I commend his book to you and encourage you, with Baddiel, to continue wrestling with the big questions of life.

Article

AI - Artificial Intelligence

Belief

Culture

Mental Health

Pride

17 September 2025

4 min read

Are AI chatbots actually demons in disguise?

Early Christian thinkers explain chatbots better than Silicon Valley does

Gabrielle Thomas

Gabrielle is Assistant Professor of Early Christianity and Anglican Studies at Emory University

An AI image of a person stood holding a phone with a bubble above their head, below them is a chatbot-like demon with a tail

Nick Jones/Midjourney.ai.

AI Chatbots. They’re here to save us, aren’t they? Their designers argue so, fervently. There’s no doubt they are useful. Some, like EpiscoBOT (formerly known as ‘Cathy’), are designed for those asking ‘life’s biggest questions. 'Our girlfriend Scarlett’, is an AI companion who “is always eager to please you in any way imaginable.” So why not defend them?

They offer companionship for the lonely, spark creativity when we run on empty, and make us more productive. They also provide answers for any and every kind of question without hesitation. They are, in short, a refuge. Many chatbots come with names, amplifying our sense of safety. Names define and label things, but they do far more than that. Names foster connection. They can evoke and describe a relationship, allowing us to make intimate connections with the things named. When the “things” in question are AI chatbots, however, we can run into trouble.

According to a study conducted by researchers at Stanford University, chatbots can contribute to “harmful stigma and dangerous responses.” More than this, they can even magnify psychotic symptoms. The more we learn, the more we are beginning to grasp that the much of the world offered by AI chatbots is an illusory one.

Early Christian thinkers had a distinct category for precisely this kind of illusion: the demonic. They understood demons not as red, horned bodies or fiery realms, but as entities with power to fabricate illusions—visions, appearances, and deceptive signs that distorted human perception of reality. Demons also personified pride. As fallen angels, they turned away from truth toward themselves. Their illusions lured humans into sharing that pride—believing false greatness, clinging to false refuge.

Looking back to early Christian approaches to demonology may help us see more clearly what is at stake in adopting without question AI chatbots.

According to early Christian thinkers, demons rarely operated through brute force. Instead, they worked through deception. Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373) was a bishop and theologian who wrote The of Antony. In this, he recounted how the great desert father was plagued by demonic visions—phantoms of wild beasts, apparitions of gold, even false angels of light. The crucial danger was not physical attack but illusion. Demons were understood as beings that manufactured appearances to confuse and mislead. A monk in his cell might see radiant light and hear beautiful voices, but he was to test it carefully, for demons disguise themselves as angels.

Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345–399), a Christian monk, ascetic, and theologian influential in early monastic spirituality, warned that demons insinuated themselves into thought, planting ideas that felt self-generated but in fact led one astray. This notion—that the demonic is most effective when it works through appearances—shaped the entire ascetic project. To resist demons meant to resist their illusions.

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was a North African bishop and theologian whose writings shaped Western Christianity. In his book The City of God, he argued that pagan religion was largely a vast system of demonic deception. Demons, he argued, produced false miracles, manipulated dreams, and inspired performances in the theatre to ensnare the masses. They trafficked in spectacle, seducing imagination and desire rather than presenting truth.

AI chatbots function in a strikingly similar register. They do not exert power by physical coercion. Instead, they craft illusion. They can produce an authoritative-sounding essay full of falsehoods. They can create images of people doing something that never happened. They can provide companionship that leads to self-harm or even suicide. Like the demonic, the chatbot operates in the register of vision, sound, and thought. It produces appearances that persuade the senses while severing them from reality. The risk is not that the chatbot forces us, but that it deceives us—just like demonic powers.

Using AI chatbots, too, tempts us with illusions of pride. A writer may pass off AI-generated work as their own, for example. The danger here is not simply being deceived but becoming complicit in deception, using illusion to magnify ourselves. Early Christian theologians like Athanasius, Evagrius and Augustine, warned that pride was the surest sign of demonic influence. To the extent that AI tempts us toward inflated images of ourselves, it participates in the same pattern.

When it comes to AI chatbots, we need a discipline of discernment—testing whether the images and texts bear the marks of truth or deception. Just as monks could not trust every appearance of light, we cannot trust every image or every confident paragraph produced by the chatbots. We need criteria of verification and communities of discernment to avoid mistaking illusion for reality.

Help is at hand.

Through the ages, Christians have responded to demonic illusions, not with naïve credulity nor blanket rejection of the sensory world, but through the hard work of discernment: testing appearances, cultivating disciplines of resistance, and orienting desire toward truth.

The Life of Antony describes how the monk confronted demonic illusions with ascetic discipline. When confronted by visions of treasure, Antony refused to be moved by desire. When assailed by apparitions, he remained in prayer. He tested visions by their effects: truthful visions produced humility, peace, and clarity, while demonic illusions provoked pride, disturbance, and confusion. We can cultivate a way of life that does the same. Resisting the illusions may require forms of asceticism: fasting from chatbots and cultivating patience in verification.

Chatbot illusions are not necessarily demonic in themselves. The key is whether the illusion points beyond itself toward truth and reality, or whether it traps us in deception.

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