I should start by saying I love analogies. I love stories. So in no way am I arguing that we shouldn’t use them. In fact, there’s a high chance I’ll use one in this very entry.
But not all analogies are good.
We know this. Still, some are passed off as insightful when they really aren’t—and those are the ones we should watch out for.
Years ago, I came across a viral video of a rabbi talking about a lobster—long before Jordan Peterson made similar ideas popular. The analogy compares the stress and pain a lobster feels before shedding its shell—before it grows—to the human experience. The message is simple: pain is necessary for growth. We should embrace it, overcome it, and move forward.
On the surface, it’s beautiful. I actually like it.
But it’s not without problems.
Taken too far, this analogy can justify any kind of pain. It can turn suffering into something inherently meaningful, even when it isn’t. And if pain is always necessary for growth, what do we do with something as simple as reading a book? I don’t feel pain when I learn a new idea—or at least, I don’t think I do.
Still, if the lobster analogy causes harm, it’s usually mild. More of a scratch than a wound.
My wife once pointed out that you can use almost any animal behavior to craft a “clever” analogy. For example, I could argue that women are evil by pointing to spiders, where females sometimes eat the males. But that wouldn’t be an argument made in good faith. It would just reveal my own bias—dressed up as insight.
The fact that female spiders behave that way tells us nothing about human relationships. There’s no universal truth etched into nature waiting for us to map directly onto human life.
And that brings me to a recent example.
A few days ago, philosopher Alex O'Connor posted a short video that, in my view, falls into this exact trap. The analogy may have been well-intentioned, but it quietly sneaks in assumptions that don’t help the conversation.
To be fair—and I want to be fair—I’ll start by steelmanning his point.
There is a difference between 11 and 12, sure. But there’s a much greater difference between 0 and 1. Nothing versus something isn’t just a small step—it’s a categorical leap.
Alex uses this idea to argue that Ricky Gervais oversimplifies faith. And I agree—to a point. But it’s not entirely fair to say Gervais’ argument is ineffective.
Gervais famously told Stephen Colbert that most people already reject thousands of gods. The only difference is that he rejects one more. His point is that Christians should be able to understand the rejection of Christianity—it’s not some alien mindset.
That’s a clear and effective argument.
Alex, however, called it “unthinking,” which feels unnecessarily dismissive.
In his clip, Alex presents a scenario: a group of brothers who don’t know their father. Each one imagines what their father might be like—but one brother claims they may never have had a father at all.
The audience laughs. It sounds absurd.
But here’s the issue: the analogy subtly turns atheism into a caricature. It implies that atheists, deep down, know God exists—just like the brothers “must” have a father—but choose to deny it.
That assumption is doing a lot of hidden work.
I’m willing to admit that some atheists may have poor reasons for their beliefs. But it would be unfair—and intellectually lazy—to generalize that to all of them.
At that point, the analogy stops being helpful and starts becoming a fallacy. Not directly, perhaps, but by proxy. A strawman is built, and as we all know, strawmen don’t fight back.
So why would Alex O’Connor go there?
That’s a question worth asking. He’s clearly smart enough to know the pitfalls.
Maybe Occam's Razor applies here—the simplest explanation is usually the right one.
He knew it would generate clicks.
He knew the engagement would be high.
After all, it’s a spicy take.
—MenO
Share an Analogy with me
I finished writing this little entry, and I thought to myself how cool it would be to tap into the wisdom of the commons. So, if you don't mind, and if you have one of those sage wisdom bits, those powerful analogies that touched you, share them with me.