Refractory |
Christian god"I contend that we are both athiests. I just believe in one fewer gods than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours". Christians consider the existence of their god to be an obvious truth. This assumption is false, not only because evidence for the existence of this presumably ubiquitous yet invisible god is lacking, but also because the very nature Christians attribute to this god is self-contradictory. Proving a Universal NegativeIt is impossible to prove a universal negative. For example, while we may not have evidence that unicorns or dragons exist, we cannot prove that they do not exist. Unless we have a complete knowledge of the universe, we must admit the possibility that somewhere in the universe, there might be such creatures. Of course, this theory can be negated by arguing that our definition of cubes and spheres may be incorrect. And that's fine by me. Likewise, we must then conclude that our definition of what the Judeo-Christian god is may be incorrect as well--which invalidates the bible. Therefore, since no true Christian will accept the possibility of an errant bible, they must accept our concrete and verifiable knowledge of spheres and cubes. I intend to show that the supposed properties of the Christian god Yahweh, like those of a cubic sphere, are incompatible, and by so doing, to demonstrate that Yahweh's existence as defined in the bible is an impossibility. Defining YahwehChristians have endowed their god with all of the following attributes: He is eternal, all-powerful, and created everything. He created all the laws of nature and can change anything by an act of will. He is all-good, all-loving, and perfectly just. He is a personal god who experiences all of the emotions a human does. He is all-knowing. He sees everything past, present, and future. God's creation was originally perfect, but humans, by disobeying him, brought imperfection into the world. Humans are evil and sinful, and must suffer in this world because of their sinfulness. God gives humans the opportunity to accept forgiveness for their sin, and all who do will be rewarded with eternal bliss in heaven, but while they are on earth, they must suffer for his sake. All humans who choose not to accept this forgiveness must go to hell and be tormented for eternity. These attributes of god are related by the bible, which Christians believe to be the perfect and true word of god. Perfection Seeks Even More PerfectionWhat did god do during that eternity before he created everything? If god was all that existed back then, what disturbed the eternal equilibrium and compelled him to create? Was he bored? Was he lonely? God is supposed to be perfect. If something is perfect, then it is complete and it needs nothing else. We humans engage in activities because we pursue the elusive perfection, because there is non-equilibrium caused by a difference between what we are and what we want to be. If god is perfect, there can be no non-equilibrium. There is nothing he needs, nothing he desires, and nothing he must or will do. A god who is perfect does nothing except exist. Therefore, a perfect god who creates (anything) is impossible. Perfection Begets ImperfectionBut, for the sake of argument, let's continue. Let us suppose that this perfect god did create the universe. If so, humans were clearly the crown of his creation since they were created in his image and had the ability to make decisions. However, these humans spoiled the original perfection by choosing to disobey their creator. If something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it. Someone once said that bad fruit cannot come from a good tree, yet this allegedly perfect god created a perfect universe which was rendered imperfect by his perfect creation, humans. The ultimate source of imperfection, therefore, is god himself. What is perfect cannot make itself imperfect, so humans must have been created imperfect. What is perfect cannot create anything imperfect, so god must be imperfect to have created these imperfect humans. Therefore, a perfect god who creates imperfect humans is impossible. The Freewill ArgumentThe Christians objection to this argument involves freewill. They say that a being must have freewill to be happy. The omni-benevolent god did not wish to create robots, so he gave humans freewill to enable them to experience love and happiness. But the humans used this freewill to choose evil, and introduced imperfection into god's originally perfect universe. God had no control over this decision, so the blame for our imperfect universe is on the humans, not god. Here is why their argument is weak. First, if god is omnipotent, then the assumption that freewill is necessary for happiness is false. If god could make it a rule that only beings with freewill may experience happiness, then he could just as easily have made it a rule that only robots may experience happiness. The latter option is clearly superior, since perfect robots will never make decisions which could render them or their creator unhappy, whereas beings with freewill could. Therefore, a perfect and omnipotent god who creates beings capable of ruining their own happiness is impossible. Additionally, even if we were to allow the necessity of freewill for happiness, god could have created humans with freewill who did not have the ability to choose evil, but to choose between several good options. Finally, god supposedly has freewill, and yet he does not make imperfect decisions. If humans are miniature images of god, then our decisions should likewise be perfect. Also, the occupants of heaven, who presumably must have freewill to be happy, will never use that freewill to make imperfect decisions. Why would the originally perfect humans do differently? The point remains: the presence of imperfection in the universe disproves the supposed perfection of its creator. All-Good God Knowingly Creates Future SufferingGod is allegedly omniscient. When he created the universe, he saw the sufferings that humans would endure as a result of the sin of those original humans. He heard the screams of the damned. Surely he would have known that it would have been far better for those humans to have never been born. (In fact, the bible says this very thing.) And surely this all-compassionate deity would have foregone the creation of a universe destined to imperfection in which many of his humans were doomed to eternal suffering. Therefore, a perfectly compassionate being who creates beings which he knows are doomed to suffer is impossible. Infinite Punishment for Finite SinsGod is perfectly just, and yet he sentences the imperfect humans he created to infinite suffering in hell for finite sins. Clearly, a limited offence does not warrant unlimited punishment. God's sentencing of the imperfect humans to an eternity in hell for a mere mortal lifetime of sin is infinitely unjust. The absurdity of this infinite punishment appears even greater when we consider that the ultimate source of the human's imperfection is the god who created them. A perfectly just god who sentences his imperfect creation to infinite punishment for finite sins is impossible. Belief More Important Than ActionConsider all of the people who live in the remote regions of the world who have never even heard the "gospel" of Jesus Christ. Consider the people who have naturally adhered to the religion of their parents and nation as they had been taught to do since birth. If we are to believe the Christians, all of these people will perish in the eternal fire for not believing in Jesus. It does not matter how just, kind, and generous they have been with their fellow humans during their lifetime: if they do not accept the gospel of Jesus, they are condemned. No just god would ever judge a man by his beliefs rather than his actions. Perfection's Imperfect RevelationThe bible is supposedly god's perfect word. It contains instructions to humankind for avoiding the eternal fires of hell. How wonderful and kind of this god to provide us with this means for overcoming the problems for which he is ultimately responsible! The all-powerful god could have, by a mere act of will, eliminated all of the problems we humans must endure, but instead, in his infinite wisdom, he has opted to offer this indecipherable amalgam of books called the bible as a means for avoiding the hell which he has prepared for us. The perfect god has decided to reveal his wishes in this imperfect work, written in the imperfect language of imperfect man, translated, copied, interpreted, voted on, and related by imperfect man. No two men will ever agree on what the entirety of this perfect word of god is supposed to mean, since much of it is either self-contradictory or obscured by enigma. And yet the perfect god expects the imperfect humans to understand this paradoxical riddle using the imperfect minds with which he has equipped us. Surely the all-wise and all-powerful god would have known that it would have been better to reveal his perfect will directly to each of us, rather than to allow it to be debased and perverted by the imperfect language and botched interpretations of man. Contradictory JusticeOne need look to no source other than the bible to discover its imperfections, for it contradicts itself and thus exposes its own imperfection. It contradicts itself on matters of justice, for the same just god who assures his people that sons shall not be punished for the sins of their father’s turns around and destroys an entire household for the sin of one man (he had stolen some of Yahweh's war loot). It was this same Yahweh who afflicted thousands of his innocent people with plague and death to punish their evil king David for taking a census. It was this same Yahweh who allowed the humans to slaughter his son because the perfect Yahweh had botched his own creation. Consider how many have been stoned, burned, slaughtered, raped, and enslaved because of Yahweh's skewed sense of justice. The blood of innocent babies is on the perfect, just, compassionate hand of Yahweh. The bible contradicts itself on matters of history. A person who reads and compares the contents of the bible will be confused about exactly who Esau's wives were, whether Timnah was a concubine or a son, and whether Jesus' earthly lineage is through Solomon or his brother Nathan. These are but a few of hundreds of documented historical contradictions. If the bible cannot confirm itself in mundane earthly matters, how are we to trust it on moral and spiritual matters? Unfulfilled ProphecyThe bible misinterprets its own prophecies. Read Isaiah 7 and compare it with Matthew 1 to find but one of many misinterpreted prophecies of which Christians are either passively or wilfully ignorant. The sign given by Isaiah to King Ahaz was meant to assure him that his enemies King Rezin and King Remaliah would be defeated. The prophecy was fulfilled in the very next chapter. Yet Matthew 1 not only misinterprets the word for "maiden" as "virgin," but claims that this already-fulfilled prophecy is fulfilled by the virgin birth of Jesus! The fulfilment of prophecy in the bible is cited as proof of its divine inspiration, and yet here is but one major example of a prophecy whose intended meaning has been and continues to be twisted to support subsequent absurd and false doctrines. There are no ends to which the credulous will not go to support their feeble beliefs in the face of compelling evidence against them. The bible is imperfect. It only takes one imperfection to destroy the supposed perfection of this alleged word of god. Many have been found. A perfect god who reveals his perfect will in an imperfect book is impossible. The Omniscient Changes the FutureA god who knows the future is powerless to change it. An omniscient god who is all-powerful and free-willed is impossible. That is to say, all three of these attributes are mutually exclusive. The Omniscient is SurprisedA god who knows everything cannot have emotions. The bible says that god experiences all of the emotions of humans, including anger, sadness, and happiness. Emotions are experienced as a result of new knowledge. A man who had formerly been ignorant of his wife's infidelity will experience the emotions of anger and sadness only after he has learned what had previously been hidden. In contrast, the omniscient god is ignorant of nothing. Nothing is hidden from him, nothing new may be revealed to him, so there is no gained knowledge to which he may react emotionally. Anger and frustration are experienced when something is wrong which cannot be fixed. The perfect, omnipotent god, however, can fix anything. We experience longing for things we lack. A perfect god lacks nothing. An omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect god who experiences emotion is impossible. The Bottom LineI have offered arguments for the impossibility, and thus the non-existence, of the Christian god Yahweh. No reasonable, freethinking individual can accept the existence of a being whose nature is as contradictory as that of Yahweh, the allegedly perfect creator of our imperfect universe. The existence of Yahweh is as impossible as the existence of cubic spheres or invisible pink unicorns. While believers may find comfort in being faithful to impossibilities, there is no greater satisfaction than a clear mind. You may choose to serve an impossible god. I will choose reality. Now the essay really gets good. "...on the creationist side we see that life may be too complex to have arisen by random reproduction." I'm not sure what "random reproduction" is. It sounds like a really great party. I have never understood why Creationists consider biological complexity the hallmark of an intelligent designer. In point of fact, the exact opposite is true. The characteristic of good design is simplicity. (Don't take my word for it, ask any engineer.) Yet most biological structures, including man, are "jury-rigged;" they are trial-and-error modifications of pre-existing structures. Further, most biological structures demonstrate really lousy design, the sort typical of a hit-or-miss approach like evolution. The human eye -- so cherished by Intelligent Design advocates -- has its photoreceptors backward, reducing visual acuity. We swallow and breathe through the same tube, an obvious hazard. We have vestigial features like the appendix, which serves no purpose in humans; and the coccyx, at the base of the spine, a vestigial tail bone. Consider some other intelligent designs by the creator.
Which is the favourite parasite of Creationists? If their theory is to be believed, Adam and Eve must have been formed with tapeworms in their stomachs and malaria parasites in their blood. In fact, every species of human-specialized bacteria and parasite must have been present in their bodies; otherwise these organisms would have died promptly for lack of a host! The conviction of Eric Rudolph for the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta got me thinking. Eric — a true Christian — exploded a total of four bombs across the South, killing two persons and wounding 120. He chose the Olympics as a bomb site, he says, to embarrass the U. S. government in front of the world "for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand.” My first reaction to anti-abortion violence is always, Geez, can’t they see the contradiction in using violence to oppose violence? But then I realise that these people are simply following a tradition of Christian-perpetrated slaughter and bloodshed that dates to the earliest days of the church. After Constantine established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, fourth century believers went on a rampage of destroying pagan temples and dispatching pagan believers. In subsequent centuries loving Christians organized three — count ‘em, three — Crusades to wrest the Holy Land from Muslims. "God wills it!” church leaders thundered. (From what I’ve learned of god in the Old Testament, he probably did.) The Crusades constituted a sort of "Kill a Sararcen for Christ” campaign. And for real chuckles, who can forget the Inquisition? Now there was Christian love for you. Jews who were stubborn enough to resist conversion to the true faith, and anyone with the temerity to question it, were centre stage in autos-da-fe, mass burnings at the stake conducted for the moral instruction of the populace. Of course Jews were always the favourite whipping boys of Christians, both literally and figuratively. Jews contributed to mental health throughout the Middle Ages by making themselves constantly available to be whomped on. And whomped on they were. When a few Christians had hangovers or were feeling otherwise irritable, it often resulted in organizing a mob and laying waste to the ghetto. Sometimes killing Jews was justified, of course. Everyone knows that plagues were caused by Jews poisoning wells. And because there were no TVs to distract them, Jews sacrificed Christian babies for entertainment. In modern times we’ve witnessed such Christian-sponsored delights as lynchings in the American South and numerous incidents of not playing nicely in Belfast. "I love Christ the proper way! You don’t.” Bang! Bang! Bang! Today Christians continue to belittle one another for differences in beliefs, and do so with great enthusiasm. The bit about "Judge not lest ye be judged” doesn’t apply when two denominations are hurling anathemas at each other. Of course Christians are unanimous in denouncing atheists, agnostics, "liberals” and secular humanists, and condemning them to eternal flames. (More love, don’t you see.) I guess I’ve been a secular humanist most of my life (whatever the hell a secular humanist is), and have yet to attend a meeting. I’ve considered myself an atheist for a good long time, too. But I feel fairly safe in this identity because I can’t recall the last time two armies of atheists met on a field of battle to decide which disbelieved the most. The Tsunami Tsurely TsuckedHave you ever in your life heard such impotent sputtering as that uttered by the world's clergy following the tsunami in South Asia? Here are some of the explanations of god's role. You couldn't make this stuff up! In California, Joan Ryan of The San Francisco Chronicle interviewed representative of five religious groups. Muslim: Hassan Bazian, lecturer on Islam at UC Berkeley, quoted the prophet Hadith: "If god loves a servant, he sends tribulations upon him." Bazian explained that the tsunami was "a reminder of god's power." (I guess you could say, then, that the tsunami was god's powerful expression of a whole lot of love. Incidentally, if you try to demonstrate your love by sending tribulations upon someone, you're likely to end up in prison.) Sikh: Onkar Bindar, a trustee of a Sikh temple in Sacramento: "Nobody knows what is the reason." (Well, yeah, that's why we're asking.) Bindar also admonishes that "Nobody can question him." (Sure you can.) Roman Catholic: Monsignor Harry Schlitt of the San Francisco archdiocese: "There is a purpose, and only god knows what it is." (Uh, yeah, Monsignor, but as I said before, that's why we're asking.) Also, "God did not cause the tsunami. It is nature taking its course." (Do I understand this correctly? God gets full credit for the positive aspects of nature ... the glorious sunset, soft rainfall crapola. But he's not responsible for natural disasters? Oh. OK.) Hindu: Chief priest Amanth Sabramania-Batter of the Shiva Murugan Temple in Concord, CA: "Every person has a predestined date with death." (Apparently in this instance a quarter of a million people shared the same predestined date. Whaddayagonna do, ya know?) Protestant: The Rev. Amos Brown, Third Baptist Church, San Francisco: "The tsunami is not an expression of god, any more than famine, war or street violence." (The Rev. Brown seems curiously unable to distinguish between natural disasters like tsunamis, and man-made horrors like war and street violence. Personally I'm inclined to give famine a category of its own: a combination of god's congenial nature abetted by a large serving of human ignorance. As some comedian once observed, "Ah, folks, you can't grow anything there. That's sand.") In our local paper a syndicated column called "The God Squad" offers religious advice from a priest/rabbi team. Regarding the tsunami, they suggested that we all look at the worldwide spiritual uplift it provided. That made me feel a lot better I can tell you. And there you have it folks. A cross-section of the vacuous bromides offered by religious leaders. Intellectual content: zero. About all I could gather from this nonsense is that god loves you, but he gets a little peevish at times. But say, wouldn't it be swell to spend eternity with him (and Jerry Falwell) in heaven nonetheless? |