Monday 18 July 2011

The God of Irresponsibly

In the beginning God made the Heaven and the Earth Genesis I:I

It does not matter whether believers are creationists or not. Those of the three Abrahamic faiths all agree the world was intentionally created by an all powerful and just God.

This all powerful god would, by definition, be capable of creating any type of world he wanted to. He'd not be restricted by the laws of physics, which he would invent. He could make a tiny or gigantic universe. He didn't have to make humanity his central creation. Remember, being all powerful he could do whatever he wanted, any way he wanted.

When he decided to create humanity he could have made it as gentle as a kitten or like a bunch of hyenas. His choice. It is odd how often believers try to pretend God had no choice but if he was all powerful he had unlimited choice.

If someone drove a car recklessly and caused an accident, in which someone is killed or injured, that driver would be culpable for their behaviour. However, unless the driver deliberately set out to injure someone, they could claim they didn't know the consequences beforehand. God couldn't claim to not know the consequences. He knowingly created a world in full knowledge of every baby that would starve to death. How much more culpable would the driver have been had he or she known with complete certainly that they would kill and injure? How Culpable must the God of Abraham Be?

Christians argue God created free will. In that case, he did so in the full knowledge of all who would suffer as a consequence of free will. He knew everyone who would be killed and injured and abused because of free will. Christians argue that free will was necessary yet never address the question of why a just God would put the rights of wrong doers to have free will over the rights of their victims. How is that Just? In fact I have never heard any believers willingly addressing the harmfulness of their God's decision to create free will.

Assuming free will exists, which is a big assumption, why does it only apply to questions of wrong or right? An all powerful God could have given me the power to simply think I was in Paris and be there. After all, he supposedly set the laws of physics. Yet if you listen to the arguments of believers free will was primarily given to enable wrong doing. The logic of their argument is God intentionally created a humanity which he knew would largely disobey him; simply to see how many would be good. Essentially, he created humans as play things for a twisted game. He did this in the full knowledge of the suffering it would cause to the victims.

As a humanist I take a simple moral position: It is wrong to do something you know will cause harm, unless it is necessary to prevent a greater harm. An all powerful god could have created the world in another way but chose a suffering world. Those who believe in God cannot say that he is not responsible for his actions. If he isn't responsible he's no example to human morality and has no right to judge. Christians are quick to claim humans should take responsibility for their actions. Where is the logic in not saying God should take responsibility for his actions?

Those who argue that human suffering is caused by free will want to ignore that the logic of their own position; that God made a free will choice to create the world. He knew the consequences and yet freely decided to do things in the way he did. He had the power to create a world without suffering but made a conscious decision not to. The God they worship is, in short, callous and irresponsible.


7 comments:

  1. "The logic of their argument is God intentionally created a humanity which he knew would largely disobey him; simply to see how many would be good."

    Except that he didn't need to create humanity and free will in order to see this; as you rightly observe, he would have known in advance all the consequences and implications of any setting he chose for the dials, so we're back to the old omniscient/omnipotent/omnibenevolent paradox. The only way out is to posit a god who either can't know what people will do, or can't improve on the settings, or doesn't care -- but then we're getting far afield of the deity that was posited in the first place.

    - Marc @ EffectualAgents.org

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  2. I'll be interested to see if any believer even attempts to answer my argument.

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  3. A very nice argument I wholeheartedly agree with you sir. I only wish more believers would care to justify their 'god', they can't though so they hide behind a facade of aloofness.

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  4. You'd be surprised at what believers will happily try to rationalise.

    Genocide? No problem! Rape? Sweet! Slavery? Bring it on? A small little problem of a 'loving' God who tortures his creation for eternity? No sweat.

    Nobody has ever accused the religionuts of being rational.

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  5. "When he decided to create humanity he could have made it as gentle as a kitten or like a bunch of hyenas. His choice. It is odd how often believers try to pretend God had no choice but if he was all powerful he had unlimited choice."
    -I've never heard Christians say that God had no choice. Elaborate?

    "Christians argue God created free will. In that case, he did so in the full knowledge of all who would suffer as a consequence of free will. He knew everyone who would be killed and injured and abused because of free will. Christians argue that free will was necessary yet never address the question of why a just God would put the rights of wrong doers to have free will over the rights of their victims. How is that Just? In fact I have never heard any believers willingly addressing the harmfulness of their God's decision to create free will."
    -I can tell you why we have free will. God is love. He created mankind in His own image and he loves us. So much, in fact, that he wants us to love him back. What kind of God would he be if he "programmed" us to love him? No. He wants us to desire a relationship with him. He wants us to WANT to know him. He doesn't want to force that upon us. So yes, we do have free will. As for the whole right and wrong thing, the Bible defines what is righteous and what is unrighteous. I'm sure you have read several passages in the Bible, and they define a righteous lifestyle. When someone chooses to follow God and worship and love and have a close, intimate relationship with him, He changes the desires of their heart. When you have a heart that is centered around God, you tend to live more like Jesus, and you tend to at least strive to follow his commandments. No one is perfect, but that's why Jesus died on the cross. We don't have to be perfect. Jesus was already perfect for us, and he died for us so that we could be seen as perfect to God and have a relationship with him!

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  6. “God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having” (C.S. Lewis).

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  7. Where is your evidence? It is all propaganda and lies!

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