What do people mean
when they use the word ‘God’? Often, they are referring to the God of their
particular religious choosing, which in turn entails the particular qualities
ascribed to that entity. For example, the qualities are particular when ‘God’
refers to one of the three monotheistic gods – Yahweh, God, Allah. [Each god is
believed to be distinct by each one’s followers, insofar as each believer
denies the existence of the others’ god when it comes down to the minute
details.] However, the general qualities
of any one of the monotheistic gods persists (that is, shared amongst these
gods). God is typical described in the following fashion, a fashion that is fraught
with difficulties…
We begin with God
as being supernatural, that is, outside or in some sense superior to nature. Problem
is, there is no way for a believer to know this with certainty, reassurances
from their god notwithstanding. Can anyone demonstrate how he or she can have
knowledge of what is not natural to our universe? Despite the unlikelihood of
anyone having knowledge of what is supernatural, the faithful wish to say it is
none-the-less a quality of God. Sorry, but the application of faith does not prove
a statement that requires a demonstration, a proof, to be considered true
(especially in a universe where all proofs must be of nature for us to make
inferences). Belief in a supernatural entity currently requires the acceptance
of such a being prior to or without any evidence, which is clearly illogical. Given
a believer’s current methodology for acquiring knowledge of supernatural things
– that being no methodology – a believer may imagine whatever evidence they
wish and cite it as proof of God's existence. Did it rain last night? That was
God in action the believer will say. Yet a belief in their deity came before
the use of rain as evidence for this being. If it is the case that God told
whomever that He is supernatural, this does not automatically preclude the
possibility that this being is lying. Using a similar methodology as before
though, the believer has already concluded that God is good, so they don't
think that He would lie. However, this lie is still within the realm of
possibility, as we'll see when we question God's goodness. The idea that a
deity is supernatural is super quickly in trouble.
Theistic objection:
"God is a part of this universe
but we cannot see or measure Him (for whatever reason)." That really
doesn’t solve anything. This “transcendent God” who exists both in and out of
our universe amounts to Panentheism; identifying God as an immanent force
within all creation. The question of how a believer may come to possess
knowledge of God’s existence is still suspect, especially when you consider the
more one insists that their deity exists. If we return to Panentheism for a
moment, if God is immanent in all creation we can surely measure God. It’s not
like we’ve never measure anything in our universe before. But the believer may
further their objection by saying we have in fact measured God though perhaps we
don’t realize it. That’s all well and good but if we don’t know what we’ve
measured, we have no business calling it a god.
Theistic objection:
"God is the universe." I’m
on board, only, this is called Pantheism which weakens traditional monotheism,
unlike Panentheism. Using the word ‘God’ to identify the universe confuses the
issue. The believer might as well call God the ‘Tao’ or even ‘Smurf’ since
these words are all ambiguous on their best day.
Let's move on to
God's next attribute, omnipotence. Since believers believe that God created the
universe, they automatically assume that He is all-powerful. This is what you
might call “jumping to conclusions” because it is not known how much power it takes
to create a universe. It may be that you need an appropriate amount of knowledge
to create a universe while only needing very little power. If there is a creator,
it does not automatically follow that this creator is omnipotent. If robots
could think, and it seems likely at some point they will, would they believe
humans are all-powerful?
In supposing that
some god does have enormous power, we may look upon this quality in two
different ways. First, one might suppose that an omnipotent being could do
anything it wants at all. It can suspend the laws of the universe and create
square circles or turn people into pillars of salt (in which case we’re all
screwed). As before, it cannot be known whether or not this ability to do
whatever this entity wants is a matter of knowledge or of power. Maybe
knowledge really is power. Maybe it’s
Maybelline. I dunno. On the other hand, maybe God can only do what is logically
possible. Sorry, no square circles. This is the position of most believers.
However, if He is restricted to doing only what is logically possible, then it
follows that anything an existent god has ever
done is logically possible. This means that human beings (or some other
sentient beings) could also do such things as create a universe with the
appropriate amount of knowledge and/or power. Perhaps we'd even be able to
raise the dead. Wait a second here, aren't people who are pronounced clinically
dead resuscitated all the time? Hmm, suddenly God doesn’t seem like such a
hotshot.
Believe it or not
it gets worse. The problems with God's attributes are about to go from
convoluted to downright wacky as we tackle the possibility of God’s
omniscience. Ready, set, go!
There’s a big
problem regarding The Supreme Cheese and the attribute of His omniscience. If
God can know anything and everything at any given moment, then He can know the
future with absolute precision. If this is true, then mankind has no free will,
for God knows what you will do, why you will do it, and when. A god who knows
everything already knows who is and is not condemned to Hell or some other kind
of suffering. Has God arbitrarily created some people (or their souls,
whatever) to suffer while being generous to others for no good reason we're
privy to? Forgive me if I'm not okay with that premise. Sadly, some believers are okay with that and they make really good
slaves for us more cunning folk. Pre-destination isn’t all bad though. I guess
I can thank God I’m an atheist…But it doesn’t stop there. If God possesses
absolute knowledge of our future, even if He chooses not to know such things,
He is not omnipotent. God's possible
infallible foreknowledge of events would preclude Him from doing whatever he
wants when He wants to do it. If our future is immutable, God has no free will
to change it, even if He somehow exists outside of space and time which blah
blah blah re-read the first part of this entry. In the case that God could use
his omnipotence to manipulate events to
make them turn out as He wishes, He couldn't know he was going to do so prior
to taking such action. Again, if God "chooses" not to know the future
in order to take certain actions, He is still a slave to the future He could know. Are you getting a headache?
It’s called a one-way
street, people. Either God is omniscient and there is no free will and no
omnipotence, or God is not all-knowing which allows for free will. Personally,
if god does know it all, I would appreciate an answer as to why Paula Abdul was
ever on a panel of judges overseeing a singing competition.
By now the believer
will start arguing along the lines that God's knowledge somehow differs from
knowledge as we know it. Sure, but then it's not what we call
"knowledge", is it? What I'm implying here is that believers don't
really have a clue what they're talking about when they say God is omnipotent or
all-knowing.
Okay, now it’s
wrestle with God's supposed goodness. Given the Judeo-Christian scriptures or
the Koran, it's hard to believe that this deity is universally benevolent. In
the Old Testament (OT) this god is one bloodthirsty SOB who has Hell set up by
the time the New Testament (NT) rolls around. Given the Bible in particular, it
cannot be concluded that God is all-good because conditions exist to acquire
the benefits of God's benevolence. For God to be as wonderful as believers
usually claim, God's benevolence would have to be completely unconditional,
meaning that even atheists would get to go to Heaven if Heaven exists. Although,
can anyone give me an example of any completely unconditional act of
benevolence? Even altruistic people do what they do to make themselves feel
better or score “karma points,” which is their condition for committing to such
acts. Altruistic people, or gods, cannot escape the reasons or conditions for
doing what they do. The notion of love, for example, being ‘unconditional’ is
nonsense.
Because God’s love
is conditional we can infer that any existent god is not unconditionally
benevolent. Duh. This is in fact what makes the notion of believing any
particular religion worthwhile. Belivers of organized religion follow certain
rules in hopes of reaping the benefits of God's love. But if we're all God's
creation as believers claim, why should God choose to be good to some people
and not others? Why not just make life wonderful for everyone or make a world
where it’s impossible to bend His rules? Perhaps the creations are flawed, but then
why would there be a flaw in God's design? This might suggest that the deity in
question is flawed as well unless, well, this is the way the believer’s god
wants things to be. Since suffering exists and we cannot be sure why, God no
longer seems to be such a nice guy. In fact, He seems like a prick.
Theistic objection:
“We suffer because God gave us free will. Free will is really important to God because
He wants you to choose to follow Him.” Let me get this straight; God wants us
to choose to follow Him but if we don’t choose to we have to suffer for it? I
don’t see the logic in a god creating such a situation. It’s the equivalent of
wanting a romantic interest to be with you of their own free will but if they
choose not to be with you, you’re prepared to kill them. Nice.
We're not done just
yet. By what standard is God's goodness judged? For God to be considered good
He must be capable of evil, otherwise He is simply amoral. God can only be good if He is allowed to make choices. If we retread
God's omniscience a moment and are faced with the proposition that ifGod has no
free will, He is not good. Again, if there is no real choice, He is amoral.
Now, if God is good, there must exist
a standard of goodness apart from this divine entity that we are using to come
to the conclusion that this god is good. This would allow atheists to be as
moral as anyone else. If we take the position that this deity is the standard
of goodness (a usual theistic defense) then God may do anything He wants and we
would have to conclude what He does is good despite any evidence to the
contrary. Then, if God did do something
wrong or evil or lied to us, we couldn't know as much because the definition of
God automatically leads us to believe that everything He does is good. Talk
about being able to get away with murder!
Theistic objection:
"Yes, there is evil in the universe, but it is actually all for the
greater good of God's plan." I might buy this if it could be demonstrated that
anyone knows what this ‘plan’ is. If we were planning to rob a bank together
and I told you that for you to be shot and killed by the police was for the
greater good of my plan, it's unlikely that you would go with me on the heist.
Now we turn to God's
appearance. If we could see God what would He look like? Or, if we saw God
would our eyes melt? The monotheistic believers like to think of God on human
terms. They have prescribed Him a gender. So, if God has a penis, we might assume
that He has a face, arms, legs, etc. Although, if God does have a dick, I
wonder why He made Adam first…Anyway, theists do this so that it's easier to
relate to their gods. I mean, how promiscuous was Zeus? Ah, those wacky Greeks.
If God is indeed human-like in appearance, this is a minor concern. All we may
infer from it is that God likely possesses other human like qualities, such as
being the squirrelly boss no one likes.
Epicurus made a
poignant observation about the attributes of God over 2,300 years ago. As he
put it: If God is willing to prevent evil but cannot, God is impotent. If God
is able and not willing, (He) is malevolent. If God is both willing and able,
then why is there evil? The traditional qualities of the monotheistic god as we
have laid them out here are largely not reconcilable with each other. This
doesn’t prevent believers from going through incredible contortions of
reasoning to defend them, however. Of course, the more contorting you have to
do, the more likely you are to lose at Twister.
Is it possible that
the qualities ascribed to God are merely the attributes that people wished they
possessed? Who wouldn't want to know everything or have such incredible power?
People certainly wish they were perfect. However, in failing to be so they have
imagined an idol they can look up to and try to emulate. I suppose in the case
of God, it seems the more perfect people wish they could be, the more
imaginative they really are. Well, it's okay to be imaginative. Being
unrealistic and confused is another matter though, and that's exactly what the
traditionally mentioned deity's definition is. Perhaps believers should come up
with a less confusing and a more likely description of God if they want to be
taken seriously. They should be careful, though. They wouldn't want them to rob
God of His incredible essence, unless of course God is incredible because of His convoluted definition. Well then, that
would be extra hard to believe now wouldn't it?
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