By Chad Docterman
Taken from:
The Atheist Soapbox (a web-page that has now been taken down)
Published by permission from the author
1.Introduction
2.Perfection
seeks even more perfection
3.Perfection
begets imperfection
4.God
knowingly creates suffering
5.Infinite
punishment for finite sins
6.Belief
more important than actions
7.Perfection's
imperfect revelation
8.The
Omniscient changes the future
9.The
Omniscient is surprised
10.The
conclusion of the matter
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 because the very
nature Christians
attribute to this God is self-contradictory.
Proving a universal negative
Many Christians, as
well as atheists, claim that it 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.
But the claim that
omniscience is needed to prove a universal negative
presumes that the
concept which we are discussing is logically coherent. If
the attributes which
we assign to a hypothetical object or being are
self-contradictory,
then we can conclude that it cannot exist, and therefore
does not exist. I
do not need a complete knowledge of the universe to
prove that cubic spheres
do not exist. Such objects have mutually-exclusive
attributes which make
their existence impossible. A cube, by definition,
has 8 corners, while
a sphere has none. These properties are completely
incompatible -- they
cannot be held simultaneously by the same object.
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 is an impossibility.
Defining YHWH
Christians 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 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.
One verse which many
Christians are fond of quoting says that atheists are
fools. I intend to
show that the above concepts of God are completely
incompatible, and
reveal the impossibility of all of them being held
simultaneously by
the same being. There is no foolishness in denying the
impossible. Foolishness
is worshipping an impossible God.
Perfection seeks even more perfection
What 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, it is complete -- it
needs nothing else.
We humans engage in activities because we are
pursuing the elusive
perfection, because there is disequilibrium caused by
a difference between
what we are and what we want to be. If God is
perfect, there can
be no disequilibrium. There is nothing he needs, nothing
he desires, and nothing
he must or will do. A God who is perfect does
nothing except exist.
A perfect creator God is impossible.
Perfection begets imperfection
But, for the sake of
argument, let's continue. Let us suppose that this perfect
God did create the
universe. Humans were the crown of his creation, since
they were created
in God's image and had the ability to make decisions.
However, these humans
spoiled the original perfection by choosing to
disobey God.
What!? If something
is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it.
Someone once said
that bad fruit cannot come from a good tree, yet this
"perfect" God created
a "perfect" universe which was rendered imperfect
by the "perfect" humans.
The ultimate source
of imperfection is God. 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. A perfect God who creates imperfect
humans is impossible.
The Freewill Argument
The Christians' objection
to this argument involves freewill. They say that
a being must have
freewill to be happy. The omnibenevolent 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 the 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. A perfect and omnipotent
God who creates beings
capable of ruining their own happiness is
impossible.
Second, 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.
Third, God supposedly
has freewill, and yet he does not make imperfect
decisions. If humans
are miniature images of God, 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 imperfections in the universe
disproves the supposed
perfection of its creator.
All-good God knowingly creates future
suffering
God is omniscient.
When he created the universe, he saw the sufferings
which 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 better
for those humans to never have 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 the
humans were doomed to eternal suffering. A perfectly
compassionate being
who creates beings which he knows are doomed to
suffer is impossible.
Infinite punishment for finite sins
God is perfectly just,
and yet he sentences the imperfect humans he created
to infinite suffering
in hell for finite sins. Clearly, a limited offense 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
injust. 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 action
Consider 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 revelation
The 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 what 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 justice
One 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 fathers 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
hands of Yahweh.
Contradictory history
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 prophecy
The 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 willfully 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 fulfillment 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 future
A God who knows the
future is powerless to change it. An omniscient God
who is all-powerful
and freewilled is impossible.
A God who knows everything
cannot have emotions. The Bible says that
God experiences all
of the emotions of humans, including anger, sadness,
and happiness. We
humans experience emotions 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.
We humans experience
anger and frustration when something is wrong
which we cannot fix.
The perfect, omnipotent God, however, can fix
anything. Humans experience
longing for things we lack. The perfect God
lacks nothing. An
omniscient, omnipotent, and perfect God who
experiences emotion
is impossible.
I have offered arguments
for the impossibility, and thus the non- existence,
of the Christian God
Yahweh. No reasonable and free thinking individual
can accept the existence
of a being whose nature is as contradictory as that
of Yahweh, the "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.
© Chad Docterman,
1996