PURPOSE:

I’m here tonight to present and discuss with you quite a few simple questions and problems some non-believers may have with religious beliefs, more particularly Christianity. Now, I know that I can’t change your mind for only you can do that. I simply hope that during this presentation, you'll think seriously and deeply about what we reveal through investigation and critical thought. During this presentation I will reveal a few problems with believing literally in the Bible and the problem with supernatural thinking. I first and foremost hope that this presentation will create a greater understanding between the worlds of belief and non-belief and erase many of the stigmas attached to atheism.

Throughout my presentation tonight, I’m going to present to you a myriad of difficulties I see with religious faith, God’s attributes, the spirit/soul concept, Satan, Miracles, Heaven, the Garden of Eden, the problem of evil and eventually, why non-belief is justified. Hopefully, we'll have time to take questions afterward.

PRESENTATION:

God's Attributes:

In my transition to developing a more critical mind, I was surprised to learn that even people that went to the same church and claimed the exact same faith all had different concepts of God. In fact, I often hear many of the faithful refer to God as quote, “my God.” I soon realized that, when discussing the existence or non-existence of the god concept, the first thing I should have done was ask for their definition of god. Some say, “God of the Bible.” That is NOT a definition. That’s a description of a type of god. God is a position, a title. Yahweh is the Christian God’s proper name. “The creator of all things,” doesn’t really work either for many assume a single conscious creator. Could there be more than one god? One word many of these religions all have in common, however, is Faith. Since one cannot really prove a god exists, one must rely on Faith, which I will discuss later. The God concept is much like an open-ended hypothesis with no consistent results to make a proper conclusion.

We must ask about the characteristics of a god and which particular concept of god is right. If I told you, “The Great Bloomy Bloogerty” (let’s call it BB for short) is the underlying foundation of all electrical force, wouldn’t you want more information about the great BB? I’d hope so. Those that don't know any better wouldn't even consider critically analyzing the claim of the great BB because at first glance, it appears to "necessarily" fill a gap of knowledge. Claiming the great BB is the foundation of all electrical force explains nothing without proof and explanation. Neither does a god. The great BB would be nothing more than something someone made up. It sounds nice, but that doesn’t make it true. For example: Most of us here, would doubt there is such an entity as The Bacterial Vaginosis demon. This wouldn't have been the case just three hundred years ago. Sadly, even today, many faith-healers claim that demons cause human disease even though we see and know what causes these various ailments.

Let’s talk about a few of the Christian God’s attributes:

· Omniscience – All knowing

· Omnipotence – All powerful

· Omnibenevolence – All Good

· Omnipresence – All everywhere (and some believe everything)

Let’s look at omniscience. If God is all knowing, why make any thing at all? God would simply have to know, before someone was even created, that they would displease him. Right? But wait, how can God be displeased in the first place if he is all-knowing?

Well known Creationist, Kent Hovind once said on my radio program, “The Creator is trying desperately to get your attention.” An all-powerful being can’t get my attention? Once again, this displays how man makes God in our image. A God, one would think, doesn’t need to “try” and shouldn’t be “desperate”?

The Bible also depicts God as having emotions. But one must ask, “How can God have emotions since emotions for the most part are reactionary?” Emotions aid in our survival. God needs emotions? Surely we agree that we get sad, because (in many cases) an event occurred unexpectedly that saddened us and/or made life more difficult for us. Well, a God can’t get sad can it? An omniscient God would have to have known what series of events would occur before they even happened. Some, at this point, would argue that God gives us free-will and it saddens him because of the decisions we make. If this were true, then God is NOT all-knowing. Some believers actually accept that God isn't all-knowing. We'll talk about that later.

Saddness: If a God doesn’t want to be saddened, simply don’t put in motion those events that you are 100% certain will cause you sadness. But wait, how can anything sadden a God? This could only mean that something has occurred beyond God’s control. In which case God cannot be omnipotent. Again, we can go back to the free will argument, but surely God would know the decisions of his freewill agents before he even made them. Again, no surprise. No need for sadness when he is responsible for how human volition unfolded and also knew errorlessly, the results. Some have tried to argue around this by stating that everything is one moment to God. The problem with this is that this concedes that God is limited in some way. That he is powerless to change "the moment". In fact, God couldn't have created the Universe since there is no "moment" in which to create. We have always existed if one argues this.

Now... there are some camps that believe that God is ignorant in varying respects. These people are called open-theists. I have run into two kinds of open-theists. One camp believes God doesn't know anything at all with absolute certainty. The other camp believes that only when it comes to man’s freewill, God is ignorant. God, somehow, purposefully makes himself not know man’s destiny so that he can allot man freewill. Open theists assert that even though God doesn’t know our freewill decisions absolutely, that he still somehow is all-knowing in regards to the rest of the Universe. Two quick difficulties with both of these ideas are prophecy and freewill itself. If God doesn’t know man’s future, how can things be prophesied? It is my contention that the Christian would have to drop the idea of fulfilled prophecy to accept open-theism. Freewill itself causes huge problems for the second type of Open Theism. God purposefully doesn’t allow himself to know man’s will yet he has a plan for the Universe simultaneously? This is problematic. Example: God has a plan to allow meteor A to crash into meteor B. He knows this is going to happen because he has foreseen it. Of course, he had to see this without man in the picture because he doesn’t know man’s freewill. C, which represents man, decides to alter the course of meteor B. A, can no longer crash into meteor B, thus, God’s plans were thwarted by man. If open theism were true, God couldn't have set plans without man interfering in his plans. Unless of course God wants man to interfere with his plans. But wouldn’t that still be “his” plan? If so, man has no true freewill, they only feel as if they do. Absolute open-theists, the first type I mentioned, as long as they aren't Christian theists do indeed avoid both of these dilemmas. However, their type of God is reduced to nothing more than an advanced alien and that isn't very palatable to most believers in a transcendent deity.

Now let's look at the emotion Anger. In Christian theism, the Bible depicts that God gets angry. Why do we get angry in the first place? Do we not get angry merely because something unexpected has occurred beyond our control? Are we not reacting to external stimuli when we get angry? Something, outside of ourselves, is causing us to react. After all, we are limited / physical beings... so why does God get angry? He didn’t know certain events were about happen? An angry God doesn't make much sense when you consider my analogy: Let's assume I genetically engineered my son with an affinity to like sweet foods. Now, I place a box of cookies before him and I order him to not eat the cookies. I walk away and when I return, he's eating the cookies. Wouldn't I be the jerk, if I was angered in anyway or even punished him for eating the cookies? His very nature dictated that he'd eat those cookies despite my orders. Not to mention, a god would also possess omniscience (all-knowingness). So, before even baking the cookies or creating my son, I'd know that my son would eventually eat the cookies based on the very nature I gave him. Odd isn't it? Why tell your child NOT to do something when you know absolutely they will do it anyway? Some have tried to argue that we do this to teach our kids a lesson, a kind of , "I told you so" lesson. That maybe next time, they'll listen and obey and understand that there are punishments and/or consequences for improper actions. This doesn't work though for a God. Because God could have simply created better humans without so many flaws. According to the Bible story, the first two people in the world he made exceedingly good in a perfect paradise. They had no needs, no wants. Or did they? God created them with curiosity, the ability to be confused, to doubt, to be ignorant. Yes ignorant. Consider this, God didn't even warn them about the Serpent! Then, when they "sinned", God seemed shocked! Angered. God handed out punishments left and right as if disobeying him was the greatest offense ever. He himself, contributed to their demise! Odd that a God would get angered over such a happening when he orchestrated it. I have more to say about Adam and Eve later.

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