The Contradiction Christians Never Seem to Understand...

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Every man is the artisan of his own fortune.
(Appius Claudius)
Whenever I go into chat rooms and discuss religion with a Christian, I like to bring up arguments that were very persuasive to me during my transition from theism to atheism. In my own mind of my own faculty I conceived of several serious theological questions and was relieved to see all of them on the Internet in one form or another when I finally got online--I wasn't the only one who saw such problems.

One of the arguments I bring up constantly is the now classic Free Will vs. Omniscience/Omnipotence contradiction. I keep it dumbed down, of course. I doubt high-level logical deduction on this subject would have meant much to me. For the fledgling atheist, however, the message is quite clear: I thought along the same lines. Keep questioning.

Christians, on the other hand, never seem to get it... I can go over the basic premise three times and if they do finally get it, they give me a "We're not meant to understand" or "The Lord works in mysterious ways..." Take note boys and girls: this is what we call a "cop-out". If you find your faith flawed at the core, just ignore the problem and spout out those little phrases you've heard the Reverend use a thousand times.

Here's my version of the argument. I always pose the same question:"Why would your god allow billions to exist, including me, if he knew we would end up in hell for eternity?" That's it. It's a valid, vitally important theological question. Unfortunately, some people don't quite get it. I hear,"We all make choices in life, and must accept the consequences," or the tug-at-the-heartstrings version,"Your choice saddens the Lord, but it was your choice."

This is where I hit a brick wall, so Christians try to understand: If God knows all things, he already knew the end result of my choice, my free will, eons ago, long before I was born. Amazingly, while atheists nod their heads in perfect understanding, Christians usually give me the chat room equivalent of a confused stare, or the exact same responses given above (they give me each of them once over the course of any conversation).

So if God knows my fate is eternal suffering (for some petty crimes), then why, oh why, would he allow me to exist? No free will cop-outs here. If God set everything into motion, all of human history up to and around my birth, determining my physical mind and surroundings of influence, then my "choice", my "free will" is set by factors outside my control. My mind and surroundings are supposedly part of the divine plan, so the divine plan must be for me to disbelieve. God becomes responsible.

Let me just defuse some counterpoints here, because this type of logical thinking is often lost on chat room Christians.

First of all, no, God does not simply know the future without influencing it. This would make a good argument if it weren't for the fact that theists credit their god with making the universe and butting in on occasion. If I could magically know what Bob's future would be, but didn't tell Bob and treated him exactly as I otherwise would, Bob would still have his free will. I did not, however, create the universe with full knowledge beforehand of Bob's life and choices, or influence history knowing precisely how it would affect the future Bob.

Second, I hear a lot of junk about love, like this from my Feedback page:
[I]n order for love to exist, so must free will. Without the freedom to refuse, love cannot exist (it is impossible to force someone to love). Therefore, God's omniscience does not make Him responsible for our refusal of him. Freedom must exist or love cannot. The Bible says that even though God knows who will accept Him and who will reject Him, He does not force us to make one decision or another.
This is ludicrous. I posit that under the Judeo-Christian and Islamic philosophy, love of this kind cannot exist. If I could sum up, using some of this Christian's paragraph: God made everything, he knows exactly who will accept him and who will reject him, and being omnipotent he could have made things differently, right? Couldn't he have made a universe where I was never born at all, but everything else is the same? Couldn't he have made one where all people "freely" choose to believe and love him? So I ask again: Why did this deity create a universe where billions are condemned to eternal, horrible suffering? God may not "make" people love him, whatever that means, but he knew when he set it up exactly who would love him, and could have set it all up differently so that a different group of people would love him.

If a deity knows all things in the past, present, and future, and creates a universe, he becomes responsible for everything that happens in it. He knew what was going to happen, didn't he? He didn't just stumble upon this universe and decide to fill the role of Deity-in-Chief.

I tend to think of it all with the same contempt I have for the term "unwanted pregnancy". It sounds like some horrible affliction affecting unsuspecting people. Oh really? That's terrible! Do you have any idea how you got it? The same applies here, with the god whose hands are tied and who must send billions off to be brutally tortured. How unfortunate! Oh if only we knew who set up this cruel system and that awful place called Hell! Yes, Lord, I shed tears alongside you for the poor unfortunate wretches! If only someone could have prevented them from ever being born! Damn the orchestrator of this cruel existence!

If a deity knows all, has unlimited power and creates the universe, he is not only responsible for what happens but, necessarily, everything that occurs is because he decided it would. In this universe, if it is indeed run by a god, my mind, my thinking processes, my surroundings of influence, and my destiny were set over 15 billion years ago.

According to basic Judeo-Christian and Islamic philosophy, not only did he slant the playing field so that I will disbelieve, but he planned for it and let me exist in spite of it. What cruelty. Inexcusable cruelty. Would a just deity punish someone for his "god-given" skepticism? Evidently.

To a fledgling atheist, some years ago, the choice was clear: Either God was cruel, he didn't know everything, or he wasn't all-powerful. The argument is solid, and the question begs an answer: "Why would your god allow billions to exist, including me, if he knew we would end up in hell for eternity?" Perhaps an even better question would be: "Why would your god make billions exist, including me, if he planned for us to end up in hell for eternity?"

I've never heard a response that didn't sound like contrived rhetoric, but that's true of most theist refutations. How unfortunate! If only I could blame a creator for his followers' obstinateness...

Credit goes to one Jesse Perry (see quote cited above) for inspiring me to expand upon this particular subject, my favorite.

Language Note: "Obstinateness", not "obstinance", is the correct noun form of "obstinate"--you can look it up.

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