Bane of Monotheism > Single-God Religion > No God > The Problem of Evil > Morality > Free Will > Misc > Links
Atheism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam
By Vexen Crabtree 2011 Apr 17
If God is good in nature and its message is true, and the message of god is important for us, then it holds to reason that a good god would want human beings to know that message. God in its omnipotence can immediately impart the correct knowledge directly into our consciousness. I am sure it also has the know-how to do it in a non-harmful way given that it designed our brains down to the functioning of millions of neuronal connections and neurotransmitters, etc. Put another way: It must be true that we all already know the most-important things that God wants us to know. Whatever various religions, prophets, seekers, mystics and holy spokespeople say is not exactly what God wants us to know. There is no reason for a good god, which wants the truth to be known, to convey important messages to individual human beings, in specific human languages, and allow us to spread the message using our own imperfect communication methods. As soon as people start translating it, explaining it to each other and writing it down then the message becomes reliant upon cultural understanding. It will dilute, get misunderstood, and it is sure that different communities will come to interpret the message differently, leading to schism and confusion, and as history has shown, to violence and bloodshed. Therefore, God's important messages are universal, imparted directly into all of our hearts and minds, and are therefore not made subject to human communications errors. If goodness comes from god, then given their historical mistakes, their culture-specific language, moral shortcomings and the social strife that results from their existence, holy books cannot possibly be from God. The whole idea of cultivating the True Religion via the orally-transmitted stories of itinerant and illiterate preachers such as Jesus and Mohammad, in (often obscure) human languages, is nonsensical.
If God wants someone to know the facts about a particular religion, then God would automatically make that person know. What God wants, God can do, because God is all-powerful. If God is also perfectly good, then if it is right for someone to know something then God will let them know it. If it is right to know something, then, a good God is compelled to let people know it directly.
Evangelism, therefore is pointless. It is senseless for religious adherents to go around telling people about their religious views if they believe in an all-powerful or perfectly good God. An all-powerful good god will want (and can!) give anyone any knowledge it is good for them to have. It is not the job of religious adherents to run around trying to pretend to know what God wants people to know!
The reasons for evangelism are probably more selfish than theological; to do with (1) personal ego, (2) public image and (3) Earthly influence. They think that if they evangelize they will (4) get themselves into heaven and (5) increase their own sense of self-worth (deluded psychology).
But it is obvious that evangelists are going against God's will, if God has a will. If God wanted someone to know something, and it was right for them to know it, God would tell that person directly. There is no point in doing it any other way. The only reason people need to tell each other things about religion is if it is things that God doesn't think it is best for them to know. This absurd state of affairs means that evangelists are least godly, trusting least in the abilities of God to tell people what they need to know!
The fact that God appears not to have given us, as a species, any information about reality (it is all learned) is a big hint that God does not mind what our beliefs are. Based on the evidence, it appears that the correct way, god's way, to discover the truth is to look at the evidence, judge things for ourselves, and to use our brains. In other words, science and skeptical philosophizing appear to be the precise way in which God wants us to learn. We know this from the lack of important-truths which are conveyed to us directly by God.
God really has spoken to various prophets and messengers, and has given them all contradictory messages.
Or
God does not mind what our beliefs are (and therefore religions are trivial) .
The first option has been invoked by some to argue that god itself is evil, and seeks to maximize human conflict:
“Religions that fight each other tend to make their adherents believe in them even more strongly. Group solidarity comes into effect: when you have enemies, you keep a closer grip on your friends and also reinforce your own group identity. So, an evil God would appear to mankind in a variety of guises and preach a number of powerful, but conflicting, religions. It would therefore create maximum confusion, and maximum suffering, through war and intolerance. It would preach to each religion that its followers were right and other followers were wrong! These groups would all wholeheartedly believe that as God (or, the gods) has revealed the truth to them, other religions must be wrong and ungodly. That way, most of the weak, inferior, pathetic people that the evil god creates would fall foul of one religion or another, and be duped! Once duped, they'd cling to the lies even more the stronger because of the existence of competing religions. An evil God, indeed, would do this, and this is exactly the state the world is in. Coincidence? If there is a God, it is surely evil!”
The second option, then, has seen concluded by some religious thinkers: God brings truth to humankind in a series of steps. So, Moses and Abraham were given partial truth, Jesus was then given the next set of revelations, Muhammad the next lot, and finally the Baha'i faith embodies the most recent in the line of Abrahamic religions promulgated by God. Each wave of revelation is given 'when humanity is ready'. This idea has some problems:
Many of the scriptures of previous religions themselves claim to be universal and absolute. The Christian Bible and the Qur'an both demand and assert that nothing can be added or removed to them. This cannot be true, if God plans to later send another prophet.
God, being truthful, should be honest about the fact that it is revealing the truth in stages, and therefore avoid the massive conflicts that emerge when a new religion (i.e., Islam) emerges, as all would know that it was true.
Many of the specific things revealed about god (unity / trinity / obscure / imminent) differ from religion to religion in a haphazard manner; there is no sense in which religion is gradually getting close to the theological truth.
There is little psychological or sociological evidence supporting the idea that we need to be shielded from the truth. Every conceivable position has already been explored if not by philosophers and thinkers, then at least by science fiction authors.
If God had an important message to convey it would not select a single person and whisper into his ear secretly. The fact that people think that God would communicate like this has been the cause of much suffering in history. Cult leaders, false religions and people-who-hear-voices would all be limited in their harm if the common-sense view was taken that human psychology and delusion were the most likely causes.
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© 2011 Vexen Crabtree. All rights reserved.
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