People who worship the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God use the concept of free will to justify the inaction of their god in the presence of suffering, injustice, war, and evil. On the one hand they believe they can influence the mind of their god through prayer, praise, and certain rituals that differ according to the concept of god they hold to be the correct one. On the other hand, they claim that their god gave us free will, and it is up to people to change things.
A god who does nothing to influence matters in the world cannot be discerned, and therefore we can have no knowledge of such a god. Looked at this way, that type of god is more of an invisible observer than a participant in this universe. But a god who does something to help somone who gives him/her sufficient worship, whilst allowing others to be tortured to death is a deeply flawed god, with the morals of a selfish child.
What are we to become with such an example – are we to we favour those who praise us and ignore the suffering of those who don’t know us, or fail to praise us enough? Are we to punish those who snub us with unending torture? Are we to condemn forever those who do not believe in us, from the example more than once quoted in the Bible “… he that believeth not shall be damned”. (Mark 16:16, John 3:18)
So much for turning the other cheek… Christians often claim the bible as a guide to moral behaviour. But if we were to take our code of morality from the god of the old testament, the slavery condoning warlord, the one who, according to his own book, sent Moses to kill babies, (Numbers 31:1-35) or even the less warlike god of the new testament, we would be harsh and cruel.
Believing in a god who answers prayers of believers and worshippers means believing in a deeply flawed god. Taking your moral stance from such a god would make a deeply flawed person.
But we are not, as a rule, like that. Atheists, Christians, Muslims, and Jews are not like that. We are all, save for a few twisted individuals, better than that. With this in mind, the faithful have to know, if they think about their beliefs at all, that they know better than the god they worship, what is right, and what is wrong, and that they have higher ideals than the god they worship – they are not so cruel, not so unthinking, not so inhumane, and they have a sense of justice that would not punish someone forever for any crime, no matter what the crime. And if they had the power to do so, unlike the god they worship, they would stop torture, end cancer, get rid of the parasitic worms that blind hundreds of thousands in Africa every year, end AIDS, stop priests, mullahs, and rabbis from abusing children, and they would make this world a better place.
by
John Bremner
Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats’ defied political convention with a frank admission that he is an atheist back in 2007 when he became party leader.
A “militant atheist” who left explicit images in a prayer room at Liverpool John Lennon Airport has been given a six-month suspended sentence. He was also given a five-year ASBO at which point Harry Taylor claimed he felt faint after he was told by Judge Charles James his crimes deserved imprisonment and ruled he should pay £250 in costs.