Johnny Skeptic

I agree. Let's follow the evidence. God injures and kill innocent animals. God deliberately withholds food from people who starve to death, including some of his most devout and faithful followers. James says that if a man refuses to give food to hungry people, he is vain, and his faith is dead. This means that God is vain, that he is a hypocrite, and that he is not compassionate. If feeding hungry people is a worthy goal, it is a worthy goal for humans and for God. In addition, God destroys lots of food supplies with hurricanes and locusts. God kills people with hurricanes. From a Christian perspective, there is no such thing as a natural disaster. God makes people blind, deaf, and dumb, reference Exodus 4:11. God punishes people for sins that their ancestors committed, reference Exodus 20:5. God ordered the death penalty for a Jew who killed a Jew, but not for a Jew who killed a slave. God provides information to some people who he knows will reject it, and withholds information from some people who he knows will accept it. No particular person can ever ask God for a specific tangible necessity of life and be assured that he will receive it. If God does not exist, the only consistent benefits that anyone could ever be assured that they would receive would be subjective spiritual benefits.

If God exists, if he were mentally incompetent, how would he act any differently than he acts now? The correct answer is, not any differently at all. No being who helps people AND kills people is mentally competent. Under our legal system, many of God's actions and allowances are punishable by life in prison or death.

For decent people, choice is not involved. Jesus said that in order for a man to become saved, he must love God with all of his heart, soul, and mind. That is the rules. Good moral conduct alone cannot cause a man to become saved. If you believed that God told lies, you would not be able to love him, and no matter what your moral conduct was such as not lying, stealing, and killing, you would go to hell. Choice would not be involved. Decent people are not able to love God because he has committed numerous atrocities against mankind that are much worse than lying is. You have somehow been able to abandon your principles and morals in God's case and accept atrocities that you would never accept if any other being committed them. If God wishes to impose impossible conditions upon skeptics, that is his choice, but decent people do not have any choice in the matter. God's character is the fundamental issue, not the character of humans. No belief system is any better than the foundation upon which it is built. The foundation of the Bible is the supposed good character and perfection of God. If the foundation is faulty, then the entire Bible is a fraud. God should not ask people to love him when he treats them so badly, and frequently breaks his own rules. No matter what arguments you use against humans, I will bring up God's poor character. A web definition for the word "atrocity" is "The quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane." God most certainly fits that definition.

Do you believe that people who have cancer should ask God to heal them? If they do ask God to heal them of cancer, would you be surprised if God healed some of them? Do you believe that amputees should ask God for new limbs? If they do ask God for new limbs, would you be surprised if he gave some of them new limbs? If God distributes tangible benefits, he frequently distributes them to people who are not in greatest need, including to some evil people who never become Christians, and frequently withholds them from people who are in greatest need, including some of his most devout and faitfful followers. This suggests that there is not a reasonably provable correlation between receiving tangible benefits from God and what a person's worldview and character are. If that is true, then no one should ever expect God to provide them with a tangible benefit based upon their prayers and/or their good character. Of course, the best conclusion is that all tangible benefits are distributed entirely at random according to the laws of physics. That is to be expected if God does not exist. If he does not exist, it is also to be expected that many animals would enjoy more tangible benefits than some of his most devout and faithful followers do.