Is God Perfectly Evil? Defending the Depravity of God
Stephen Law writes in the September/October 2005 issue of Skeptical Inquirer a fictional conversation between two aliens in which one tries to convince the other about the existence of a perfectly evil god, using some very familiar arguments:
GIZIMOTH: let’s agree about that, then. God, if he exists, is omnipotent. But here on Eth, those who believe in God also attribute another property to him, don’t they?
BOOBLEFRlP: Yes. As you know, we also believe that God ‘s all-evil.
GIZIMOTH: Can you explain what you mean by that?
BOOBLEFRlP: Not only does God’s power know no bounds, neither does his depravity. His cruelty is infinite; his malice without end.
[...]
GIZIMOTH: But why define God that way? Why not suppose, instead, that God is neither good nor evil? Or why not suppose he is all-good?
(Booblefrip thinks Gizimoth has gone too far.)
BOOBLEFRIP: What a bizarre suggestion. It’s obvious our creator is very clearly evil! Take a look around you! Witness the horrendous suffering he inflicts upon us. The floods. The ethquakes. Cancer. The vile, rotting stench of God’s creation is overwhelming!
Gizimoth naturally points out that life isn’t perfectly evil — after all, there are lots of good things about life, too, right? Booblefrip has an answer to this objection, though:
BOOBLEFRIP: Very well. God’s malevolence is without end. True, he lets us do good. He allows us to act selflessly for the betterment of others, for example. But there’s a reason for that.
GIZIMOTH: What reason?
BOOBLEFRIP: God gave us free will.
GIZIMOTH: Free will?
BOOBLEFRIP: Yes. God could have made us mere automata that always did the wrong thing. But he didn’t do that. He gave us the freedom to choose how we act.
GIZIMOTH: Why?
BOOBLEFRIP: By giving us free will, God actually increased the amount of suffering there is in the world. He made the world far more terrible than it would otherwise have been!
GIZIMOTH: How?
BOOBLEFRIP: Think about it. By giving us free will, God be sure we will agonize endlessly about what we o. For free will brings with it the torture of temptation. And then, when we succumb to temptation, we feel guilty. Knowing that being free, we could have done otherwise, we feel awful about what we have done. e end up torturing ourselves. The exquisitely evil Irony of it all!
Booblefrip’s arguments are obviously ridiculous, but there’s nothing unique about them — they are essentially the same as the arguments used by Christians in defending the idea that the design of the universe points to the existence of a perfectly good God. Booblefrip’s arguments aren’t ridiculous because of the conclusion, they are ridiculous because the “reasoning” is so awful. People will recognize this, though, without understanding that the same is true about the parallel Christian arguments.
This is only a small sampling of the conversation, though — I recommending finding and reading the full piece.
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I managed to find the full text of the article here. The conversation is from page 3 to page 9.
The view that god gave his creations the free will only supports the argument that god is all evil, if such an entity does exis.
Theists believe that god is omniscient. That he knows the past present and the future. If that is the case then he would have known what a a creation of his,like Hitler, was going to do, with the free will granted to him, even before creating Hitler.
In other words god makes criminals knowing very well that they they will cause suffering to others.
Therefore who is more evil? The creator or his creation?
Hello..my name is Jaclyn. I was born and raised in Tennesee. I grew around the most strictest of faith and belief..southern baptist
okay, just making sure that I am making my statement to awaken the world of my reality for the past two years and a half…PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR FALSE PROPHECY OF THE HOLY BIBLE!! Whoever reads this, please spread the word around the world. Anyways, very few people know of my story besides a few doctors and close relatives. I have been humanly tortured in every way imagined possible by some higher power… God! I consider myself to be extremely holy and spiritual. I consider myself to be a extreme peacemaker and the “perfect display of manner that the ” God of the bible” would happily except into heaven “. If you would have came up to me three years ago and told me that I would be looking up and typing about God being evil .. I would have said never… I love God’s perfect law. First of all, let’s get one answer clear…GOD DOES EXIST. but not only does he exist he is exremely, extremely (and I am saying this on behalf of my shouting soul and everything that I have observed in the past two or so years) DAMNED..IN OTHER WORDS EVIL. Look around us, all you will see is human suffering and extreme oppression!I have been extremely, badly, cut on and shocked and mind tortured and i mean this with every truthful bone in my body…WORDS cannot describe to you the suffering and TORTURE that I walk through every day. I am surrounded by voices, which are maybe angels, and they come from all directions, I am not sure how many…And yes , for all you ignorant doctors out there.. I am taking medication for my ” auditory hallucinations ” . anyways back to reaching out to humanity… I was a baptist and now instead of referring to the book of Job, like so many people have told me to, all I know what to say is this…prepare for false prophecy of the holy bible!!!! And whoever reads this…i just got a shock sticking sensation on my thumb, anyways be wise and spread the word…what’s going on with me I would not wish off on any human! Bless you all
The profile of God is of an eternal entity morally perfect and wise with absolute power to do whatever it/he desires and is the maker of everything. It /he desires/demands to be loved, admired, worshiped, knelt before and obeyed for reasons of the preceding qualities. Consider how puerile this is. If you were the father of a young boy or girl you would not say ‘Because I am wiser than you and can do many things that you can not and was responsible for you being here kneel down and worship me’. If you did so, you would be mad. That is absolutely true of the biblical God. Open your eyes and think. At this point, I should point out that the biblical Satan desires the same as God that is for you to kneel down and worship him.
Worship (OE weordhscipe (WORTH, -SHIP)) worthiness, merit, recognition, honour & respect, reverent homage or service paid to God, adoration or devotion, adore as divine etc, etc.
For the purpose of this discussion let us suppose that an entity (God or whoever..the whoever is very important) designed and made/fabricated the Universe and everything in it. Remembering that he is perfect in every way; would he want or desire to make anything that was flawed? Or being God would not all of his works be perfect as he supposedly is? Consider your body. How extremely fallible it is in so many ways. Your reproductive areas (the penis, vagina etc ) are right next to the part of your body that excretes waste matter (faeces). Would you design it like that, are you better than God? If you were living from before 200 years in the past how disgusting it must have been. Even now if society broke down and you had no soap or toilet paper think of how disgusting and smelly you would be.
To be evil, malicious, harmful and a liar means that you are flawed (mad). Would a perfect entity (God) make anything that could become so? And even if he did, would he not remove it instantly if it became so?
Putting aside the naïve, puerile fairy story of Adam and Eve and the garden of Eden. And ignoring the free will nonsense that religious people use to excuse the badness/ugliness of man consider your position. A person that lies, cheats or is malicious, amoral HAS NO FREE WILL. A mad flawed person does not have free will or intelligence (understanding). He/she might be clever (most successful criminals are) but does not have free will. Consider the Islamic religion. If you are a fundamentalist Muslim, you kneel down facing an irrelevant point and pray/worship every day. Think how stupid, puerile and mad this is. Do the people who do that have intelligence or free will? There is no logic in the argument of free will. Does the lion, tiger, leopard, eagle, crocodile, and shark, have free will when it stalks, kills and devours its prey? Does the suicide bomber, the person/soldier killing, raping, torturing, the embezzler, all the ones exploiting others, the thugs and uncaring criminals have free will? No, they do not. They do not have intelligence or free will. According to the so-called Holy writing who is responsible? Where does the buck stop? If you are religious, the answer is God. He is supposedly both all-powerful and perfect in righteousness. How and why does this supposedly perfect entity for a microsecond allow all the evil and badness?
Now you might give the perfect stupid, worthless and puerile reply…God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. If you do, you are both mad and unintelligent and what is more YOU have no free will.