Why Did God Create Atheists?

[Better Believe It]

Why Did God Create Atheists?
If God is real, and religious believers can perceive him... why is anyone an atheist?
By Greta Christina
June 5, 2010

This is a question I always want to ask religious believers. (One of many questions, actually. "What evidence do you have that God is real?" and "Why are religious beliefs so different and so contradictory?" are also high on the list.)

If God is real, and religious believers are perceiving a real entity... why is anyone an atheist? Why don't we all perceive him? If God is powerful enough to reach out to believers just by sending out his thoughts or love or whatever... why isn't he powerful enough to reach all of us? Why is there anyone who doesn't believe in him?

It seems to be a question that troubles many believers as well. At least, it troubles them enough that they feel compelled to respond. And as atheism becomes more common and more vocal, this compulsion to respond seems to be getting more common and more vocal as well.

I've seen a couple of religious responses to this question. Neither of which is very satisfactory. But they keep coming up... so today, I want to take them on.

Please read the full article at:

http://www.alternet.org/belief/147098/why_did_god_create_atheists/

[neverforget]

1. He works in mysterious ways

at least that's what I would have been told when I was Catholic

[rurallib]

21. standard answer #1

[DeSwiss]

26. The MWC:

[neverforget]

27. That's awesome!

"no fault blanket coverage and zero liability for all the bad stuff" :rofl:

[Ruby the Liberal]

2. Free will. n/t

[ZombieHorde]

6. Free will is the sensation we experience when we fail to recognize all of the variables affecting

our lives.

[Deep13]

47. Agreed. Human behavior is as predictable as gravity.

There is no free wiil, only the appearance of it.

[Voluntary1]

9. You cannot have free will with an

omnipotent and omniscient God. It goes directly against the concept of free will since the actions of his creations were already known before hand.

However, religious fundies will disagree.

[ZombieHorde]

11. Good post, and welcome to DU! nt

[Ruby the Liberal]

31. Only Calvinists will agree with this.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

32. Why would you think that?

Are Calvinists the only ones who believe in an omnipotent and omniscient deity?

I sense that you want to say more on the topic, but are reluctant to do so.

[Ruby the Liberal]

34. Calvinism is a strange belief

From what I recall from my college comparative religions class, it maintains that man has no choice over his beliefs and that God picks and chooses his followers. I welcome correction.

Free will is not incompatible with omnipotence and omnipresence. God can be omnipotent (all knowing) and omnipresence (everywhere) while still allowing free will and choice. Just because he knows what an outcome is doesn't mean that he controls the process.

Edit for clarification.

[dmallind]

44. But it is incompatible with omnipotence and omniscience

1) God knows all and can do all
2) God is eternal and unchanging
3) God made us

Few mainstream believers would disagree.

So he not only knows the outcome NOW but knew the outcome before he created humanity. God to be omniscient knew at the instant of creation I would type "u" at the beginning of the word "instant" and have to correct it to an "i" for example. Rather more importantly he also knew at the instant of creation that we would have to deal with cancer, AIDS, tooth decay, and malaria. As well as oil, dictators, fascism and the holocaust.

And being omnipotent he could have made us, and the world, differently. But chose not to. He gave us a nervous system that continues to generate agony long after risk of damage is over (the need for pain to exist in the first place). He gave us teeth that required a million years of human technology before they even had a chance to last our average lifespan. He made far too many of us sociopaths willing to cause death and torture and enslavement of others for their personal gain. And could have done it differently. If he exists, he's a vicious bastard of the highest order. I'm nobody's idea of an altruistic saint and I wouldn't make a world like that. Would you?

Knowledge of the future is not control of it, but it IS when you create the future as well as know it. If God exists as described we can have no free will, because then we would have the ability to do something God did not foresee when he made us - which means he either is not omnipotent or not omniscient.

[Ruby the Liberal]

49. This is why i avoid religious debates.

I erred and hoped to be out of this in in 2 words or less. :)

For some reason, as I read your response, I flashed-back to a thought of a childhood friend whom I had not thought of in years. He died in or around 1976 (I would need to count back) but do recall it was the summer between our 7th and 8th grade years. He died of Leukemia.

I lost another childhood friend in the early 1990s at the pinnacle of his career to AIDS. A vision of him came next.

Then, another in my class died in Iraq a few years ago, leaving behind a wife and 3 kids.

I don't know why they died so young, when people who are downright evil are allowed to live for decades. How much good could they have done in their lives?

Thank you for that - I think. Sadness to recall those memories in such short order.

That said, I do believe that Free Will and Onmi-potence/science are compatible. Imagine a God winding up the world and letting it go on its own time table, without intervention.

I think this is called Deism (I welcome correction).

[dmallind]

51. Partly Deism yes

Deism posits a creator god who is dis-involved in human affairs having set them going. Words like "Providence" are pretty good clues to Deist thought, as the idea of God is one who has provided everything you need and now it's up to you. Deism as far as I have read it (which is interested layman rather than expert level) is pretty much silent on whether God cares one way or the other, so it tends to remove the third "omni" from the traditional triad by not claiming that God is also omni-benevolent. Free will is incompatible with the first two omnis but REALITY is incompatible with all three - your own anecdotes stand as evidence there.

But if I can be persistent just one more time even a Deistic god who is omniscient and omnipotent precludes free will, as he still would have made us and the world this way while having full knowledge of what would happen and then refusing to change anything when he could. You still can't surprise a Deistic god - it's just that he is not involved in your day to day life. To put it in human terms he knows what's going to happen but doesn't care. He still made humanity knowing what your daily life would be if he is all knowing and all powerful.

[blueworld]

33. I'm not a fundie & I disagree

God is aware of all possible choices, but nothing becomes reality until we choose it. Free will.

[Fumesucker]

43. Omniscience and omnipotence means that god already knows what choices you will make..

Which means that everything you do is preordained.

If god wanted it different then he/she/it would make it so.

[Nihil]

45. I disagree as well.

> Omniscience and omnipotence means that god already knows what choices you
> will make.

If you believe that God already knows all of the potential choices and
all of the potential results (the "omniscient" bit) then you are still
free to make your choice ("free will") without impacting the ability of
A.N.Other to know the end result of that choice.

As the previous poster stated:
>> God is aware of all possible choices, but nothing becomes reality
>> until we choose it. Free will.

Omniscience is not incompatible with free will any more than knowing that
a coin has a head, a tail and an edge somehow undermines the random event
of tossing it.

Omnipotence however *might* be incompatible with free will (depending on
whether the "override" aspect is used to change the otherwise defined set
of results from an action).


(Not saying that I particularly believe in this view of God but just that
it isn't necessarily incompatible.)

[Fumesucker]

48. Roger Waters sings it like it is....

What God wants, God gets..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9146L7s74Bw

[jgraz]

50. Omniscience plus omnipotence is logically impossible for a god

If a god is omniscient, then he already knows everything he's ever going to do or think. In other words, he can never change his mind, hence, no omnipotence.

Actually, omniscience alone is logically impossible since it introduces an infinite regress of self-reflection.

[demosincebirth]

17. I agree.

[The Straight Story]

3. Answer: God did not create robots.

And why do we humans create things the way we do, and will AI or any of the biological things we create ever deny we exist or wonder why we don't control them more?

[Fuzz]

5. Why do so many theists seem like robots then?

;)

[The Straight Story]

7. Because he did create the code, and they found it and running the program

;)

[skepticscott]

13. But we are beings fully capable

of perceiving and comprehending the existence of god, if he actually did exist, while the same cannot be said of any our creations re us.

[ZombieHorde]

4. I just read this article on Google news.

I sometimes tell people, If God wanted me to believe in him, he would have given me the capacity to do so.

[skepticscott]

8. Or, alternatively

he would provide unequivocal evidence of his own existence, instead of crafting the universe to look exactly as it would if he didn't exist.

[ZombieHorde]

10. "instead of crafting the universe to look exactly as it would if he didn't exist"

Exactly.

[myrna minx]

15. Precisely.

[and-justice-for-all]

12. god did not create anything...nt

[aquart]

14. Because God gets sick of ass kissers.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[skepticscott]

20. Uh, the moderator moved it here

Who else could move a thread? Not really a better question after all.

And even worse than I thought, since it got wiped.

[Zoeisright]

18. I'll believe in miracles when someone regrows a severed limb.

And if there is a god, why doesn't he show himself? What's the big secret?

[skepticscott]

19. Well, the funny thing is

that in a lot of religious traditions (including the Judeo-Christian one), god(s) used to show themselves much more prominently and unequivocally (if you believe the stories), and those who encountered them had no doubt about the experience. But strangely enough, those times were always in the distant past.

[rurallib]

22. makes me think of Epicurus' question on god(s)

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call call him God?"

[SidDithers]

23. Why does God hate amputees?...nt

Sid

[madrchsod]

24. and what god may that be?

actually i have no idea if god does exist and i really do`t care.

[LARED]

25. God likes a good joke nt

[doc03]

28. Why did God create all those born again

selfish, narrow minded, bigoted right wing assholes?

[Scuba]

29. I prefer to ask these two questions:

1. If prayer works, why don't we have Peace on Earth?

2. Why does god need so much money?

[Better Believe It]

30. And why does God takes sides in sports?

Some athletes seem to think so. If they do really well or win a game they thank God for that accomplishment.

Is that because they prayed harder than other teams or participants?

If they lose should the devil be blamed or do they just need to pray more and harder next time?

[Scuba]

39. Excellent. I'll add that one to my list....

I recall The Onion had a headline a couple years ago that read "Kurt Warner blames God for six Interceptions". Too funny.

[blueworld]

35. God didn't create atheists, their parents did

God created everything, including life. Parents create children & those children choose to be atheists or not.

Why do fundamentalist atheists spend so much time trying to "cure" believers of a power the atheists don't approve of anyway? Is spiritual belief an abomination in the eyes of atheism?

It's like watching the religious fundies try to cure homosexuality because they think it's abomination in the eyes of God (so to speak). Exhausting & silly, IMO, unless someone drives traffic to their site with flame war topics.

My atheist friends & I get along quite well & don't feel the need to attack or convert each other constantly. Wish I could say the same about those opposite extremes in the blogosphere. If we spent this much energy on curing cancer, we'd get somewhere.

[skepticscott]

36. Homosexuality is part of who someone is

Religious belief is a freely made choice. Care to try a different analogy?

Personally, I'm not interested in "curing" religionists at all. They can have fun with their sky daddy and their supernatural fantasies to their hearts content, for all I care. I'm interested in keeping the tenets of their religions from being imposed on others in the form of misguided and idiotic public policy.

And if you're going to toss around the dopey propaganda phrase "fundamentalist atheists", I suggest you tell us all what that means, and what is "fundamentalist" about a lack of belief in gods.

[ZombieHorde]

37. Debating ideas is a good thing. nt

[struggle4progress]

38. I don't understand the question

I suppose I'm not very good at this, but it seems to me you are asking a pseudo-question, having no answer anyone could do anything with. Such pseudo-questions are cheap and easy to manufacture: you can probably produce a gross for less than a penny, so the unit cost is less than a mil and a half, and they're probably not even actually worth that

[laconicsax]

40. Huh.

So a question without a useful answer isn't a real question?

Has it ever occurred that asking a question can be useful in itself?

[laconicsax]

41. I think the obvious answer is a matter of which came first.

Atheists have existed far longer than any god that humanity has imagined and will exist well after the last supernatural sockpuppet is forgotten.

'God' didn't create atheists, an atheists created a 'God.'

[LAGC]

42. That's very true -- atheists created God.

At one point in humanity's history, there must have been someone who grew up not believing (as religion is a learned phenomenon, they aren't born with any preconceived beliefs, they are taught) who invented the very first gods and goddesses as a way to explain nature that humanity knew so little about back then.

As Voltaire once said, "Even if there is no God, it would be necessary for mankind to invent him."

And here we are today.

[Deep13]

46. He's just kind of goofy like that. nt