The Antitheist

Last night I engaged in a very interesting debate with my girlfriend, who for purposes of unnecessary confidentiality I’ll call Sophie. Sophie and I started off our discussion on the subject of whether or not atheists (or anyone, really) should push their views onto others. Sophie pointed out that believers oftentimes irritated me, and that I spoke very negatively of them when none were around. I had to agree with her. I told her that I was still struggling to find equilibrium between allowing others to believe whatever they want, regardless of how I feel about it, and actively trying to change their minds about beliefs they hold that I feel are mistaken.

Sophie went on to say that atheism was a belief in the way the world worked, and had to be held with just as much faith as any religious conviction. I found myself unable to recall what I’d read in this article or others on the topic at the time, so I didn’t hold my own very well on that, but we did continue to go back and forth on it. We tussled round and round on the issue, trying to clarify ourselves and make our points as clear as possible. Sophie continued to make the statement that atheism was a belief, to which I repeatedly replied that it wasn’t. I used a few classic analogies: If atheism is a belief, then not playing chess is a hobby; atheism is to belief what bald is to hair color; and so on. She changed her tune a bit to point out that she wasn’t talking about all atheism, just my atheism. Now we were on a different track. She switched from the word belief—which she correctly noted is a loaded term—to paradigm, and I felt much less like we were arguing when that happened. Atheism is a paradigm, just as religious belief is. We finally narrowed things down to a set of succinct points, which I’ll attempt to illuminate below.

Sophie’s ultimate idea was that I wasn’t just passively saying that I didn’t believe in God. Atheism is a big part of my life. It’s a part of my identity. And through my actions and my writings I continuously make it clear that I very fervently believe not only that I don’t have a reason to believe in God, but that I have reasons to believe there isn’t a God. I countered back, saying that I didn’t hold any such beliefs; that as many of my beliefs about the world as reasonably can be examined had been examined, and I was living a life in which I actively strove to learn the truth about the world. But it was a losing battle, and I knew it.

Because what I realized, ultimately, was that she was right.

She drew the following brilliant analogy: I have a map in my mind. This map dictates how I look at the world, how I understand and solve problems, and how I interpret what sort of actions I should take. It’s the roadmap for my life. When I was a Catholic, I had a huge “Catholic City” on my map, and all roads connected to and wove through that locale. When I began the process of deconverting and eventually adopted the mantle of “atheist” (which, as I’ve stated before, was a label I deliberately chose for myself), I changed a few of the roads on the outskirts and swapped out a street sign here or there, but in the end all I did was remove “Catholic City” from the map and replace it with “Atheist City”. She leveled this final accusation at me: despite my claims of neutrality on the issue, I put huge amounts of energy and effort into disproving religion where I can, rather than letting it exist until it interferes with my life. I am not a passive atheist. I am an active one.

And that’s true, I realized. Where I am intellectually is not the same as where I am emotionally. On an intellectual level, I am a “weak” atheist. I do not feel that I have any good reason to believe in God or other supernatural things, so I don’t. If evidence comes to light to the contrary, then I’ll consider it openly, and change my mind if the circumstances warrant. But emotionally, I’m a “strong” atheist. I feel strongly that God does not exist, that God cannot exist. I have reasons to hold this belief, but it is a belief, and there is some amount of—dare I say it?—faith involved in taking that stance. I want to line up these two aspects of myself, but for now, I remain unable to do so. It is as she said: my map still has “Atheist City” on it, and I pursue the spread of atheism in a similar manner to the way I pursued the spread of Catholicism.

All the fervor with which I lived my Catholic life was simply transferred to my atheist life. I recall that when I first decided I was an atheist, I desperately sought out companionship and community. I talked to all of my friends about their religious beliefs. I read hundreds of pages of atheist blogs. I started my own atheist blog, to give myself a voice with which to seek out others. As a Catholic I had a very strong support network. As an atheist, I have pretty much nothing. Nothing that compares, anyway. And while part of me doesn’t mind so much—no more obligations to do things that I don’t want to do every Sunday—part of me misses that sense of belonging to a bigger group. Perhaps my urge to evangelize my atheism is derived from a desire to obtain that sense of community again.

The reasons why my mental and emotional states do not line up are not fully understood, at least by me, but I do have a thought or two. One is that I simply don't know any other way to be. Given the fact that I developed most of my coping mechanisms, mental processing techniques, and other such intellectual devices within the confines of dogma, it’s not surprising that I would struggle to find other ways to analyze problems and events. Another possibility is that I’m acting in this manner as a response to my past life as a Catholic. I was so deeply embroiled in the Catholic world… and now I’m out. I suspect the strength of my aversion and distaste for spirituality in general and Catholicism in particular is an attempt to put as much distance between my past self and my present self as possible. Much like the college-bound rebellious teen with strict parents, I want to be everything that the forces that once controlled me aren’t. I want to be the anti-Catholic. The anti-religious. The anti-believer.

The antitheist, if you will.

But what’s so wrong with that? Tolerance is still important to me. I would never want someone to think that I will not tolerate them simply because of what they believe. Yet my actions do not correspond to what I just said, at times. I occasionally make fun of or mock believers, as if I’m better than them. This is wrong, and I need to stop doing it. Those instances are few and far between; for the most part I am very courteous to believers when I talk or debate with them. I suppose in the end it comes back to the point at which the whole debate with Sophie began: I am still trying to find a balance between letting others have their beliefs and trying to dissuade them from holding what I’ve concluded are incorrect understandings of the world. I made a similar counterpoint to Sophie about politics—she’s very active politically—to the following tune: why do you try to convince the other side that they’re wrong? Shouldn’t you just let them believe what they believe? They have votes, she countered. Ah, I replied, but so do believers, and believers use their beliefs to determine how their votes will be cast. I feel that the differences between these two things are minimal; political beliefs can and often are held with as much zealotry as any religious creed.

The bottom line here (for I do so love bottom lines): I am a much more active atheist than I realized. Sophie showed me that. I’ve made atheism a part of who I am, a part of my identity, a part of how I see myself. I am Dale. I am an atheist. Where I still need to reflect and grow in understanding is in the realm of expressing that atheism to others, and what role it plays in my life. More contemplation is necessary on this. Stay tuned.

ADDENDUM: I asked my dear Sophie to read over this piece for me and give me her feedback. Despite my best efforts to recreate our argument in full, I unfortunately misrepresented what she said on a few points, and I wanted to be sure that I did not put words in her mouth. Here is what she told me, in her own words.

Quote: "Sophie went on to say that atheism was a belief in the way the world worked, and had to be held with just as much faith as any religious conviction."

That's not what I said or meant to say. I recognized a large difference in degree. Maybe I didn't communicate that thoroughly.

Quote: "I used a few classic analogies: If atheism is a belief, then not playing chess is a hobby; atheism is to belief what bald is to hair color; and so on. She changed her tune a bit to point out that she wasn’t talking about all atheism, just my atheism."

My response to this was that you weren't just not engaging in religion, you were actively engaging in anti-religion. And I wasn't talking just specifically about your atheism, but about your flavor of atheism. And I didn't change my tune. I clarified.

Moral Relativism, or Why Everything Isn't OK

I discovered something interesting tonight, and it has me thinking more than usual. Which is saying a lot, since I spend quite a bit of time thinking. I learned—via a somewhat heated discussion over and after dinner—that my father is a moral relativist, or at least comes across as such (whether he’d stick by his guns under pressure is a question I’m not currently qualified to answer). Now, by this I mean the following: he believes that what is right and wrong is relative to the culture and society of the people who perform the action. Moreover, his explanation suggested that he saw right and wrong being contingent upon the beliefs of the actor. What’s right for me may not be right for you. Morality is subjective. There is no objective right or wrong. If I perform an action that I believe is morally right, then it is morally right.

Just to be sure I understood him, I asked him point blank: “So it’s 1785. Is slavery wrong?” He said it wasn’t wrong then, but when we look back with current understanding, we see it as a morally impermissible action. Or rather, some of us do. Because I’m sure there are still people out there in the world who advocate slavery. And according to my father’s theory, they’re right. According to his moral relativism, insofar as I understand it, for such advocates to enslave other people is not only morally permissible; it’s a good thing to do. A right thing to do.

In having this conversation with him (the rest of my family watched as our minds clashed), I realized that I couldn't exactly explain what I felt was wrong with the theory. Every point I made was rebutted in a way that, while logically consistent and rigorous, still felt somehow off to me. Moral relativism is a theory that doesn’t require any sort of deity’s intervention, and that’s something I can most certainly get behind. But on the whole I feel it to be untenable, for reasons that I find myself unable to adequately explain. Perhaps if I raise some of the objections I’ve been contemplating, I’ll discover more about why I feel that this theory isn’t worth grabbing hold of.

If I were to dive back into this debate with my dad (and I intend to, once I’ve formulated my thoughts a bit more), I would want him to answer some questions for me. They are as follows:

1) “Under your theory (your form of moral relativism), what’s right and wrong are determined by the actors themselves. So if I commit some action that I believe is right, are you justified in telling me that it’s wrong to commit that action?”

Under your theory, dad (and I’m sorry that I have to bring this into it, but it’s the best example I can think of), Hitler was a saint. Hitler did exactly what he believed was right. According to your system, what he did was right... for him. Oh sure, you don’t think it was right. You’d tell him he was doing something bad, something wrong, something that shouldn’t be done. But how can you justify that position? Certainly, the action is wrong for you to commit, because you believe it to be a wrong action. But Hitler doesn’t. So what right do you have to say anything about his action?

2) “If I am presented with a moral dilemma that I have not encountered before, how does your theory assist me in determining the correct course of action? In other words, when I’m faced with an ethical problem, what criteria do I use to determine the morally right decision?”

If there are no such criteria, then the moral theory provides no way for its proponents to determine right action, except the following axiom: “Do what you believe is right, and it will be the right thing to do.” What if I don’t know what I want to do? What if, in looking at a situation, I find both actions to be equally offensive, or desirable? How am I to make any kind of judgment call about what I should do in those circumstances?

3) “If moral action is determined by the actor, then how can we ever say, ‘He did the right thing,’ and have that statement actually be meaningful?”

My father talked at length about how people needed to have “constructs” in order to get through their lives, and I agreed with him there. His point was that everyone needs to have some kind of “belief system” about the world. I’m cool with that. I have a “belief system”, based on reason, empiricism, and evidence, but like anything it’s subject to my own biases (which I attempt to remove as much as possible). Anyway, I’m getting off track: the thrust of this question has to do with comparisons. If Smith commits an action that Smith believes is right, then he’s done the right thing (under your theory). If Jones commits the same action, but Jones believes it’s the wrong thing to do, then Jones has done something wrong. So the same action can, depending upon the actor, have different moral value? What this means is that, in essence, I cannot praise someone for doing the right thing or scold someone for doing the wrong thing, because what’s right and wrong are all based on what they think is right and wrong. So there are, in Catholic terms, no saints or sinners. Everyone does what they think is right, and that’s all there is to it. No one deserves a pat on the back or a slap across the knuckles.

4) “According to your theory, what’s right and wrong in a society are largely determined by the majority or a vocal minority. If this is the case, then isn’t this a glorified version of ‘might makes right’?”

This objection is based more on emotion than the others, but I feel it’s worth mentioning. The example I used in our discussion was gay marriage. According to this theory, if the majority of people in this country believe gay marriage is wrong, then it’s wrong. But moreover, if a minority of people believe it’s wrong, and they just happen to have the necessary power to change the laws and minds of those around them, then it’s still wrong. I guess what I’m getting at here is this: it doesn’t seem correct to me that the strongest group in a society gets to determine what is morally permissible or impermissible for that society. Moreover, it doesn't seem correct to say that actions committed by other cultures—the example I used was female circumcision, a horrific practice still performed in many African nations—are morally right because the majority of the culture believes that the action is right.

I think all in all, I have a problem with the following scenario: Say that, hypothetically, a man comes in to see my father at work. “Hello sir,” he says. “I have unfortunate news. It is my belief that people in your line of work are moral monsters who don’t deserve to live. Thus, I have a moral obligation to kill you.” The man pulls a gun and shoots my father dead. Questions: Would I be mad about this? Yes! Would I want to do something about it? Of course! Would I be correct in saying that the man did something wrong by killing my father in cold blood? No, I would not. After all, the man did what he thought was right, and thus, according to my father’s theory, he committed a morally permissible action. I can clamor for revenge or justice all I want, but in no way do I have any sort of moral justification for doing so.

That just seems wrong to me! Of course I would be morally justified in seeking justice or revenge against my father’s murderer. I don’t see how it could possibly be any other way. My father’s moral relativist stance leads, I feel, directly into chaos, for after all, if whatever I believe is the right thing to do—no matter how twisted, sadistic, or malicious my thoughts may be—is the right thing to do, then everything becomes morally permissible, and I would be morally justified in committing any action whatsoever. When all of morality is subjective, it really doesn’t even make sense to say that an action is “right” or “wrong”. I can just do as I please, and the only argument anyone can use against me is, “I don’t like that, so don’t do it.” Were someone to call me any name in some way related to morality—“evil” springs to mind—I could immediately counter with, “I’m not evil. This is the right thing to do.” And I would be completely justified in saying this.

Moral relativism of the kind my father seems to ascribe to is untenable because it, in essence, annihilates right and wrong, and instead replaces them with an “anything goes” system, under which anyone can be justified in doing anything they want. As much as I am against the idea of moral absolutism—the view that certain actions are always wrong, no matter what—I can’t help but feel that this view put forth by my old man is a bit too far in the opposite direction. Certainly I don’t want a system where every action has a moral value that cannot be altered no matter the circumstances, but at the same time I don’t want a system where no action has that status. Like most things in life, moderation appears to be the key to morality.

The Supernova Worry

I just came up with a silly little argument. It contains a fairly large amount of reasoning that many Christians would reject outright—not on the basis of the reasoning being faulty, but on the basis of it conflicting with Biblical “science”—so I don’t know how far it’ll get me, but oh well. I’m going to call it…

The Supernova Worry

I feel that this would be better laid out as a narrative rather than in premise format, so that’s what I’ll do.

Suppose God exists. Suppose He designed the universe and everything in it. Moreover, suppose the Bible is accurate in its depiction of the creation of the universe. God spent a couple days creating everything else out there, from galaxies to black holes to comets, and then devoted a huge amount of time to crafting one tiny planet. He stuck that planet in orbit around one of the flaming gas-balls He’d made and kick-started life. If the universe was designed by God, a perfect being, then that would mean everything that occurs here—from flowers blooming to atoms splitting to stars exploding—is part of God’s grand plan, and that what God has made is good and does not at any point need to be fixed or repaired. God did not create an imperfect universe.

But if this is the case, then what of our own sun, the star that provides heat and light to our planet? One day—granted, a day so far in the future as to be incomprehensible to those currently living—that star will erupt into massive flames, and the Earth will be burnt to a crisp. Is this part of God’s beautiful, majestic design? If He cares so much for humans, why would he put them on a planet that has a limited lifespan? Surely it is within the scope of God’s powers to create a sun with infinite energy, or a planet that supports itself without the need for a star to nourish it? But God has done neither of these things. It would appear as though God has placed human beings on a very unstable tract of land, one that He put a ton of effort into designing just for us but seems content to allow to be annihilated by another one of His creations—for recall that God also made the sun, and designed it to explode violently when it runs out of fuel.

The fact that our Sol will one day consume us suggests one of several options: a) that God created things this way for a reason, b) that God created an imperfect solar system and will need to step in to prevent the destruction of Earth, or c) that there was no special favor garnered to Earth (and therefore its inhabitants) in the designing of the universe.

If (a) is true, then what would the reason be? Some might argue that it is the unfathomable will of God, but this is just as much a cop-out now as ever. Oh! Could it be because God is encouraging us to develop space travel and find a new planet to live on? But wait… why would God want that? He made the Earth for us; doesn’t He want us to stay? And the Earth is where saints, prophets, and Jesus himself walked and spoke. People kill each other for control of places that Christ visited or lived. Wouldn’t God want us to remain here, if those places are that important? Maybe it’s because of “evil” (this feels like the Catholic answer, although I don’t know what the Catholic answer would actually be). My reply is: how? How does “evil” have anything to do with the machinations of the stars? Is Satan going to make the sun blow up? Ooh, bad Satan! Naughty Satan! And obviously God can’t intervene, because doing so would interfere with Satan’s free will, right? Or maybe the free will of the sun? Or wait, was it only humans who have free will? So how would preventing Satan from detonating the sun affect our free will in the slightest? Perhaps I’ve taken the wrong tack here; maybe it’s supposed to coincide with the Rapture, and all that fire the Bible talks about is actually the rapidly expanding sun coming to eat us up. But if that’s the case, then we know when it’s gonna happen. Isn’t it written that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:2)? Could it be that we, mere humans, have unlocked the secret of the Apocalypse? And more importantly, if the sun going supernova is the Day of Judgment, then why are people so convinced it will be sooner than that? It can't be both ways; either the sun’s temper tantrum is the end of the world, or it isn’t. If it is, we can rest assured that we’ll all be long dead before it occurs. If it isn’t, then there must be another reason for God to let the sun expand and kill us, or (b) or (c) is true.

If (b) is true, then God is certainly much less perfect than was initially reported. Perhaps it’s just unavoidable; despite His power, God is not omnipotent and thus cannot create a fully functional universe on the first try. Or perhaps it’s a matter of awareness; God is not omniscient, and thus couldn’t foresee the vaporization of Earth before it happened (although how we, just tiny insects compared to God, are able to predict it remains a mystery). Denying God either of the properties I just mentioned makes God seem a whole lot less worthy of worship than most people would like. Do you want a God who can’t do everything to be looking out for you? What if He can’t protect you from a more powerful evil? How about a non-omniscient God? Do you really want a being who doesn’t know everything to be your judge when you’re put to trial for your “sins”? Maybe it’s just a matter of God not wanting the Earth to last forever; but this brings us back to point (a), and the refutations explained there still stand.

If (c) is true, then nothing happens. God’s behavior or creative “error” doesn’t need to be explained, because human beings are not (shock of shocks!) the center of the universe. This option allows for design theories to remain on the table (only to be brushed aside by other arguments) while simultaneously pruning away our arrogant assumption that everything in the universe happens with us in mind. We’re the center of nothing but our own worldviews.

Questions? Comments? Feedback is appreciated.

Read & Blog Fail

Well, shoot. Here I was, all geared up to do a “Read & Blog” thing with this book I picked up from the library, and now I’m not going to. Why? Because this collection of pages is, if you’ll pardon my language, the most capricious, delusional, unreasonable, biased piece of Christian literature I have yet laid eyes upon. To say that this book portrays atheists in a fair and accurate light is an understatement on the magnitude of calling the Pacific a charming pond. The author clearly has it out for us, and not in any way that can be fought against with weapons of the intellect. To be frank, the only thing that’ll stop this guy from thinking the way he does is death, and I’m slightly saddened by the fact that he won’t be able to experience the crushing disappointment of discovering that the afterlife he has long dreamed of is a lie. I have no malign intent here; all I’m saying is that there is nothing on this Earth than could convince the author of… well, anything he doesn’t already believe to be true.

The book I’m referring to is You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, but You Can’t Make Him Think, by Ray Comfort. Here’s a picture of the cover:

From the foreword to the endnotes, this book is one colossal, misinformed attack on atheists and what Ray has convinced himself they believe. Others have done a better job than I can of giving this waste of paper the thrashing it deserves, so I won’t do much of that. What I will do, however, is point out a couple of things that occurred to me, and then cast this wretched tome back into the library’s deposit box faster than Ray can decide I’m an idiot simply because I’m an atheist.

First, I really do feel sorry for Ray. It’s clear that he believes what he’s saying with every fiber of his being. There is not a single un-Christian inch of Ray Comfort, and I must admit that his ability to remain steadfast in his theology despite what I’m sure are a number of warning sirens that have been going off in the rational part of his mind for quite some time (assuming he hasn’t already eviscerated that part of his intellect) is quite impressive. And thus, I don’t feel any particular anger toward him for being so bigoted against non-believers. What he wrote I can be upset at. But him, the person? Naw. He’s not trying to be insulting for insult’s sake. He’s just doing what anyone would do if they truly believed Hell is a real place where anyone who doesn't practice the right kind of Christianity goes. I can’t say that I blame him. I don’t agree with him, not in the slightest, but I can’t say I blame him. Incidentally, I find it very interesting that there aren’t more Christians out there who act as if Hell is real. Maybe they just don't want to think about it? I’ll have to ask my Catholic friends (I’ve told some of them that I’m an atheist).

Second, I wonder why Ray is the way he is. Has he ever read anything about evolution? I’m no scientist, but I think I already know more about evolution than he does, and could explain it better than he did in this book. So why not study up? Wouldn't it be better for his arguments if he could say that he was intimately familiar with the other side? Oh, wait, silly me. That’s not in the least what he’s trying to do here; Ray’s “arguments” hinge entirely on an audience that is just as uninformed as he is. Without an ignorant readership willing to take everything he writes at face value, Ray’s entire literary empire would collapse overnight. Luckily, uneducated believers are a dime a dozen.

Which brings me to my third and final point: it terrifies me to think that there are people—perhaps millions?—out there who honest-to-God believe the stuff in this book. They believe “the atheist is someone who pretends that there is not god” (Preface). They believe that evolution means random chance with no controlling factors or forces. They believe that the acceptable way to answer any and every question is to ignore the question and quote the Bible. Are there really people out there who buy into this stuff? I heave a sigh as I realize, yes, there are. And they may well have read this book. Which means if any of them were to meet an atheist on the street, you can bet they’d have some totally ridiculous things ready to say.

All right, enough with this. I’ll be glad to rid of this book; maybe the next time I grab some apologetics from the library, they’ll actually present a decent intellectual challenge. YCLAEYCMHT, on the other hand (wow, what an acronym!), could be refuted by a four-year-old… assuming that four-year-old wasn’t brought up by fundamentalist Christian parents.

The Born for Hell Dilemma

Many thanks to Ebonmuse for his commentary on this argument.

Hell is an all-to-familiar concept for most theists. Depending on the tradition in question, human beings may be cast into that infamous lake of fire for just about any offence, from lying, to being a member of the wrong religious order, to simply eating the wrong kind of food or working on the wrong day of the week. The properties of Hell—and the punishments suffered while interred there—differ from sect to sect, but one thing remains relatively static: Hell is a place of punishment, and is reserved for those who have failed to meet whatever criteria for goodness the religion in question has laid out.

For my purposes here, I will be exploring the deity of the dominant monotheistic religions (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity): omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good and just, and so on. I wish to present a logical argument against God having certain properties, namely either perfect justice or omniscience. Although this argument may already exist in some form out there in cyberspace, I have not yet been able to locate it. If any reader has information about this argument or one similar, I’d love to see it! All right, without further ado, allow me to present:

The Born for Hell Dilemma

A quick definition first: by ultimate fate, I am referring to the final place where the soul in question will end up, after living out its time on Earth. There are two possible answers under the monotheistic religions: in Heaven with God, or in Hell. Every soul will go to one of these places, with no exceptions. All right, let’s begin. The argument can be laid out as follows:

1. Either God knows the ultimate fate of each human soul from the moment he creates it, or he doesn’t.

2. If God knows the ultimate fate of each human soul from the moment he creates it, then he sometimes knowingly creates souls that will be sent to an eternity of torment in Hell.

3. If God does not know the ultimate fate of each human soul from the moment he creates it, then there is something that God does not know.

4. If God sometimes knowingly creates souls that will be sent to an eternity of torment in Hell, then God is not perfectly just.

5. If there is something that God does not know, then God is not omniscient.

6. So, either God is not perfectly just, or God is not omniscient.

This argument, as far as I can tell, is logically valid. However, to be assured of its soundness, I will provide a defense of the premises:

1. This premise is a simple binary: either A or not A.

2. If God possesses perfect knowledge of where any given soul he creates will end up, then he obviously knows what he’s doing when he makes that soul. Thus, he is well aware of the fact that he occasionally creates souls that, from the moment they come into existence, are doomed to Hell.

And occasionally is probably too gentle a term, if many theists are to be believed: under most versions of the monotheistic religions, the majority of people will end up in Hell; thus, if God knew what he was doing when he made those souls, then he created the majority of humans with a one-way ticket to Hell built in from the start. Some examples: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

3. If God creates souls without knowing where they’re going to be once their Earthly lives end, then there is—perhaps obviously—some fact of which God is not aware.

4. This is the premise that I think requires the most defending, so pardon me if this section is a tad on the longer side.

What does it mean to be perfectly just? It means that in every instance, a perfectly just being will act with justice in mind. He will never punish any living thing unfairly. He will give unto each of his creations what is due to them, and nothing more or less than that. Now, suppose for a moment that God is about to create a new, Hell-bound soul. What possible reason could God have for forming this soul and placing it in the world? God knows that no matter how hard the person he’s about to make tries, that person will nevertheless be damned to eternal suffering (a fate so horrific that it’s practically impossible to justify… but that’s a different topic, and one that has been covered quite well elsewhere.)

So why make this person? Why bring into existence a being that will live on the Earth for an amount of time so short as to be inconsequential, and then be forced to suffer terrible pain for eternity? Surely it is within the scope of an omnipotent God’s power to only create souls that will end up in Heaven? Furthermore, wouldn’t a perfectly good God desire that state of affairs? God wants his creations to be with him in Heaven (John 14:2-3, KJV), and allegedly does everything he can in order to prepare his followers to go there. Why would he make a soul that had no chance of getting to Paradise?

One more thing: if God can create one soul that’s doomed to Hell and another that’s bound for Heaven, why would he ever make anything except Heaven-bound souls? Surely a good God wouldn’t want to put anyone in Hell unless he absolutely had to? So why would God ever make anything except souls that were pure enough to be worthy of redemption and eternal life?

It is not, I wish to argue, in any way just for God to perform this action. Let me explain: in order to be eligible for punishment, one has to be in command of one’s actions, and then commit an act of injustice. If a person is not acting freely, then it is unjust to punish her. If she has done nothing wrong, it is unjust to punish her. Yet through no fault of their own, certain people come into existence already marked for Hell. Their punishment is set in stone before they are able to commit any actions that might condemn them! Moreover, God made them this way! What justice is it for God to stack the deck in this manner? How could a perfectly just being commit so unjust an act as to create a soul that has no chance for redemption? If life is a test (as some believers assert), then God has already given certain people a big red F stamp before he’s even handed out the exam.

5. This premise appeals to the definition of omniscient. An omniscient being is one who knows all that is knowable. Thus, if God does not know where the souls he makes are going to end up, then he is unaware of certain knowable propositions, and thus fails to meet the requirements for omniscience.

6. This is a logically valid conclusion that follows from the premises.

I will now address a few possible objections:

“Everyone has a chance to get to Heaven / some people choose not to love or accept God / people choose to go to Hell / any other statement regarding the reasons why people are condemned to eternal suffering.”

If everyone were on a level playing field, this might be the case. But as I pointed out, a God with the knowledge of where each soul ends up is a God who is rigging the game. God creates souls that, no matter what they might do, will wind up in Hell. They have no chance at redemption, because God knows where they’re going as soon as he brings them into existence. And thus God is committing an injustice that no human sin can compete with, an injustice for which countless souls are suffering endless pain, if theists are correct.

“God makes neutral souls. Our choices on Earth decide where we go.”

You’re missing the point. Check premise 1 again: either God knows what will happen to us, or he doesn’t. There’s no middle ground here. He can’t just have a decent guess about the matter. It’s one way or the other, and the argument continues from there.

“Human souls choose by their own free will where they will end up. Whether God knows where we’re going or not, he is still acting justly when he punishes people to damnation for sinning.”

Allow me to provide a quick analogy to illuminate why this is not the case. Suppose I am a police officer. If I caught someone in possession of stolen goods or illegal drugs, it would be a just action for me to arrest that person and ship her off to prison. But what if I planted the goods on her? What if I slipped the drugs in her pocket? Then we can easily see that I am committing an injustice by arresting her.

This is exactly what is taking place when God creates a soul that he knows will end up in Hell; that soul had sin written on it from the start. It is unjust for God to judge that soul before the soul has a chance to prove itself, and yet if God knows how he’ll eventually judge every soul he makes, then he never gives those souls that chance. Hell-bound souls are deemed guilty before they even walk into the courtroom.

“The ultimate fate of a soul is not a knowable proposition at the time of that soul’s creation.”

This may be a possibility, but I think it is highly unlikely. Look at it this way: God is alleged to have perfect, intimate knowledge of our souls. He knows us through and through; not a thought crosses our minds that God is not aware of, nor can we ever do anything to shock or surprise God, for he so fully knows our nature as to be able to know what we are going to say before we say it (Psalm 139:1-5, NIV). Surely it is necessary for God to be completely aware of who each person is, in order to judge him or her fairly? If that’s the case, then that knowledge stems from an awareness of our souls, for it is in the soul that all of our memories, personality, and morals are said to reside (and if that’s not where they are, then what does the soul do? For more on that topic, try Ebonmuse’s A Ghost in the Machine).

But then wouldn’t it be the case that God knew of all of those factors when he created the soul? None of those things arose by chance; God put all of them there, carefully, intentionally, and with full awareness. So it doesn’t make much sense to say that God created everything that will eventually decide a person’s ultimate fate, but then isn’t able to figure out what that fate will be until the person has lived out their life. It would be like an author with perfect knowledge of her characters claiming that she doesn’t know—and furthermore, cannot know—how those characters will fare at the end of her book.

I have attempted to show here that God must either be lacking in justice or lacking in knowledge, for there is no way a God with maximized versions of both those attributes could create souls that will end up in Hell. This is because God must either be creating souls that he knows he will condemn, in which case he is acting unjustly, or he is creating souls without any idea where they’ll go, in which case he is missing a rather critical piece of knowledge. Either way, God loses an important characteristic.

Thoughts and comments are very welcome.