{"id":143,"date":"2013-12-21T02:58:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T20:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/?p=143"},"modified":"2014-04-16T22:23:49","modified_gmt":"2014-04-16T16:23:49","slug":"animal-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/2013\/12\/21\/animal-farm\/","title":{"rendered":"Animal Farm"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"maxresdefault\"<\/a>\u201cGod if you exist please reveal yourself to me and I will serve you.\u201d<\/span><\/h2>\n
\n

A Christian recently suggested that I try this prayer, as if we should follow God merely for existing.\u00a0 That is the worst form of spiritual promiscuity, the willingness to throw ourselves at the feet of mere power.<\/span><\/p>\n

God would be important if he existed.\u00a0 There is no good reason to think anything worthy of the word \u2018God\u2019 exists, but if it did, it would be important.\u00a0 But it doesn\u2019t follow that we should worship it.\u00a0 That would depend on our other values.\u00a0 I value fairness, so I wouldn’t serve any God just for existing.\u00a0 He must also be good, fair, just and loving.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Imagine we discovered that Earth is a farm planet.\u00a0 Life had been created by advanced aliens to make a special ointment for their queen.\u00a0 They have billions of such planets raising hominids like we are.\u00a0 When the population reaches 10 billion, they will harvest humanity to make an ounce of ointment that their queen adores.<\/span><\/p>\n

What should we do?\u00a0 Try to please them and get on their good side?\u00a0 Perhaps they might keep some of us alive as museum pieces.\u00a0 It would be tough doing business with farmers like that, but hey, they gave us life, so they can’t be all bad.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Or, we could organize the resistance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

OR, we could review the data that lead us to believe earth is a farm planet.\u00a0 If THAT was discovered to not be true, it would be huge relief, right?<\/span><\/p>\n

That is our situation with God.\u00a0 If he exists, we’re screwed.\u00a0 The best we can hope for is to get on his good side and try to forget about our loved ones who suffer here or won’t make it to paradise.\u00a0 And we can’t be comforted that they had their chance.\u00a0 Why should a good Hindu woman have to abandon the religion of her parents to go to Heaven?\u00a0 Should Christians have to give up Christianity for a seat in Muslim paradise?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Universalists say everyone goes to heaven, but this doesn\u2019t help.\u00a0 It\u2019s too late, since hell is right here on earth for millions.\u00a0 Nothing can undo the horrendous, unnecessary suffering of countless children who have died in agony, often abandoned and alone.\u00a0 There can be no necessary purpose for all of this for an omnipotent God.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is possible to believe in God and resist him.\u00a0 Such believers are called maltheists (belief in an evil God) or misotheists (those who hate God).\u00a0 I am neither.\u00a0 I am an atheist.\u00a0 I lack belief in any God, but my mind could be changed with sufficient evidence.\u00a0 I\u2019d say I\u2019m an agnostic, but I\u2019m agnostic about God the way I\u2019m agnostic about flying pigs.\u00a0 It might not be impossible for them to exist, I just don\u2019t believe they do.<\/span><\/p>\n

At minimum, any world with a God would be deeply unfair.\u00a0 It would mean all the horrors of this world were optional.\u00a0 It would be a frightening, totalitarian North Korea complete with death camps, here and hereafter.\u00a0 It has been one of the greatest joys of my life to find out that God is a paper tiger.\u00a0 We can leave his ghastly realm any time we wish, without penalty, and join the great majority of unbelieving Nature.\u00a0 And all the things we once got from belief in this vicious God we can still have.\u00a0 It never made sense that love, community, awe, meaning and purpose required belief in a God who plays favorites.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGod if you exist please reveal yourself to me and I will serve you.\u201d A Christian recently suggested that I try this prayer, as if we should follow God merely for existing.\u00a0 That is the worst form of spiritual promiscuity, the willingness to throw ourselves at the feet of mere power. God would be important […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/enoughsenough\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}