"If you don't believe in
God, why are you so angry at him?"
Every atheist has probably
heard this question in some form or another. The usual knee-jerk response is to
scoff and say that the question is absurd. Personally, however, I think it's a
legitimate question that deserves an answer. As an ex-Christian myself, I can
understand the confusion.
First of all, it is possible
to feel animosity towards a fictional character. You know what I mean if you've
ever watched a movie with a particularly egregious villain. Although atheists
by definition don't believe in God, they can certainly become bitter towards
the idea of God, especially the Biblical one. There is a deeper issue here
though. Why do only atheists hate God, while believers unanimously love
him?
If the Christian God were
really a good and perfect god, then any objective atheist would be content to
say that the fictional character of Jehovah is a great guy, but sadly
nonexistent. This is not the atheist's usual position, however. Instead, we
take it a step further and say that if Jehovah did exist, he would be an evil
god. Why? Why not simply say that Jehovah is fictional and leave it at that?
Why back the car up and run him over again by adding that he is evil?
More importantly, why is it
that everyone who believes Jehovah exists think he is good, while those who
don't think he exists think he is evil? One would expect to find a few atheists
who say that Jehovah is good, but nonexistent. Or if God is as bad as atheists
say he is, then we should expect to find a few believers who say that Jehovah
exists, but is evil. Yet no one seems to hold either of those positions, or at
least I haven't met anyone like that. It's safe to say, there is a strong
correlation between belief and a positive view of God.
Christians are keen to
observe this correlation ask why our views are polarized in such a way. Why is
it that those who think Jehovah is evil and those who think Jehovah doesn't
exist happen to be the same group of people? Could it be that atheists secretly
believe in God and just deny his existence out of spite? Or do they really lack
belief and just trash talk Christianity, out of sheer bias? Or has the Devil
twisted their minds against God? There must be an explanation. Setting aside
the question of God's existence, we cannot both be right about his character
either. Someone must be biased.
I propose that there is a very good reason for Christians to be biased, and the reason is contained in the very doctrines that they are biased towards. Specifically,
I'm referring to what I call the "believe or burn" doctrine: the idea
that denial or rejection of God is the ultimate crime, punishable by eternal
torture. One cannot be objective when one is being coerced under threat of
torture to hold certain beliefs.
Whenever I hear a Christian
say they love Jesus, I see a pitiful sight. I see an invisible man holding a gun to their head.
"Love me or die," he says. "Love me with all your strength, all
your heart, all your mind, and all your soul, or burn forever in brutal
agony." Out of fear of hell, Christians will desperately
find ways to immunize their belief, even if it means defeating their own
intellect. Since God can read their minds, it's not enough to pretend to love
God; they have to believe it sincerely to get into heaven. So they try to
convince themselves that they really do love God, and over time they begin to
believe their own ruse. It works, I've done it myself. For a few years I
actually thought I loved God, and it felt pretty good. In the back of my mind
though, I always knew I had an ulterior motive: to avoid going to hell.
Not only are Christians
required to believe and love God, they must also agree with every one of his
policies. Much like Abraham when he was told to sacrifice his son, Christians
think they don't have the right to disagree with God's commands, no matter how
absurd. They will even rationalize the fact that God is forcing them to love
him, by saying that he's giving them the freedom of choice. It's not much of a
choice though, when the only other option is eternal torment.
Over time, fear of God can
lead to a sort of Stockholm syndrome, or battered spouse syndrome, where the
constant need to appease their oppressor turns into a genuine feeling of love
and affection. After a while, the fear of hell may even fade away, replaced by
that genuine love, now self-affirmed by a kind of circular logic: if God is
good, then everything he does must be good, and if everything he does is good,
then that's how we know God is good.
Under the spell of this
circular reasoning, there is literally nothing their god can do to gain their
disapproval. God could hypothetically commit any crime, including infanticide,
genocide, torture, rape, and slavery, and not one of his believers would ever
judge him negatively. In fact, he does perform or command all of the above
crimes in the Bible. Yet every act of God must necessarily be good, even if the
reasons for it are mysterious. This is how Christians can, for instance, tell
the story of Noah's ark to their children as a bedtime story and not see how
horrible it is. Untold numbers of people, including children and infants, were
supposedly drowned, under the justification that they were evil. It's the same
excuse that every dictator in history has used to commit genocide, but if God
did it then he must have had a good reason.
Never in this religion are we
challenged to judge God objectively, to step off of that carousel of circular
logic and ask from an impartial starting position if God is good or bad. Never
are we encouraged to judge God from a clean slate, without presupposing that he
is good in the first place. We are either taught that we don't have the right
to judge God, or if we can judge him, we do not have the right to judge him
negatively. Unfortunately, when an omnipotent being is on trial, the jury is as
good as rigged.
To say that Christians are
biased would be a vast understatement. They are actually required, under threat
of hellfire, to believe that God exists and that he is good. They must
arrive at this conclusion no matter where the evidence points. They do not have
the option to think otherwise. For this reason, they cannot possibly be
objective critics of their own religion. Without the ability to criticize it,
the religion can spiral out of control and lead to any random set of
dogmatically enforced rules, even barbaric bronze-age nonsense. This is why
Christianity is so dangerous, as it has proven itself to be throughout history,
and it continues to harm societies in various ways across the world.
Only when we stop believing
does the fear of hell subside, and only when the fear subsides can we finally
judge God without bias. When ex-Christians lose their faith and look back at
the character of Jehovah from an objective perspective without fear of
retribution, we are unanimously shocked and repulsed by what we see. We see a
jealous, wrathful, capricious, and savage god of war. Yet Christians believe
their god is a god of love, and they cannot imagine why anyone would see things
differently.
Yes, I do hate the Biblical
god. Whether he exists or not, I hate everything about him, and if he did exist
I would absolutely reject him.
If I'm wrong, and if a God of
love does exist, then by his nature he will forgive me for misjudging him. If
God is love, then there is no reason to fear him. Only after discarding my
belief could I realize this obvious truth.
If there is a God, and he is
all-knowing, then he knows why I am an atheist. If he is all-wise, then he
understands why I am an atheist. If he is all-loving, then he does not wish to
send me to hell. If he is all-powerful, then he will find a way not to. And if
he will send me to hell regardless, then he is a bastard unworthy of praise.
