The Best Case for God: Refuted

Pay it "Foreword"

I recently came across an ingenious website written to argue in favor of the existence of Yahweh, the Christian God.  The argument presented is impressive, if only for its crafty misdirection and intellectual sleight-of-hand.  The website is the work of Rich Deem, who seems very intelligent and well-educated.  In this way he provides evidence for Michael Shermer's quote, "smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for non-smart reasons."

As I wrote this book, I began by focusing on the linked article about whether atheists have disproven God, and then branched out to other parts of the website later.  I then found even more interesting arguments from William Lane Craig and addressed them as well.  I've also included a few common arguments that aren't necessarily held by major theologians, but are frequently repeated.

You might be put off by the large number of chapters, but keep in mind each one is only two pages long on average, and can be read as an independent article.  I realize that every visitor has a life beyond reading about atheism, so feel free to favorite this book and read it at your leisure.

Due to the length of this publication, it is divided into three uploads.

Chapters 1-14 are here.

Chapters 9-15 are in scraps here.

Chapters 16-25 are in scraps here.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: God: NOT a one-dimensional character?
I examine the claim that God exists in unseen dimensions.

Chapter 2: Extra dimensions are not logic-defying magic.
I examine the claim that God exists in unseen dimensions. (Continued)

Chapter 3: I always knew God was two-timing…
I examine the claim that God exists in unseen dimensions. (Continued)

Chapter 4: False idle speculation
An attempt to show Yahweh as the only possible God

Chapter 5: The teacher doesn't like me.
The view of life as a "test"

Chapter 6: Freedom isn't free – or is it?
I question the religious perspective of free will.

Chapter 7: Grouching liar, hidden God
Is God playing hide and seek?

Chapter 8: A lump of evil
Did God really create evil?

Chapter 9a: The Iliad and Theodicy
Chapter 9b: The impossible dream
Is every natural "evil" a purposeful and necessary part of the clockwork of the universe?

Chapter 10: Imagine there's no heaven.
The subject of heaven

Chapter 11: Your spiritual twin lives forever!  (But you still die.)
The possibility of an afterlife

Chapter 12: In fact, your so-called "twin" isn't even a good likeness.
The possibility of an afterlife (Continued)

Chapter 13: We don't have a prayer.
Is prayer more than superstition?

Chapter 14a: Epoch fail
Chapter 14b: Nostra-dumbass
The day-age interpretation of the bible, and other biblical "science"

Chapter 15: If I can touch 'em and feel 'em, they're real.
I discuss the verification principle.

Chapter 16: Against all gods
The odds of a life-supporting universe

Chapter 17: A long shot (is still better than a categorical impossibility).
The odds of a life-supporting universe (continued)

Chapter 18: Bible verses versus multiverses
Multiverse theory versus intelligent design

Chapter 19: He knows not what he says.
What does it mean to credit God with creation?

Chapter 20: What created God?
What does it mean to credit God with creation? (Continued)

Chapter 21: The cosmic petri dish
I reject your religion and substitute my own.

Chapter 22: Ethic Cleansing
The moral need for God

Chapter 23: The meaning of life
The ultimate in wishful thinking

Chapter 24: God and…Science?
The truth about modern theology

Chapter 25: Thanks for reading.
A summary and conclusion

Chapter 1

God: NOT a one-dimensional character?

The main claims of the article of focus are that "God exists in more than three dimensions of space" and "God exists in at least two dimensions of time".  As fashionable as it is to simply define God as being "nonphysical", therefore making him impossible to observe and creating an airtight alibi for the lack of evidence, Deem's case is oddly refreshing.  His argument is superficially impressive, but when one digs past the flashy references to modern physics, the flaws bubble to the surface…

If you watch this video, Michio Kaku describes the real scientific possibility of alternate universes existing in dimensions we can't see.  So far, Deem's version of God seems strikingly plausible.  So what's the problem?

I'll start with Deem's biblical analysis.  In this article, he says the bible describes God as existing in extra dimensions.  He cites the following verses:

But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! (1 Kings 8:27)

The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress. (Job 37:23)

Neither verse is about God's location.  If you read the first verse in context (1 Kings 8:22-27), you'll see that it follows a series of King Solomon's praises to God for keeping his covenant.  The main idea is that Solomon is exalting the God.  He is saying that God is so good, no heaven is good enough to contain him, let alone the modest temple he built in his honor.

Even out of context, the second verse is clearly about the extent of God's power and fairness as a ruler.  If you read it in context (a href="www.biblegateway.com/passage/?…">Job 37), it's even clearer that the passage is meant to be read poetically.  For example, Job 37:18 reads, "Can you join him in spreading out the skies, hard as a mirror of cast bronze?"  Does that mean the sky, which is made of air, is hard?  Job 37:22 reads, "Out of the north he comes in golden splendor; God comes in awesome majesty."  It says he comes from the north, and Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, so does that mean God is Santa?  Does the reference to "golden splendor" mean God his sleigh is gold?  Maybe the sky is hard so he can ride his flying sleigh on it!

It's easy to "interpret" bible verses to mean anything you want them to mean.  The fact remains that the bible mentions extra dimensions exactly ZERO times.  (I'll discuss more instances of Deem's creative scriptural interpretation in chapter 14.)

Kaku also tells us these extra dimensions have yet to be detected, so they might not even exist.  So Deem is conjecturing that these unseen dimensions do indeed exist, he's conjecturing that God exists, and he's further conjecturing that God resides in them.  He's already piling speculation on top of more speculation, and that's not a good sign.

To make matters worse for Deem, basing his God on extra spatial dimensions is, to a degree, self-defeating.  If these extra dimensions were to be detected, it would support string theory, which would in turn support multiverse theory, which is the leading alternative to Intelligent Design.  (I'll elaborate in the chapters 16-18.)  Unfortunately, this isn't the only sign that he didn't think this one through so well…

Chapter 2

Extra dimensions are not logic-defying magic.

Also in Deem's article, he writes:

There are things that are impossible to do. For example nobody can cover a two-dimensional surface with two-dimensional circles, without making them overlap. It is impossible to add the numbers two and two and get 666. You can not go back in time (without passing an infinite entropy barrier). The number of things that are impossible to do are almost infinite. If God were to be almighty he would be able to do them, but it's impossible to do so.

Contradictions are not possible by definition. Therefore they are impossible by definition in this four dimensional universe. All the things that are impossible in our universe are so because they are defined to be impossible. If you restrict God to our four dimensional universe, He would, likewise, be unable to do those things. However, God is not restricted to our universe. In addition, God can do anything if He changed the laws of physics, which He promises to do in the New Creation.

Take another look at that first example: "Nobody can cover a two-dimensional surface with two-dimensional circles, without making them overlap."  Of all the "impossible" tasks Deem could have given his fancy new extra-dimensional God, why would he choose one that's expressly confined to two dimensions?  Such an embarrassing oversight indicates a lack of careful thought.

Furthermore, even if God changed the laws of physics, it wouldn't necessarily change the laws of two-dimensional geometry – or three-dimensional geometry or beyond, for that matter.  Since mathematics is pure logic, suggesting that God could change its laws is like saying that God can change the laws of logic itself and make contradictions true.  In that case, any statement could be both true and false without equivocation, and I don't think anybody wants to go down that road.

Deem seems to have realized his error (and in doing so, contradicted himself) when he wrote this omnipotence article.  In it, he admits that things that are impossible by definition are impossible even for God.  Even then, he still gets it wrong, defining omnipotence as "the ability to do anything that one sets out to do."  Does that mean a slacker who never tries to do anything is omnipotent?  Cheech and Chong are Gods!

All kidding aside, I'm fairly certain that what Deem meant to say in that second article is that God's omnipotence only means that he can perform tasks which are logically possible, which is a viable definition for the word.

Chapter 3

I always knew God was two-timing…

The theological idea of God existing outside of time is an old one, introduced in the fifth century by St. Augustine of Hippo.  Modern physics (and the misuse thereof) has breathed new life into the notion of late.

As I mentioned earlier, Deem alleges that God's operates in two dimensions of time rather than one.  The majority of scientists don't believe in an additional time dimension, so that probably kills this one from the get-go.  But for the sake of argument, let's say such a dimension does exist and God can operate within it.

He uses God's alleged extra time dimension to dismiss the most intuitive arguments against God, including the apparent contradictions between free will and omniscience, between omniscience and omnipotence, and between his omnibenevolence and the evil and suffering in the world.  He doesn't explain exactly how this extra dimension reconciles these problems in any more detail than "this concept may require some time to think about."  Yes, the article actually says that, and if you do take the time to think about it, you'll see why.

If God does exist in two dimensions of time rather than one, then he operates on a plane of time, rather than our line of time.  Nobody, INCLUDING DEEM, knows exactly how an extra time dimension would function in practice.  Of course I don't have all the answers either, but I'm going to continue to analyze this claim to the best of my knowledge and ability.

For the sake of argument, let's suppose that God does stand outside of time exactly as the ancients believed, able to see our entire four-dimensional space-time manifold from an external perspective.  We read the book of eternity myopically, only seeing the words one at a time, whereas God can step back and see the whole page at once.

Presuming a single timeline

Free will versus omniscience: Deem has an article on Predestination vs. Free Will.  In summary, he quotes the bible as championing both free will and predestination.  Using the bible's claims to support bible's claims is about less than productive.  He also says, "Obviously, choice is not possible if everything is predestined," indicating the intuitive belief that free will is contingent on the ability to have chosen otherwise.  Accordingly, I'm going to conduct my analysis based on this view of free will.

To quell the vicious contradiction between predestination and free will, he says that both are only true to a degree – which is about like saying that your invisible pink unicorn is really translucent and pink-tinted to dodge the lexical incongruity.  The only non-biblical justification he offers is his (unsupported) belief that God "directs history" but doesn't "micromanage history."

Let's take the extreme case of God not intervening in history; he just writes the first paragraph (sets the initial conditions) and lets cause-and-effect take it from there.  If God can read the whole book all at once, we're still just puppets.  God has seen this movie before.  Accordingly, he knows where you will be and what you will be doing at any given time.  He knows what situations you will face, what choices you will make, and ultimately whether you will go to heaven or hell.

Now add to this Deem's claim that, "God does use evil people to accomplish His purposes…Presumably, evil people who are predestined to serve the purposes of God through their evil will eventually go to hell. However, they still possessed free will and would have done evil under any circumstances."

It's a good thing God put Hitler where he did, otherwise the Holocaust could have been a disaster.  In case the diabolical nature of God isn't clear yet, allow me to translate: "You'll be condemned to eternal suffering no matter what (because of the way I made you in the first place), so I might as well manipulate you for my benefit."  With that, the puppetry goes from unsettling to downright grotesque.  It should go without saying that an infinitely caring and powerful God should be able to accomplish his purposes without an iota of suffering.

In case this state of affairs isn't macabre enough, there's also the implication that everything happens according to God's plan, meaning that he planned on people sinning and being sent to hell all along.  (I discuss the conundrum of God creating people destined for hell in chapter 8.)

Omnibenevolence versus evil and suffering: If God has limitless time to proofread and edit for the ideal state of affairs, then there's LESS excuse for the indiscriminant tragedies we experience.  (Note that we must be experiencing his final draft, since any further editing would change the entire timeline accordingly, altering the way we remember the past.)

Omniscience versus omnipotence: If he can perform new tweaks to our timeline any time he wants, this one's actually plausible.  Although in that case he would only be omniscient with respect to our timeline and not his own, and therefore not fully omniscient in the truest sense.  If he's omniscient with respect to his own temporal reference frame as well, then he also knows all his future decisions and is therefore powerless to change them, in which case he wouldn't be omnipotent.  The contradiction is still there, at least to an extent.

Presuming a Hugh Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation

Many Worlds is unlikely to apply, as there is a lot of evidence to suggest that cognition is deterministic, meaning that we don't have free will in the strictest sense.  But if we give free will the benefit of a doubt:

Free will versus omniscience: The only difference here is that every time someone faces a choice, more books (timelines) are generated for every possible decision.  From here there are two possibilities.

1)  Our choices are limited by the available timelines.  This may not be intuitively obvious, but consider the possibilities.  The most extreme scenario only includes one timeline, which takes us back to the previous scenario that eliminates free will.  A more permissive (but still restrictive) scenario might only include timelines for our morally sound decisions, in which case we have no option to choose evil.  However, as Deem points out in his Predestination vs. Free Will article, the bible dictates that we must be given the option to choose evil.  So if God is to exist and rule according to the bible's specifications, we are left with door #2.

2)  There exist timelines in which you made the wrong decisions and were sentenced to eternal suffering in hell.

So that's an uncomfortable picture.  In a way, eternal damnation is unavoidable under the Many Worlds Interpretation – which seems like not like not having free will.

Omnibenevolence versus omnipotence versus evil and suffering If God's decisions produce alternate timelines as well, then he is powerless to change a given timeline, so his omnipotence can be called into doubt.  If God can change any given timeline, but chooses not to, then he must take the blame for the random atrocities that plague the earth.  Either he's not omnipotent, or he's not omnibenevolent.  (I go into more detail on this in chapters 5-9.)

In summary, positing an additional time dimension to reconcile God's contradictory omni-traits and their incompatibility with our free will is a losing proposition any way you look at it.  Even if I generously assume an extra time dimension exists, assume it works in the most theologically favorable way possible, and assume the many worlds interpretation is both true and applicable, contradictions still abound.  Even the most charitable body of interpretations and assumptions can't reconcile the bible's lofty and incongruent claims.

One of the other things explained by the alleged extra dimension of time is why God doesn't need a creator.  Deem argues, "The Christian God exists in two dimensions of time, by definition being uncreated."

If you consider what it means to exist in a two-dimensional plane of time rather than a one-dimensional line of time, you'll see that it doesn't guarantee non-creation at all.  Just as a temporal line can have an endpoint, a temporal plane can have an origin point like that of a Cartesian coordinate plane, at which both dimensions of time begin at zero.  In order for a being that exists on a temporal plane to be eternal (and therefore uncreated), it must be assumed that there is no point of origin, which is just as arbitrary as assuming that a one-dimensional line of time has no starting or ending point.  As you can see, throwing in an extra time dimension adds nothing more than a red herring to the discussion.

So despite the illusion of science, all Deem offers in his "uncreated" argument is the unsupported assertion that God is eternal, and that's nothing new.  Theologians have been saying that God is eternal ever since the first person thought to ask, "If God created the world, what created God?"  Labeling God "eternal" is begging the question: a way to answer the question without really answering the question.

So far Deem has:

1)  Pretended to know for certain that additional dimensions exist, even though the spatial dimensions haven't been confirmed, and the extra time dimension is doubted by science

2)  Pretended to know for certain God exists in these additional dimensions, even though the bible says nothing of the sort

3)  Pretended to know for certain how an extra time dimension would work, even though NOBODY knows that

4)  Waved his magic wand of pseudoscience at complex philosophical issues, pretending to have resolved them in a few sentences

That brand of arrogance and intellectual dishonesty just doesn't sit right.

Chapter 4

False idle speculation

The greatest stumbling block for a Christian, Muslim, or any other theist isn't so much proving the existence of a higher power, but proving that the higher power in question is their deity specifically, and not a God or set of Gods from another religion, or a higher power completely unknown to us.  Here is Deem's answer:

The God of the Koran and Hindu Vedas are Gods restricted to the time and space dimensions of this universe and, therefore, are logically impossible (check out some of your own proofs).

As I clarified at the beginning of my book, the bible doesn't say anything about extra dimensions, because it's not as though the primitive men who wrote the bible had some sort of divine guidance to know about these things.  Furthermore, I guarantee that no holy book has ever gone out of its way to say that its God cannot exist in alternate dimensions.

Before I move on, I'd like to emphasize the parenthetical phrase at the end of the quote.  Deem is putting so much stock in the supposed extra-dimensionality of his God, he admits that the standard proofs of atheism would be adequate to disprove God if it weren't for these additional dimensions.  I guess I could call it a day right now, but instead I'll continue…

William Lane Craig's justifications aren't much better.  In this video, he simply cites Jesus' resurrection as proof that he is God.  In another speech he gave, he cited the story about the empty tomb as evidence.  I suspect that my objections are predictable, but in case they're not:

1)  To insist that the only account for the sighting is an unprecedented violation of nature is spurious to say the least.  Jesus could have been temporarily comatose so as to appear dead, only to recover later.  A Jesus impersonator could have come back after the real Jesus was killed, or vice versa.  Or the witnesses could have been hallucinating or lying.  Or the story could be a complete fabrication.  (It wouldn't be the first time a religion has made up a resurrection story.)  There's no reason to jump to a supernatural conclusion.

2)  Even if Jesus really did come back from the dead, that certainly doesn't mean that he's God, or that his message has any special validity.  There's actual historical account of Grigory Efimovich Rasputin surviving "being poisoned, shot three times, and having been beaten with a dumbbell" – so does that mean he is God, and everything he says must be true and perfect?  In fact, even normal, non-God people have technically come back from the dead via the Lazarus Phenomenon.  If you just google the name you'll find plenty of cases like this one.  Is this all it takes to be God?

3)  Since the only "evidence" of any biblical miracle is the bible itself, using the miracles to verify Christianity is essentially using the bible to prove the bible, which is circular reasoning.  Somebody presenting this argument might as well be saying, "Of course God is real.  It says so right in the bible!"

Th1sWasATriumph describes the alternate explanations in more detail in this video.  Christopher Hitchens goes into more detail about the inadequacy of Jesus' credentials in this video.

Chapter 5

The teacher doesn't like me.

God created the universe as a temporary testing site for creatures to choose to love Him or reject Him. God is good, but He has allowed His creatures free-will to do whatever they want within their limited dimensionality. God has designed the universe to operate under a set of physical principles, which He, only occasionally, suspends. If God were to suspend the laws of physics on a regular basis the universe would be a universe of chaos and unpredictability. Such as universe would not be a good testing ground for confused mortal beings.

William Lane Craig offers a similar argument in this video.

The first problem you should see is that the well-established randomness in quantum mechanics seems to refute the point that the universe is made to be predictable.

Second of all, you should note the self-centeredness and insecurity of a God who would conduct such a test.  This is like giving birth to a child and then hiding from them just to test their love of you.

Furthermore, any kind of a test should be fair.  People born into wealth have much less incentive to steal than those born into poverty.  Attractive people have more opportunities to be tempted into infidelity than ugly people.  People born into a Christian culture are much more likely to adopt Christian customs and worship the Christian God than people born in Hindu or other societies.  According to Deem's own article, babies who die get a free ticket to heaven, bypassing the trials of life altogether.  Worse yet, some people have genetic and neurological predispositions to commit sins, which are outside of the individual's control.  These are only a few of countless examples of unfairness I can provide.

A meaningful test of any kind keeps every variable that's not being tested equal among all test subjects.  For example, if you were to test the skill of a group of race drivers, how would you conduct the experiment?  Would you give them all different cars, different tracks, different weather conditions, etc., and (somehow?) try to compare them?  Of course you wouldn't.  You intuitively realize that you have to keep the conditions as even as possible, or else the test is meaningless.  So we should all go through life with exactly the same circumstances, right?

Apparently not.  God's test is like a math teacher giving an arithmetic test to one student and a calculus test to another in the same class.  It's always possible to lead a Christian life (unless you've never heard of the religion at all), but the fact that there's no attempt at fairness in this so-called "test" is a strong indicator that life isn't a test at all.

The funny thing is, in the section "Just put the good people directly into heaven?" of this article, Deem says that God has to actually run the experiment, because it would seem unfair for people to get rewarded/punished for what God says they would have done.  This seems plausible until you consider how unfair life seems anyway.  If the appearance of fairness is important to God, then the world should appear fair.  If it's not important to him, then he should use his omniscience to skip straight to reward and punishment – and while he's at it, not create people destined for hell in the first place.  (More on that last item in chapter 8.)  Where is the logic?

If that isn't enough reason not to throw your life away as a "test", consider this: Christianity began 2000 years ago, whereas over a dozen forms of radiometric dating tell us that homo sapiens (modern humans) have been around for at least 120,000 years.  For many the vast majority of human history, there was no Christianity.  Without the bible, the Ten Commandments, or any other text, there was no way to read God's word to know what he expects of us, or even to know of his existence.

To get a feel for the implausibility of the matter, look at it from God's perspective.  He watches people perform ritual human sacrifices to false gods, have sex without any sense of monogamy, and generally live in ignorant sin for tens of thousands of years.  (In fact, there wasn't a monotheistic religion of any kind until at least until 1300's BC.)  Then, at some random time, he decides to come out of hiding and tell us how we're supposed to live, give us commandments, and introduce worship and marriage ceremonies.

Even then, he doesn't bother to tell everybody all at once for some reason, leaving most of the world to remain ignorant to his word.  For example, consider how he presented the Ten Commandments.  He sent one guy with two tablets.  He could have written his commands in the stars for all to see, or (to be more subtle) sent a messenger to every village in the world.  Nope.  One guy, two tablets.  2000 years after Christianity was introduced, it spread to a third of the world.  Apparently, sending upwards of two thirds of the population to hell seems like a good ratio to God.  (Never mind that a teacher with such a staggering failure rate would be fired in disgrace.)

When you step back and look at it, the whole idea of the world being a Christian testing site simply doesn't add up.  Look at the bright side: that's all the more reason to enjoy life now.

Before moving on, I'd like to call attention to the fact that Deem's case rests on life being a test.  Without the premise of moral examination, there's no reason for God to conceal his presence by not performing miracles whenever needed – unless he's not really benevolent, which would contradict the Abrahamic description of God.  That only leaves one plausible explanation for the lack of divine intervention: God doesn't exist – at least, not in the form that the bible describes.

Chapter 6

Freedom isn't free – or is it?

God is said to have given us free will so we can choose to accept God or reject him, or so we can pursue happiness.  I've explained my objection to the first item, but what about the second?  Is there a way for God to keep free will while preventing us from committing evil against each other?  Is free will even necessary for happiness?  A common atheist solution is to implement restricted free will, which would allow us to freely choose between multiple good options, but keep us from choosing bad ones.

Deem has an article addressing this as well.  His version of restricted free will is basically like God forcing our hands rather than changing our minds.  In his description the evil is still in our hearts, and we are simply unable to act upon it.  I see two viable alternatives to this.

Here is the option I find to be the most agreeable: create people who are more altruistic in the first place.  Many Christians object to this idea because they view it as a sort of "programming", and as such, an affront to one's freedom of choice.  What they fail to see is how heavily "programmed" we already are as human beings.  For example, we already possess a strong disinclination for self-harm.  You probably couldn't bring yourself to smash your own face with a hammer or leave your own hand on a hot stove, but do you feel as though your free will is being infringed?  We're also programmed with innate compulsions to seek food and sex, avoid natural predators, and even, to an extent, help others.  If you still feel that you have adequate free will despite all these inclinations that are already hardwired into your psyche, what harm could it do to strengthen the philanthropic tendency?  If God made more empathetic creatures in the first place, such that harming someone else is as unthinkable as harming oneself, we would stop committing crimes against one another without any sense of being restrained.

Here's the other possibility: why are we assuming free will is necessary in the first place?  God could activate the rewards centers of brains whenever we do as he wishes so we naturally gravitate toward his will, or just make us act as robots with our reward centers always activated.  Either way, we would be in a perpetual state of bliss.

If the free will to sin isn't necessary for us to enjoy in heaven (as Deem himself says in the "Obtaining physical perfection" section of his Natural Evils article), why would it be needed here on Earth?

Chapter 7

Grouching liar, hidden God

Every religious sect needs some version of a "hidden God" to answer the immediate question of why there's no divine intervention when one might expect it.  Remember what Deem wrote: "If God were to suspend the laws of physics on a regular basis the universe would be a universe of chaos and unpredictability. Such as universe would not be a good testing ground for confused mortal beings."

Since the idea of the universe being a testing ground is, at the very least, highly questionable, so is Deem's reason for God not being immediately available.  There's also a "God is Imaginary" article that already does a good job of explaining the absurdity of a hidden God.  However, I'd like to discuss the subject further by briefly summarizing a debate I had on the subject.

Why doesn't God perform miracles to prevent needless and undeserved suffering?

God needs to stay hidden.  It would ruin our free will if he intervened.  If God revealed himself, we would have no choice but to accept and obey him.

Why would that be?  We all believe the police exist, yet people disobey them quite often.

Okay, God's presence wouldn't override free will completely.  It would merely taint it, taking away freedom to a degree.

Then why did God perform miracles in front of so many people in the Bible?  For example, plenty of Israelites saw God part the red sea in Exodus 14 and produce Manna in Exodus 16.  Didn't that taint their free will?

Those people had already chosen to follow God, and he was merely responding to their will.

Kings 18:20-40 describes Elijah, the prophet of the Lord, challenging the 450 prophets of Baal to an experiment designed to verify which deity is the true God.  A bull representing each deity was placed on wood and wetted down.  Whichever bull caught fire would signify the winner.  After an incantation, the bull representing God caught fire via divine miracle.

So what about the 450 prophets of Baal, who adamantly rejected God?

They consented to the test. That event was a miracle, and like all miracles, it was an indirect act of God for the purpose of hopefully leading others to belief.

If he's going to perform miracles to demonstrate his existence, why not do something purposeful, instead of mere petty exhibition?  Come to think of it…Why doesn't God perform miracles to prevent needless and undeserved suffering?

Now I'd like you to notice something: the whole point of inventing a "hidden God" is to explain why God doesn't prevent disasters and cure the sick.  However, you're describing God performing miracles to give us clues to his existence.  He had a chance in this prayer study, but look how it turned out.  Maybe if prayer had a 100% success rate it would be too obvious, but perhaps a couple percent improvement would be just right?  Certainly having the prayed-for participants fair WORSE sends the wrong message…

In the section "The tinkering God" in this article, Deem himself writes, "In general, miracles are done with the purpose of displaying God's power and authority."  It's hard to reconcile that with the abject failure of the linked prayer study – and every other prayer study, for that matter.

Now I'd like you to notice something.  The whole point of inventing a "hidden God" is to explain why God doesn't prevent disasters and cure the sick.  However, the same theologians who preach that God is hiding also credit him with performing miracles to give us clues to his existence.  Notice the failsafe they've set up here.  If I ask why God (supposedly) performed a biblical or anecdotal miracle), they can respond that it was to allude to his existence.  If I ask why God didn't perform a miracle that one would expect from a compassionate supreme being, they can say it would be too obvious, or it wasn't part of God's plan, the hardship was needed to build character, or any number of other unverifiable excuses.  How can they lose?  Very clever, but the whole thing reeks of scam to any objective thinker.

Now I call upon you to use your best judgment.  It's a given that God doesn't give us world peace, vanquish diseases, or swoop in like Superman to prevent disaster.  But what do you think is the most likely reason?  Despite the mountain of one-size-fits-all excuses, does it seem reasonable to believe there's a transcendent, perfectly loving being tiptoeing around us so we won't notice him?  Before you answer, consider this chapter and the previous.  Based on our direct observations, we can safely conclude that God is either so vain that he's more concerned with our faith than our well-being (which would negate his benevolence), or he simply doesn't exist.

Chapter 8

A lump of evil

Deem tries to make the case that God creating evil is a mere "play on words" in two places.  Before I get into his arguments that God did not create evil, I'd like to point out that the bible explicitly states that God did in fact create evil in Isaiah 45:7.

For the first play-on-words argument, he publishes an e-mail he received here.  In case you can't make it through the barrage of groan-worthy straw man fallacies without laughing and/or crying, it basically says that evil is a lack of good, just as cold is a lack of heat and darkness is a lack of light.  This is just a bad analogy.  If a man were created without any predispositions, would he commit genocide like Hitler because he lacked goodness?  Of course not.  He would be neutral because he would lack both good and evil.  Good and evil represent opposite ends of a spectrum, and both are active (not passive) patterns of thought and behavior.  Let me put it a different way; if evil were merely the absence of good, then inaction would be the most evil thing of all, which isn't the case.

While we're on the subject of that article, it also includes the outdated evolution straw man of "people evolved from monkeys" even though evolution actually says that we evolved from a common ancestor.  It goes on to say that evolution has never been observed, even though it has.)  At the end, it states that the professor's mind can't be directly observed, so it doesn't exist according to science.  But evidence of it can be easily observed to verify its existence, so that assertion is a gross misrepresentation of science as well.

Okay, now we're ready to move on to the second "play on words" claim, which appears in the main article to which I'm responding.

Atheists say that since only God can create, therefore He must have created evil. However, at this point the atheist has redefined the meaning of create. Evil was not created. Evil is manifested (committed) by free-will beings. Nice play on words, but it doesn't stand up to examination.

Nobody is saying that God invented a lump of something called "evil".  He does create people with the propensity for committing evil, though, and one should wonder why.  Even as fallible beings, we could theoretically use he studies linked in chapter 5 along with neural and genetic analysis to predict who is most likely to sin.

None of this would be 100% accurate of course, but if we had the power to create, we'd avoid making people with such brain deficiencies in the first place.  Why can't God give everyone healthy brains so we all have a fair chance of making the right decisions and getting into heaven?

When you add to this God's alleged omniscience, you have to realize that if God does exist, he creates people knowing for certain that they will commit evil and be condemned to an eternity of suffering.  That's the epitome of malevolence.  It's no "play on words": just proof of the reasonable conclusion that God cannot be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving simultaneously.

Deem offers a response to this common argument here, but his rebuttal doesn't hold water.

The first, and most prevalent, incorrect assumption is that a person who is destined for hell has been predestined for hell by God. This is false. People choose to go to hell rather than submit their lives to God. You have absolute free will within the confines of your personal ability. You can prove this to yourself. Determine two possible courses of action. They don't have to be big decisions, just any two possible actions. Assign each action to either "heads" or "tails." Flip the coin and do what whatever course chance decided. You can do this as many times as needed to determine that you do, indeed, have free will. Occasionally, do the opposite of what the coins tell you. Has God prevented you from doing anything? No!

I don't see how being able to disobey a coin proves anything.  It doesn't even refute the neurological and deterministic case against free will.  God, being all-knowing, should know how the coin will land and how you will respond, leading us back to the original problem.  Later he makes a similar begging-the-question argument:

Skeptics might claim that God, in knowing all the choices a person would make, would not need to create all the people who would end up in hell. This question also has some underlying assumptions. The assumption is that since God knows all the answers, He would have no need of "running the experiment."

Yes, not knowing an answer usually is the underlying reason for doing a test.  I didn't take this quote out of context, either.  That's really the entire passage.

In the next passage, he goes on to say that God has to actually run the experiment, because it would seem unfair for people to get rewarded/punished for what God says they would have done.  This seems plausible until you consider how unfair life seems anyway, as I described in chapter 5.  Also, it doesn't address the question of why people who are destined for hell are created in the first place.

He does make one semi-cogent point here:

The second incorrect assumption is that God alone has created you. You are the product of choices made by your parents. Therefore, God has not predestined you to be born at all. How can you blame Him for creating you to send you to hell?
This is not to say that God is not involved at all in the creation of life. The Bible says that once a new human life is made God creates a spirit within the fetus and knows us at that point, even calling some to serve Him from the womb.

I reject the premises of the argument that God needs to stay hidden (and not visibly influence matters) and that unrestricted free will is necessary for reasons explained in chapters 5-7, so I've already provided plenty of reasons that God should always intervene to prevent disaster regardless of how obvious it would be to us, if he does indeed exist as the bible describes.  However, I'm going to suspend my disbelief to address the above point.

As I will explain in chapter 11, the concept of a spirit doesn't make a lot of sense.  However, if we are to attribute one's identity to a spirit, it seems an omniscient God should still know what situations that spirit will face and how it will react, and an omnipotent God should be able to make all "good" spirits who will make morally sound decisions.  So the original problem is still there.

Furthermore, it seems wiser to stop the sperm from fertilizing the egg of the doomed offspring, therefore preventing someone's eternal damnation.  Or, make sure the right sperm and egg meet to produce heaven-bound offspring.  If he's involved enough to give the fetus a spirit, he might as well go an extra step to prevent inevitable eternal suffering.  Note that there would be no way for us to tell that God did anything in any of these solutions.

The conclusion is inexorable; God is either unable to predict what evil we will do (not omniscient), unable to prevent it (not omnipotent), or unwilling to prevent it (not omnibenevolent).

Chapters 9-15 are in scraps here.

Chapters 16-25 are in scraps here.