This began as a script for a video I am making, but might as well post what I have so far. I will post the video after I make it:
Theological questions:
Here is a little background, when I lost my faith, around the age of 16, I decided, quite suddenly, I was an atheist I just could not believe anymore, no matter how hard I tried. Little remnants of my past belief, in the case, Lutheranism, remained. As the years went on, more and more of the vestigial parts of my believe fell away. Belief in an after life, be it heaven or hell. The concept of sin, original or otherwise and even if anything in the Bible ever happened, including the existence of a physical Jesus.
I try not to spend too much time on religion, but it is such an interesting topic, especially considering in the unites states, over 70% of the people believe in something. As I got older, I really wanted to understand what religion, particularly Christianity means. In my exploration, I encountered a few intractable questions I have never seen a proper answer to:
Why would an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient god require, really, demand worship? If I was all powerful and all knowing, why would I even care if one of my creations didn’t worship me? In fact, this is more of a lack of character on a god’s part. I create software and hardware all the time, but I don’t demand that my test systems worship me. I don’t get angry that they don’t worship me.
The most common apologetic that I have encountered for this one is a circular argument, god demands worship because you should worship your god.
Why would a omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient god worry about its creations worry about worshiping other gods? If you are the creator of the universe, you should be able to convince your creations pretty easily that you are real. You would not worry about your creations worshiping a graven image. If you are so real and powerful, why do even your chosen people wander away from you constantly? A jealous god seems like a contradiction. I have not seen an even half ass apologetic for this one.
The classic Euthyphro dilemma: If something good because god demands it, or does does god command it because it is good? If it is the first part of the dilemma, good is subjective, it is the latter, good is external to god and we don’t need a god to know what is good or bad. The most common apologetic for this is somehow worse that the original proposition. The apologetic says god is good by his nature and can not be bad. Well, that makes god have less free will than us humans and still makes goodness an external proposition. How did god get his good nature? Can he not change his nature? This would mean he is not a god. It just makes the problem worse.
Why would a god get angry at his own creations, that did not have an understanding of good and evil, make an ethical decision that depends on the knowledge of good and evil? Adam and Eve would not know what lying is, or if their actions would be good or evil. If you were omniscient, you would know the creations that YOU made would make that decision. Why did you make Satan? Why did you put the tree in the garden? I know the answer, this is just a silly story used to explain evil and why we have to farm and why women have hard pregnancies. However, every apologetic for this story is just plain silly.
Why do you use “Objective Morality” as a proof of god? It is nothing more than the Euthyphro dilemma with objective morality in the place of good. How can morality be objective in any way? Subjects, be it humans or god, are where morality comes from, so all morality has to be subjective. Getting back to Euthyphro, You can restate the object morality claim as such: Is something moral because god commands it, or does god command it because it is moral? Saying that god is the source of objective morality means you are just choosing the first horn of the dilemma, and you are back to subjective morality, or divine command theory.
How is eternal life possible? Eternal life depends on there being an infinite reality, but that is not possible in this universe. Nothing is infinite. If we are resurrected, how does this work? Wouldn’t our resurrected forms just be a duplicate or simulation of what we are? It may have our memories, but it is not us. What was us died when our brains died. This problem exists with ANY kind of afterlife, be it heaven, hell, or some new age concept. Why do we need eternal life? Evolution and culture already figured out how to pass on what is essentially us, children. They inherit our very DNA and we can pass down our values to them, to pass on to their children. Our deaths are the price we pay to keep the species moving forward.
How do you know there is a soul? I don’t understand how brain/soul duality works. I don’t even know how this is possible. The brain thinks, that is its purpose, to process information from our senses and react accordingly to increase our chances of survival, as an individual and as a species. If you damage your brain, your mind suffers. I just watched my father die, trust me, once the brain is gone, that person is dead. Where do souls come from? How do the interact with the brain? Why are they affected when you have brain damage? When does the soul enter the developing fetus or child? Is a soul an adult when it is created, or is it emergent? The simpler answer is that should don’t exist.