Reconsidering Atheist's Wager (Part II)

In my previous post, I considered a recent blog entry titled "Atheist's Wager" and posted what I hoped would be a successful rebuttal. My hope was that a limited use of statistics would show that atheists too have engaged in murder of their fellow man. I was not trying to get into a contest to see who could discredit the other side's beliefs by using the actions of people long dead.

Instead, it seemed reasonable to conclude that if I could show that atheistic humans have killed humans as readily in history as did religionists, then I could also discredit any argument based on a false claim - that religions murder people when atheism does not. I was neither trying to invalidate atheism nor prove that atheism is evil.

I believe the blog post was moderately successful judging by the quality of the feedback it elicited from its readers. Helpfully, anonymous cowards reminded me that atheists are by and large good people too and that the crazy dictators I cited setup power structures not entirely unlike those found in large religious organizations, all of which perpetrate evil on humanity. Jeff pointed me to this great post discussing how Stalin, Hitler, The Inquisition, and The Crusades are often misused in debates over religion and irreligion. (Thank you, Jeff, for the good read!) However, I do think that bringing up Stalin and Hitler were appropriate in this context because we are discussing the historical actions of those with religious and secular ideologies.

Next, I would like to respond to Paul's comments: "Secondly, using a religious document to rebut a logical argument about religion is pointless - if you really want to turn back his argument (and honestly, I really do want to hear a well-thought out reply to this, I think it's certainly possible), you have to use reason, using Bible verses is like ending an argument with ''cause God told me so'."

The Bible verses I quote contain a rather concise and logical argument even when you discount the fact that Christians believe it to be the divinely inspired Word of God. This passage states the following:

1. God made the facts about Himself plainly known to humankind.
2. These facts include God's attributes, divine nature, and eternal power and are clearly observable in the natural world.
3. As such, there is no excuse for anyone to say that they do not know God.
4. Humans created idols that look like man or the animals which they foolishly worshipped instead of God.
   

I chose Romans 1:18-23 because it offered a reasonable explanation of where the many different world religions originated (in human action) along with providing an answer to Atheist's contention that God must be evil because He has not provided humanity with absolute proof of His existence. Unfortunately, those verses were rejected nearly out of hand without due consideration to their logical content.

In closing I would like to restate Atheist's argument concisely (and fairly) and provide a reply as Paul politely requested. It is as follows:

1. God is evil because ideologies exist that conflict with each other.
2. To worship God is an act of treason against humanity.
3. Unless God proves His existence and changes the outcomes, we as a race should not worship Him.

Statement 1: As stated above, humans created ideologies that conflict with one another and with God's religion after rejecting Him. You can't say God is evil if we misuse our free will.

Statement 2: Worshipping God is not an act of treason against humanity. In fact, it's the only way out of the mess we made to begin with!

Statement 3: As we know, God is all-wise and all-knowing by definition. By claiming that He does not deserve to be worshipped until He changes outcomes here on earth assumes that we know better than the All-Wise, All-Knowing Being. Such is mightiness of our human arrogance!

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9 (NASB)