True Christianity is Not a Religion ... but Scientific Materialism Is

Many times I have heard the claim by evangelical Christians that "true Christianity" is not a religion but rather a "relationship with God." The argument goes something like this: "Religion is a human concept by which people try to reach to God through various rituals or good works. However the message we preach is that God did all the work himself and now wants a relationship with you. Since this salvation is God-dependent it is not a religion". Clearly a key goal of this argument is to distinguish "true Christianity" from the thousand and one other religions that have similar-sounding claims on individuals.

In other discussions, I hear the claim that Scientific Materialism is the "religion of this age." It is a religion because it is believed on faith and it largely affects one's interpretation of the world. The goal of this argument is to throw back on the naturalist the same criticism he makes of the person who believes in the supernatural: it is all a faith belief.

It is interesting how Christians are so happy to redifine the word "religion" in different ways in different contexts so that it applies exactly to their enemies. These two definitions are clearly inconsistent: if Scientific Materialism is a religion because it is dependent on faith in unproven assumptions, then surely "true Christianity" also is a religion. So why not just use a dictionary definition. Here are a couple from Webster's dictionary and Chamber's dictionary:

Religion [Merriam-Websters]
Etymology: Middle English religioun, from Latin religion-, religio supernatural constraint, sanction, religious practice, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back
1 a : the state of a religious (a nun in her 20th year of religion) b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

Religion (noun) [Chambers]
1: a belief in, or the worship of, a god or gods.
2: a particular system of belief or worship, such as Christianity or Judaism.
3: colloq anything to which one is totally devoted and which rules one's life • mountaineering is his religion.
4: the monastic way of life.
ETYMOLOGY: 12c: French, from Latin religio bond or obligation, etc, from ligare to bind.

So religion is a broad term. It clearly applies to "true Christianity" whatever relationship with God is implied. It is not required that religions believe that people work their way to heaven. Denying this is being deceitful, although I have seen worse forms of deceit in making converts.

Does religion apply to scientific materialism? By this I assume what is meant is a rejection of the supernatural. Surely this can include all kinds of beliefs, certainty, lack of certainty, devotion or lack of it, atheism or agnosticism or even deism -- basically just about anything. To call this a religion is again a misapplication of the word religion. In justifying the claim, Christians might point to a devoted camp of naturalists who act with religious zeal. I don't think it applies to these either, but even if it did, that does not mean people in general who reject the supernatural have a religion.

The term religion should be used honestly and it should clairify the issues. Unfortunately the way some Christians use it is often the opposite: it is both dishonest and it is used to muddy the issues in the debate with naturalists.

Reason, Faith and Truth Seeking

What is demanded of an honest truth seeker? Must he be rational? May he be a person of faith? I seek to understand these questions in this post. To answer them requires an analysis of what it means to be rational including having rational beliefs and acting rationally. Then I consider to what extent faith may be rational, and ask if it is compatible with truth seeking.

Belief is often posed as a binary option: Do you believe this claim, yes or no? That is: Are you certain the claim is true or certain it is false? But clearly these are not the only options. One can be unsure, and actually one's level of uncertainty could be anywhere in the range between certainty that it is false to certainty that it is true. Hence the question that should really be posed is: What is your level of belief in this claim?

Given then that we have belief levels about all sorts of things, how are rational beliefs distinguished from irrational ones? I assume what we mean by a rational belief is one that carefully considers all the evidence and produces an optimal prediction of the truth or falsehood of a claim given this evidence. Given uncertainties, the pridiction will be a probability (or a range of probabilities) of the truth of the claim. A useful example is that of weather prediction. One can be certain of the weather at the moment by looking outside. But it is harder to know what the weather tomorrow will be. So, for example, a rational belief might consider the season and recent weather etc. and conclude there is a 75% chance of rain tomorrow. To pose the question: do you believe it will it rain or not tomorrow creates creates a false dichotomy, as being certain it will rain or not without very strong evidence is irrational. Of course sometimes it may be difficult to determine what the evidence supports, or two people may have different sets of evidence available to them and so may rationally have two different levels of belief.

An irrational belief is one that ignores the evidence so does not optimally predict the truth or falsehood of a claim. Again this is not an all-or-nothing description. There are levels of irrationality depending on how much or little one considers the evidence.

I conclude that truth seeking is the process of building rational beliefs about the world, and includes the search for evidence as well as the analysis of it.

Now the rationality of actions, unlike beliefs, must be judged based on the goals of the individual. A rational action is one which, given the circumstances, best achieves the goals of the person. This says nothing about whether the action is good or bad, only how effective it is at achieving its goal given current knowledge, capabilities and constraints. Actions result from a complicated mix of beliefs, goals and values.

Now an interesting question is: can it be rational to be irrational? Let me put it another way: Can one rationally choose to have irrational beliefs? This is not possible for someone whose primary goal is to know the truth, and for most other cases, too, false beliefs lead to suboptimal choices and hence it is much better to have rational beliefs. But here is an example where I think irrational beliefs can lead to a better outcome and hence would be rational to hold. One can choose to believe with certainty that one's team will win the competition even though it is predicted to be an even match. Here the irrational belief in winning can help inspire one to play better and increase the chance of winning, and hence better achieves one's goal to win than would a purely factual analysis.

Now what about faith; is it rational or irrational? The first problem is that faith is a nebulous term with many meanings. Here I will consider a couple aspects of faith and their potential for being rational. Sometimes faith is considered an action. One might choose to follow Christ, or follow the church teachings. Is this rational? It depends what one's goal is in doing this. Some reasons might be: to escape persecution, to live a better or happier life, to get to heaven and avoid hell. If having faith best achieves these goals, then it is rational, if not then it is irrational (to some level).

Another aspect of faith is belief. Are the beliefs involved in faith rational in that they are most likely true given the evidence? First it is clear that the evidences for the chief faith claims are weak. This I conclude for a number of reasons including: (1) if the evidences were strong it would not be called faith (2) in general the claims aren't scientifically testable and so lack the type of evidence used by science, (3) the evidences are strongly disputed by many people, and (4) because I have looked at many of the evidences myself and concluded they are weak. However a common factor for many faiths is that, despite the evidences for their chief claims being weak, their followers are encouraged to be certain that their beliefs are true and act as if there were no chance that they could be mistaken. A host of techniques are used to build faith including encouraging active involvement in worship and prayer and bible reading and at the same time warning of the dangers of doubt and falling away. These emotional actions may sway people, but the problem is that the raw evidences are rarely critically examined and the claims evaluated on these. And having certainty despite weak evidence is a clear case of irrational belief. Hence this type of faith is irrational.

I have concluded that a truth seeker ought to seek evidences for claims and rationally assess their truth. Also, in so far as faith fosters irrational beliefs and unsupported absolute certainty, a truth seeker will be going astray by holding onto it. Faith beliefs are for those seeking other goals besides truth such as assurance and comfort. But there remain rational reasons for faith actions, such as following Christ's teachings to be a better person.

Losing My Faith

As long as I can remember, I have wanted to understand how the world around me works. My faith was an important part of that; it was not just for my comfort or pleasure (although it brought these), but more importantly it enabled me to understand the unseen parts of this world and the next. The Bible revealed much that I could not obtain elsewhere. I believed the Christian message about my sin, God's forgiveness and gaining salvation through Jesus. I read my Bible daily, went to church and fellowship and small-group meetings. I was strongly involved in evangelism and sought to bring my friends and others into a right understanding of God and the world and their need for forgiveness so they could gain salvation too.

There were two significant events and a few lines of thought that lead to a crumbling of this faith. The first event was a discussion over dinner with two people I had met from the International Church of Christ: a sect of Christianity that thinks it is the true church. We were discussing our faiths. Tim, the more experienced of the two, was a strong believer and active in his church and spreading the faith. There was a lot I had in common with him, and to some extent I saw myself in him. But we had some disagreements. He took some passages in the New Testament about making disciples as implying we had to be actively evangelizing every day, otherwise our faith was void. We discussed it in length and I tried to show Tim that his belief was ludicrous. But he was absolutely convinced that his interpretation was correct and that those of us who disagreed were wrong and going to hell. And that is how our discussion ended, with no progress. As I thought back over our discussion I was amazed that someone who seemed so reasonable and strong in faith was so confident in a belief that was so obviously false. The disturbing question it raised for me was this: might I be like Tim, confident in beliefs that if I were more objective I would see were clearly false? I concluded that confidence in a belief is not good evidence that it is true. Rather such confidence, where evidence is weak such as in spiritual things and knowing God's will and as often showed by Christian leaders, is most likely a mask for ignorance.

The second event was actually a semester long course on creation and evolution that I taught to the youth at a Southern Baptist church I attended. I wanted it to be as fair a presentation of all the evidence and views involved, so I did a lot of research into the creation-evolution debate. Whether evolution is true or not, I didn’t know. What surprised me, though, were the arguments used by Christian organizations to counter evolution. Arguments like: the decay of the earth’s magnetic field indicates that the earth can’t be older than 10 thousand years old. This and a number of the other arguments (which I had learned when I was young) had long since been shown to be false, and yet they were still being printed without disclaimers and included in curricula for students. How could Christians, who were claiming to be spreading the truth, be using falsehoods to achieve this goal? Perhaps what was more important than truth of the message, was simply convincing people of the message. This, of course, is not restricted to the creation-evolution debate. There are many beliefs Christians seek to convince others of; but are Christians scrupulous to use only truthful arguments for these? I began to wonder if that were so. As I thought back over various evangelism efforts I was familiar with, I realized indeed making converts was the goal, and the truth of the message or the arguments did not matter. Even the Biblical authors are guilty of this. There are numerous times in the New Testament where anyone who disagrees with and disbelieves the author is labeled an evildoer and described in horrible language (for example Romans 1:18-32). Clearly there are many morally good unbelievers who reject the gospel message (I'm not saying they are perfect), but it is convenient and rhetorically powerful to ignore this fact. This is another example of truth being discarded for the sake of making converts. Should I really have faith in a message that is so casual about truth?

Ask a Christian why he believes, and he will have a reason, especially if he is involved in evangelism. But are these reasons for faith really reasons for the truth of the belief? Of course I can’t evaluate all the reasons here, but the surprising thing is that most of the reasons most people give aren’t actually reasons for the truth of the message. For example, people believe because they were healed from something when they prayed, or because faith gives them great joy and hope and peace, or because they at last feel forgiveness, or because they want to go to heaven in the afterlife, and so forth. But none of these speak to the truth of the belief. One can be miraculously healed without the gospel message being true (see my post: What do miracles prove?), one can gain great joy, hope, peace and forgiveness simply through having a belief, without the belief being true, and one can be confident that one is going to heaven without that being true. What I found as I thought more carefully, listen to sermons, read apologetics books and read the arguments in the Bible, was that despite finding many “reasons” for faith, there are very few reasons or evidence for the truth of the gospel message. But I only want to believe a message if it is true.

My last line of reasoning is probably the most important for me, and one that I have considered on and off for a number of years. Christianity depends on divine authority for its message which it proclaims with with no uncertainty. The natural question this poses is: How can one know if a message is from God? The common answer is: Find it in the Bible. But that just pushes the question back one step: How do we know the Bible is a divine message to us? That’s a hard question, and it compels a similarly difficult question: How did the original writers or prophets know that their message was from God? Say one of the prophets heard a voice; How is he to know if it is from God? Or maybe he saw an angel; Does that mean that what he heard was from God? Who knows what spiritual things exist outside our experience; if one of them appears and claims to be from God, why should we believe it? How can one we sure that it is speaking the truth or that it is trying to deceive the prophet? (The simple tests sometimes proposed assume these creatures are idiots -- one must assume they are at least as smart and knowledgeable as any human and so could easily deceive any human.) In addition, how can anyone who hears the prophet know that he got his message from God? One might say, well if he does signs and wonders then one should believe. But if there are powers out there, then it could be any power doing the signs and wonders. Another answer is: One knows through spiritual insight. That is to say, one feels it is from God so it is from God, or equivalently one feels it is true so it is true. That is a statement of ultimate subjectivity and not surprisingly there is a plethora of contradictory feelings as to what is from God. Luckily the scientific approach has moved us beyond that dead end of pure subjectivity. Another answer is: Listen to what Jesus said. But if Jesus was a human, he would have similar difficulties as we in determining what the divine message was – just like we can’t know for sure, he wouldn’t know for sure. Doing great works and rising from the dead aren’t a demonstration that he was right in his message. So we are stuck, unable to be sure of anything about the spiritual world that lies outside our realm of experience. Nevertheless there are religions that claim to know all about the spiritual world without a shadow of a doubt. It seems clear to me that there is a lot of bluffing and deception going on.

The conclusion that I have drawn is that while Christianity claims to speak the truth with divine inspiration, the evidence for this is completely lacking. None of the reasons or evidences I have seen proposed actually justify it. Moreover, the confidence in which the message is stated actually counts against its likelihood, since the speakers refuse to accept the inherent uncertainty in any such pronouncement. Indeed there is plenty of evidence of Christianity from the begining being more concerned about making and keeping converts than preserving the truth. My goal is to find the truth, and if I am to be honest in that search I have to move on from my faith in infallible claims of divine pronouncements.

Choosing Hell

When confronted with the problem of why a loving God would send people to eternal torture in hell, some (perhaps the more squeamish) Christians who want to believe in both hell and God's love have a way out. Here it is. People themselves choose where they want to go. Either they choose to be with God or to reject God. If they choose to love God, then they get to be with him in heaven. If they reject God, then he withdraws himself from them including all that he is such as love, goodness, peace etc. What is left is hell, and so they are getting what they chose. Who would say that it is unfair when someone hates all things good, that these should be taken away from him?

Here's the problem with this reasoning. It assumes that loving the Christian-defined God is the same as loving all things good. But surely it is possible for someone to pursue truth, goodness, humility, caring, love of others, and the rest of the virtues, but without believing in the Christian God. Moreover, that person could have carefully considered all the evidence, and honestly concluded that the supernatural claims of the Christian revelation are false. It would actually be dishonest for him to believe, when he sees the sum of evidence pointing against belief. Or perhaps that person looked carefully at the actions of the Christian God including his ordering the slaughter of the Cananite children and his bloody masacres in the book of Revelation and concluded the Christian God is not good or caring towards the majority of humans (see: Is God Good?). Who would blame him for not choosing to love and worship the Christian God? But has he chosen heaven or hell? Christian dogma would have him going to hell, and yet he is much closer to knowing goodness than many Christians.

If choosing to think for oneself and to search for and follow the evidence wherever it leads is equivalent to choosing hell, what choice do I have? If I am to be honest in my pursuit of truth I'll have to risk it.

Doctrine as Fact?

I find it curious that many Christians respond to my questions about faith by informing me of Christian doctrines and stating them as fact. For example, saying "God loves you", or "God sent his son to die for your sins," and so on. But the question I have is not what Christian doctrines are, I know those better than most, but whether or not they are true.

So for example, I want to know: Does God actually love everyone? Just stating the doctrine that he does is not an answer, since how do you know that doctrine is true? Quoting a verse from the Bible ("For God so loved the world...") is a better start, but not a full answer either. There are two responses that still need to be addressed. First, is that statement compatible with other evidence we have both in the Bible and elsewhere? It is not hard to find some strong evidence against this in the Bible itself. God must have hated the Canaanites and their children as he ordered their massacre a number of times (see my post: Is God Good?). Can it be loving to take away everything someone has and then kill him, even if afterwards you might make it up to him in the afterlife? Surely that is not love. Then there is plenty of pointless suffering the the world that God could easily prevent if he really loved people (although this could lead to a long discussion).

The second response to the quote from the Bible that God loves people, is how did the author of the text know that and could he be mistaken? The author is stating his belief or opinion. Maybe he is wrong? To convince us he needs to argue his case and show us evidence. One reply to this is to say: No, it is God speaking authoritatively through the Biblical author and so he can't be wrong. But how do we know that? Because it is another Christian doctrine? That's not good enough as it needs stand on its own merits and evidence. Another reply is to say that the Gospel writer does give us evidence that God loves us: God sent Jesus to die for our sins and save us. That is progress, as now evidence is being considered rather than a doctrine being assumed. But how strong is the evidence? What is God saving us from? Presumeably from the punishment he has in store for us, but if he really loved us he could simply forgive us (see my post: God wants a relationship with you). Or maybe the love was expressed by a willing loss: a father losing his son to death is a terrible loss, and God willingly suffered a similar loss. But did he? Actually he got his son right back three days after he died. So what is the loss? The analogy breaks down here. Or maybe the love was Jesus' willingness to suffer for us. But consider an infinite being taking on a body for 30 years and suffering badly for a couple days at the end. That suffering is not much compared to the other suffering we see in the world. Many others were crucified, and many others suffered worse and longer drawn out tortures and death. That does not seem to be much of a sacrifice for an infinite being. So the evidence for love is kind of weak. Moreover, if God put us in this sinful world and in hopelessly sinful bodies, then surely he has a responsibility to help us get out of our fix?

My point is that I don't want to simply hear doctrines stated as if they were self-evidently true. Ask yourself, is it really true? Why do you believe it? What is the evidence on which you base your belief? (And authority is not evidence.) Does the evidence have holes or contradictions? Is there counter evidence? Also look out for self deception: are you believing it just because you want to or it makes you feel good or gives you hope?

Another response I hear is: "God's knowledge is higher than ours; we can't understand stand his love now, but we will after we die". But what I am trying to determine is if those claims about God are accurate or not. Just accepting them is an abdication of one's intelligence. Surely the key value of our intelligence is in guiding what we believe. If something may or may not be true, then before believing it one should at least make sure that it does not contain self-contradictions, and be aware of what evidence there is for and against it, and then make reasoned a choice to believe or not. Say I told you "Stalin really loved his people, we just can't understand his love", I think you would not suspend your judgement in rejecting that even though you can't undetstand Stalin's mind or fathom the reasons for all his actions. So our decisions of what to believe won't be perfect, but nevertheless we have no choice but to make judgements based on the limited information we have and our assessment of it.

We are stuck here on this planet with a host of religious and faith claims presented to us. We have to decide what to believe. Simply accepting doctrines will get us nowhere; which ones ought we to accept? If we arbitrarily choose some, then there is a very high chance we are falling into error. Rather, let's be guided by the evidence we can find and by our analysis of it.

Evolution of my Thoughts on Evolution

The creation / evolution debate is alive and well in the United States. My experience of it is illustrative of the current issues, so let me recount it.

I grew up in a protestant evangelical Christian household. My parents disliked evolution saying things like Darwin invented it to avoid the moral requirements of a creator. I had access to plenty of creation science literature which was filled with "evidence" against an old earth and evolution. When I started college I recall that my roommate asked me if I believed in a literal 7-day creation, and I said I did. During university days I learned some about cosmology and the Big Bang theory, and so I started seeking interpretations of the creation story which were compatible with an old Universe -- such as perhaps the days of creation were long periods of time. I still didn't consider evolution of humans as compatible with my faith.

The first time I really worked through the issues was when I taught a one-semester course on evolution and creation to the teenager class at the church I went to. For that I did a lot of reading on the creation/evolution debate and I sought to present both sides of the argument. In addition to library material, I sent off for materials from the Institute for Creation Research. My findings are summarized below:

• Evolution is not a finished theory yet; there are still plenty of holes and things are are not explained yet. But contrary to various creation science claims, that does not mean it is false, just incomplete.
  
• The evidence for an old earth (~4 billion years old) is overwhelming. Claiming that it is only 6000 years old is like claiming that the sun revolves around the earth. How anyone who looks at the evidence can deny an old earth and actually teach their children that is beyond me.
• What surprised me most was that creationists continued to use arguments against and old earth and against evolution that were known to be false. (Things like extrapolating the recent decay of the earth's magnetic field backwards and concluding that the earth can be at most 10,000 years old -- ignoring the fact that now there is plenty of evidence of the earth's magentic field flipping polarity multiple times). I was shocked that Christians who professed to be seeking the truth, and were commanded not to lie, would be so misleading and deceitful to children. Their arguments against evolution are filled with a multitude of misrepresentations. I suppose what matters to them is the end-product: that people's belief in the Bible is strengthened, even if it takes untruths to accomplish this.

Since that time I have continued to consider the evidence for evolution. The more I read, the stronger the case becomes that all of life is decended from a common ancestor. In particular the genetic evidence for this seems compelling.

So if the case for evolution is so strong, why are Christians (especially evangelical ones) so reluctant to accept it? Here are the reasons I see:

• There is a strong focus on the Bible as the ultimate authority for one's faith. The bible is what sets evangelical Christian beliefs apart from other beliefs. This entails taking it as literally as possible, otherwise one can take all sorts of liberties with the text. For example, if Adam and Eve aren't our literal ancestors as Paul thought, then maybe his condemnation of homosexual activity is also mistaken. Without a strong literal interpretation it is much harder to split the world into good and bad, black and white.
• Some basic theological teachings depend on a literal Adam and Eve as our ancestors. In particular the doctrine that Paul taught that sin entered the world through Adam's disobedience and is inherited by us. Then Jesus is the second Adam who brings forgiveness of our sins through his death and resurrection. If Adam wasn't a literal person or our literal ancestor (as evolution implies), then Paul was mistaken, and perhaps he was also mistaken about Jesus having a literal resurrection? If there isn't original sin, maybe people of other faiths aren't going to hell, and maybe Christians aren't going to heaven? A host of difficult questions ensues, and there isn't an unambiguous authority to answer them. Perhaps that is why the Catholic church isn't so worried about evolution, because it still maintains that the church has this unambiguous authority on matters of faith.
  
• Evolution raises questions about what makes humans and animals different. In particular it casts doubt on humans have a non-physical spirit or soul that lasts after they die. This brings into doubt basic Christian doctrines on an afterlife.
  

So for Christians and the church what seems to matter most is authority, as this is crucial to maintaining their faith and its distinction from other faiths. For me what matters most is truth. I am not willing to sacrifice truth for authority or even for faith. For protestants who look to the Bible as the basis of their faith, accepting evolution entails developing a much more liberal faith. What exactly this is faith is I'm not sure, and I would like to consider this more.

Worship only God

The Bible demands that we worship God, and only God. The first and second commandments are:

• You shall have no other gods before me.
• You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.
  

Worshiping other gods is punishable by death. The kings who killed prophets of other gods are lauded for their zeal for the Lord. God punished by death those who failed to consult him or properly respect him.

Say it is true; God is the only one worthy of our worship and those who worship other gods are foolish. Does that mean it is right for God to demand our worship on pain of death? If someone foolishly worships a fake god, is that threatening to God? Why can't he just laugh at that man's foolishness? If someone wants to choose a different god, why not just let him? My only explanation for this defensiveness on God's part is that he feels threatened by people following other gods. But it is kind of surprising that an infinite God would feel threatened by mere mortals. That is the kind of behavior Imight expect from an autocrat fearful of possible usurpers.

I'm not sure what to conclude. If indeed God is not satisfied unless everyone worships him and he punishes those who don't, then the Christian God must be insecure and vindictive. How can I honestly worship someone like that?

Do Religion and Truth Mix?

There are many religions and belief systems out there competing for followers. Many claim to be uniquely true and that other beliefs are mistaken. Obviously they cannot all be true, and for those that claim to be uniquely true, at most one can be true. Many very smart people are ardent followers of these conflicting belief systems, and if at most one is true, then a very large number of people are deluded in their beliefs. Hence I conclude that knowing the truth must be difficult and require careful searching.

Now if I am to choose a belief system, I want it to be true. However there isn’t an objective way to prove the truth of any of the systems. Hence at the least I will demand that my belief system value the truth, recognize the difficulty in finding it, and encourage its followers to be honest truth-seekers. Without these characteristics, I would have very little confidence that the belief system is true.

With this goal in mind, I will examine Christianity, and in particular evangelical Protestantism, as that is the system I am most familiar with. Many other religions share similar characteristics, and in a future post it would be interesting to compare them with this consideration in mind. The following are the characteristics relevant to knowing the truth that I’ve identified:

1. The chief source of knowledge of the Christianity is revelation through individuals by God. This is how the main tenets of belief are acquired including how the bible was created. Unfortunately, there is no way for others who weren’t the direct receivers to test whether or not the message was directly from God. Actually even the individuals who got the original revelation cannot know for sure that it was from God (perhaps the voice they heard had some other source). Various tests like consistency with other revelation, miracles, prophecy, good works etc. all fail to confirm the divine origin (as all these could have other explanations). Ultimately one must simply accept the claim by the prophets, writers or canonizers to their divine authority. This secret method of obtaining truth without an independent observer concerns me.
2. Empirical testing of the chief claims of Christianity is not possible. These claims include the characteristics of God, a future judgment, reward in heaven or punishment in hell, and so forth. Empirical validation is crucial in many fields as it gives an objective evaluation of the claims, but there is no such objective means for testing truth in Christianity. This is another reason for concern.
3. Signs and miracles have been used, and continue to be used, as validation of the teachings. Unfortunately, as I argued in a previous post, at most these demonstrate power, not the truth of views expressed by the miracle workers. It is disturbing to me that these are assumed in the bible and by others as proof of the correctness of the messages. This I think makes its truth questionable.
4. There is no way to disprove the faith or its claims. At first, this seems to be a strength, but in science if one proposes a theory that cannot be disproved, then it is considered an empty theory that gives no useful information. While Christianity makes many statements about the world, they are all sufficiently vague so not to be testable or about entities or events that cannot be accessed. Let me ask: what statement could one test that if false would disprove Christianity. This inherent vagueness and multiplicity of meaning of statements is makes me wonder about the truthfulness of Christianity.
5. A host of doctrines is assumed as priors that cannot be questioned. These doctrines can be quite elaborate and must be accepted without any test. They include doctrines on God’s existence, his character and how he relates to people. Some doctrines are questioned by use of the bible, but this relies on other doctrines of the scripture and its interpretation. I think honest truth-seeking would start with minimal assumptions, and rest all these claims about God and the bible on gathered evidence. Hence rather than doctrines one would have observations and deductions – and these could surely be analyzed and improved as knowledge grows. Christians typically strongly object to proposals like this which might “water down” the message. However, if truth is important, rather than certainty, then making observations and deductions will get one there rather than defining doctrines.
6. If one asks on what basis one should believe, the answer is: “Accept the claims on faith.” A common line of advice is: “Pray that God would convince you of the truth of the message, and then if you are convinced, this confidence itself is itself evidence of the truth of the message.” That is, confidence in one’s belief is crucial to being a follower. I can see how this is useful for motivating followers, but confidence is a strange test: surely one could easily be confident in something false or have faith in a falsehood. Faith and confidence are not a good test for truth, and I suspect could easily lead people away from truth.
7. Invariably deep questioning, careful criticism, and doubting are discouraged by Christianity. At best these are things one must get over in order to develop in one’s faith. But it is strange that any true system would fear or discourage these. In science these are encouraged, and from these new and better ideas emerge. I can see how falsehood would fear these things, but truth should have no fear of probing analysis.
8. An enormous carrot is held up for those who maintain the faith: eternal joys in heaven, and a brutal stick held over those who would disbelieve: eternal punishment in hell. Is it really possible to fairly assess the truth of one’s beliefs if one fears going to hell by making a mistaken conclusion from the evidence? I have experienced the fear of hell as I questioned aspects of my faith and for a while it kept me back from my inquiries. But in the end I decided that I would pursue truth foremost, and let God do what he likes to me. I find it hard to believe a true system would use these kind of measures to maintain believers.
9. Followers focus on converting the unbelievers and seekers, and on maintaining their own faith. There is no open discussion on the truth or falsehood of their own beliefs. If truth is difficult to achieve, then surely people should be spending much more time analyzing the bases of their own beliefs than trying to convince others to believe the same.
10. One typically joins a community of believers. This is a major strength of a religion: one gains company, friends, supporters etc. That is, so long as one maintains the faith. If one openly rejects the faith, then one loses one’s standing and ones ability to participate. This is another major stick held up against those who might disbelieve. I think this is unfortunate as it discourages independent criticism.

My conclusion is Christianity has few hallmarks of a system that values truth. It has an over confidence on how easy truth can be determined and that it must be true. Its key claims are not testable and it uses miracles and other spurious means for assuring its followers of its truth. Finally, it actively discourages thoughtful criticism through various means including threats of eternal punishment.

Faith or Freedom?

I find it interesting listening to politicians advocating a greater role for faith in the running of our country, from faith-based charity groups, to prayer in schools and the government, and simultaneously claiming to protect individual freedoms. Are these goals of spreading faith and increasing freedom compatible or do they clash? Plenty of groups advocate their faiths as the solution to our problems. But the strength of secularism and the separation of church and state in this country has kept this in check. It is not, however, too hard to find societies where faith is central to the running of the country. There are many countries that openly proclaim this. But has their pillar of faith been a solution to their problems? Surely is opposite is true; when faith-based groups gain power they invariably use their faith as a means of repression and elimination of individual freedoms. Naturally they ask why they should permit people to do things that are contrary to their principles? So the rules and regulations they create, governing what one can read, watch, say and believe, are for the moral good of the individual and country. Consider how many countries still ban speaking out against the official concept of God (i.e.. blasphemy) and reward this speech with a death penalty.

Christian groups are likely to reply that the problem is not that faith is supreme, but that the wrong faith is supreme. That is, if the Christian faith were in charge all would be better. But is it true that if the Christian religion were enshrined in our constitution and governing our every action, we be a better and freer nation? We might be better in the same way as the mullahs perceive their countries are better because of their state faith. They point to lower divorce, lower crime etc. in their countries to show how their faith improves their countries, but if so surely at an enormous cost of individual freedom. I propose that with Christianity in charge we would also have a similar loss of freedom. The key reason is that religious faiths (at least the monotheistic ones) have a pessimistic view of human beings: we're lost, we're evil, we're unable to do anything really good on our own, etc. Giving lost, sinful creatures freedom would lead to evil triumphing, and so true freedom would be a terrible state of affairs.

Instead the ideal Christian state is an authoritarian one in which God is in control and we all submit to him and obey his commands. That is how heaven will be in any case. On this earth realizing that goal is difficult as God doesn't seem to take actions on his own. Nevertheless the ideals of authority, submission and worship of that authority pervades Christianity. So as a result numerous people from the pope down on to individual pastors are eager to claim God's authority and decry any behavior that is displeasing to God. If they had political power they would surely use it to restrict any actions displeasing to God. Consider all the recent vitriol directed against gay marriage based on it being displeasing to God. Great efforts are being exerted by born again Christians to create a political ban of it. They reason: why should someone have freedom to do what God disapproves (even when it harms no one else)? I dread to imagine the growth of social control and the loss of freedoms if political power becomes subject to God's authority as determined by voting Christians.

Perhaps a classic argument formulated by Saint Paul claims that people in their natural state are slaves to sin and the Christian faith offers them freedom from that. The idea is that sin is an addiction, and faith in God releases one from that and so enables one to live in freedom. There are big flaws in this claim however. It is true that addictions or compulsive behaviors effectively limit our freedom, but unfortunately these aren't solved by faith in God. I think what Paul is talking about is an ideal of a sinless life that he has, and that he is unable to achieve it as a non-Christian. But it is pretty big leap to say that not being able to achieve an ideal, or that one makes mistakes, is equivalent to being enslaved. (Especially when the ideal is somewhat suspect.) In addition, how is the Christian free if he is still unable to achieve this ideal, and actually is no better at achieving it than the rest of mankind? But the main problem with Paul's argument is his concept of freedom. Consider this illustration. One lives in a totalitarian state. One is free to do whatever one likes so long as one submits to the ruler and obeys all his commands. Is that freedom or the opposite? That is the kind of freedom Christians advocate: so long as you submit to God, worship him and obey all his commands you are free to do whatever you like. If you reject this offer of "freedom" then the fury of hell awaits you. So you are not even free to say no.

If religion-inspired pessimism about the human state is the enemy of freedom, what is its promoter? Surely it is the optimism of humanism. Humanism believes we can conquer our downtrodden state of affairs and build a better world. We each should be set free to pursue and realize our individual and corporate potential. This may be tempered with a condition that we not harm others in our pursuit, but surely the greatest gain for everyone to be free to do as he wishes. It is this trust and optimism in human nature that is the basis for the freedoms given to us by our constitution.

Not surprisingly many religions show great distain for humanism. But hand in hand with this they show distain for freedom. So I think the choice for our country is pretty clear: faith or freedom.

Is an Afterlife Meaningful?

Does the concept of an afterlife even make sense? It is true many religions teach or assume an afterlife for people. In some cases it is reincarnation, and others it is heaven or hell or something in between. But what does it mean for someone to leave this life and enter an afterlife? Put another way, how do we know it is the same person in the after-life? If I die, and someone called Daniel enters heaven, is that me, or is it just someone like me with my name?

One can ask: what makes me me? How do I know I'm the same person as that person that looked just like me and inhabited my house yesterday? Well, there is a physical continuity between me and that person, and I have the same memories has he had, and my personality is the same. Perhaps none of these are perfect answers as they are all subject to gradual change, but let's suppose they contain a majority of what defines me.

Now clearly death is the end of our bodies. So physical continuity between us and whatever comes afterwards definitely breaks down. Then at best, from an correspondence perspective, an exact copy of one could be made, including a copy of the states of all one's neurons so that one's memories and personality are the same. Now I doubt most people would really want this, especially those suffering from diseases such as Alzheimer's, but assuming an improved body just complicates the correspondence, and I'll pass over that for now. Assuming then that an exact replica of me is made, including the state of my brain and my memories. Is that me?

Well if this is possible, there is no need for me to die for a replica to be made. A replica could be made now and placed in an appropriate world. Is that me? I would not think so, and I would not care for that replica any more than I would any other person. Another possibility is that after I die, not one but two replicas are made of me. One is put in heaven and one in hell. What should I think about that? Which one is me or are both me? I can't say that I care too much about the fate of my replica or replicas and would not consider them me. So it seems there is a crucial correspondence problem between me and whatever being is supposed to be me after I die. If an exact copy of me now is not going to be me, then an exact copy of me after I die is not going to be me, nor is any other improved copy.

Some might reply: it is one's soul (or spirit) that defines a person, and the transference of the soul is what constitutes a correspondence of a person. That is, it is me if my soul gets transferred to that body. But what is the soul? What part does it play in one's person? Presumably it is a non-physical thing, as if it were physical thing it would join the body in the grave. But can a non-physical thing influence the physical world? If it does then physics as we know it breaks down at that point. So I think we can safely reject that, and so conclude that whatever the souls is, it has no effect on the body or world. So it seems the most the soul can be is a label for a person; after one dies the soul or label gets attached to some other body. But this seems strange -- why should I care about some other body just because it gets my label? Moreover, if bodies can be replicated, maybe souls can too. Then perhaps multiple bodies will get my label after I die.

To conclude: I have a direct connection to my past and future in this world, and I understand how my current actions affect the future state of myself in this world. However, even if there is an afterlife, I see no connection between me and whatever creature or creatures follow me in the after-life. It is the same as someone making a clone of me -- all very well, but I have no attachment to that clone. In addition, transferring or copying my soul into that clone doesn't build any direct connection to it.

The Meaning of Life

I want to answer the questions: Does life here in this world have meaning? And if so, how can we find it? In discussing this with my wife, we came up with three broad ways in which life can have meaning. These are: community participation, achievement, and sensory satisfaction. I will elaborate on each of these.

By community participation I mean the give and take of relationships spanning the range from that with one's spouse to that with the rest of mankind or of even animal-kind. We are part of a complex community, and being part of it, especially an active part of it, contributes to its vitality. We might teach, we may be a plumber, we may raise children, we may write books, we may be politicians or we may help the poor, and so on. We each bring unique things to our community and affect it in unique ways. Through this community participation our lives gain meaning.

We all have the desire to achieve various things, and by achievement I include creation and discovery. We explore new lands, we overcome struggles, we build small and great things, we design vehicles, we create art and aesthetically pleasing structures, we have children, and the list goes on. This drive to discover, to create and to achieve propels our lives and gives them meaning.

Finally in sensory satisfaction I will include emotional satisfaction and pleasure. We experience the world, we imbibe new drinks, enjoy great food, receive love, affection and admiration from others. This aspect of our lives also gives us meaning.

Whether our lives are short or long, we can each find meaning in these ways. Contrary to what some people claim and I used to think, it is not necessary to have eternal life to have a meaningful life. Rather, if these short lives on earth are all we have, then they are all the more precious and we ought to make the most meaning out of them that we can.

What do Miracles Prove?

Various religions rely on miracles as a justification for their validity. In Christianity perhaps the key miracle is Jesus' resurection from the dead, although many other miracles were and are used to confirm teachings and make converts. Here I am not questioning the validity of the miracles -- I'm assuming they are true miracles. My question is: Given someone does a miracle, does that prove that what that person teaches is true? That happens a lot in the Bible; someone does a miracle and then everyone believes what that person teaches. Is that a reasonable response of the people?

If someone can do miracles at will, like healing people, then surely that demonstrates that the person has power (or at least access to a power) that the rest of us don't. But does having power imply that someone speaks the truth and is not deluded in his beliefs? Surely not; plenty of people have extraordinary powers and at the same time lie or are deluded. Well, one might reply that supernatural powers like healing people at a command only come from God, and God only gives them to people who are truthfully representing him. But where do all those qualifiers come from? First how do we know it is only God who bestows miracle-working powers? If one assumes God gives these powers, then it does not take much to assume other supernatural beings might give those powers as well. Second, even if the miracle power can be shown to be from God, how do we know on what basis God gives that power? The Bible says all earthly authority is from God, and if so then God bestows it on plenty of unpleasant and untruthful characters. He could equally well bestow miracle-working powers on charlatans.

Miracle workers tend to conflate power and truth as a way to gain credibility for their teachings. However power and truth are very different things, and power does not imply truth. If one seeks truth one is not going to be convinced by dogmas or doctrines that are justified by miracles.

God wants a relationship with you... and you better not say "No"

One of the main ways I have heard Christianity advertised is as follows: "God is not interested in your good works etc., rather what he wants in a relationship with you. He sent his son to die on the cross so that you could be reconciled to him. Accept this gift, have faith in him, make him your lord, and you will have a relationship with him that surpasses relationships between spouses." The second part is sometimes omitted, but generally implied: "But if you don't accept his offer, then you will be condemned as a sinner and sent to spend eternity in hell." Actually this second part, even more than the first, is what spurs evangelism to save the lost by telling people about this relationship offer.

The question I have is this: Is this relationship offer really a good and honorable thing as is generally presupposed by Christians? At first it sounds like nothing could be better. An offer of a perfect relationship, free of the defects that haunt human-human relationships, including the fact that it lasts not only through this life but through eternity. One would be a fool to turn down such an offer. But let me bring out the aspect that disturbs me through a parallel analogy:

There is a handsome, eligible bachelor, son of the governor and the wealthiest man in the land. Now he happens to meet a peasant girl, and falls in love with her. He makes her this proposal: "Come marry me and I will pay all your debts, take you away from menial labor, dress you in the finest clothes and give you all the luxuries you could want on top of my love. But if you refuse, then I will see to it that you are fired from your job, barred from future employment in the land, your home will be repossessed and you will live in abject poverty for the rest of your life." Surely, no matter how wonderful the benefits he offers her if she accepts, one would not call this a good or honorable proposal. Rather, wouldn't one condemn it as just the opposite: a malicious act that takes advantage of his wealth and her low position to virtually force her into a relationship irrespective of her wishes? The honorable thing, and the only action if he truly loved her, would be to treat her well even if she refused his offer of marriage. So isn't God guilty of this same crime if he sends people to hell who refuse his offer of a relationship?

One response to this is to say that the analogy is mistaken in that the peasant girl was already in a terrible mess, and the rich man was offering to save her from it, not to actively punish her himself if she refused his proposal. Well, I'm not sure if this objection is valid or not, and I will consider this question in a later blog, but for now let's accept this revision. Let's say that the woman has been convicted of a terrible crime and is scheduled to be hanged, drawn and quartered the next morning. Now the rich man comes to her in jail and says: "I love you deeply and want to marry you. If you accept this marriage proposal then I will use my influence to have you acquitted and freed. But if you don't accept, then I will leave you to your fate. (Also in the future if after accepting my proposal you reject me, then I will make sure your charges get reinstated)." Well again, doesn't this conditional offer demonstrate that the man's love is not deep and pure? If he truly loved her he would have her freed whether or not she accepted his marriage offer.

So I conclude that this relationship offer from God is not really an outflowing of sincere love, but due to it's conditional nature is rather primarily self-seeking and unconcerned about the human fate. I am surprised it is used so frequently by Christians despite this huge flaw -- I suppose either the conditional nature is glossed over, or else the conditional aspect is justified by various means. But it seems pretty rotten to me.

Thoughts on Heaven

For at least the last two millenia, many have longed for a better life than was their lot here, and have taken consolation in the anticipation of achieving this in heaven. But what do we mean by "heaven" and is it really a meaningful hope? Here are some of the Christian components of heaven:

• Free from pain and sorrow
• No death or (permanent) harm to individuals
• Free from evil and evil actions
• Full of God's love and care for us
• Full of happiness and joy
• It is a nice place to live
• Lots of pleasures and riches ("streets of gold")
• Continual worship of / interaction with God

The question I have is: Is this a satisfying place? Is it really somewhere one would want to go? At first blush one would say "Of course". But what about the issue of freedom? Is there freedom in heaven? That is, is there freedom to do what we want to do, to think what we want to think, to pursue what we want to pursue? If there is not freedom all of these "pleasures" are pretty meaningless. It's like being locked in a jail with all the luxuries one could want, except the freedom to direct one's own life.

By freedom I mean one's life is not determined or prescribed by someone else. I think of it this way: imagine oneself as a point in a high dimensional space, where each dimension is a possible action or thought one could have. Certain dimensions are constrained, and we cannot move along those: for example one can't punch a fist through a concrete wall, nor can one factor a 50 digit number in one's head. Being free means having a rich set of unconstrained dimensions along which one can choose to move or not to move. In this sense being alive, being human, and being free all have the same meaning. That is why prison is a punishment -- it takes away a large portion of one's life.

Now back to heaven. The idea of no death, pain, sorrow, or permanent harm actually takes away a lot of freedom. One cannot take risks as one knows that nothing really bad can happen to oneself. Heaven must be very carefully padded to prevent someone falling off a cliff and dying, (or equivalently people's bodies are indestructible). It must be like living in a grand phantasm. One is not free to fully experience it, since that freedom would involve possibility of harm and death.

No sorrow eh? So that means one cannot do anything that would emotionally hurt another person. One can't be rude, one can't be too forward, one can't be withdrawn, and so forth. There are innumerable things one is not permitted to do in case they hurt someone. Or perhaps people aren't hurt emotionally by anything. But surely feeling loved and feeling hurt are two sides of a coin -- if one can feel loved, then surely one will feel pain if this love is cast asside. So in heaven either we are devoid of emotions, or else we are constrained by lots of rules to prevent hurt emotions.

Perhaps one would reply that people in heaven will be good and will always choose the good path and think the right thoughts. But that is saying people's lives are prescribed not to proceed along certain dimensions. That is much the way in which a manufacturing robot would be programmed to operate. Surely lives like that are empty shells. The problem with heaven, like communism and other utopias, is that it fails to take into consideration freedom.

Can a Scientist Believe in Prayer?

What do we really want when we ask God in prayer for something? Say we ask God to heal someone or to protect someone from harm or to give someone wisdom etc., what are we expecting him to do? Well, let's assume that the world progresses along according to its natural mechanisms (things fall when we drop them, etc.) which we seek to describe using physics or science in general. In these requests we want God in some way to change the state of the world from what it would otherwise be, given this natural unfolding of physics. That is, we want God to intervene in this world and perturb its physics.

The key point is that there is a significant difference between getting God to do something and getting a person to do something. A person is a physical being and when he or she acts no laws of physics are broken; his/her actions are all within the system and perfectly describable by physics. But God is not material and hence outside of the natural physical interactions. If he does something that changes the state of the world from what it would naturally be, he must by definition be breaking the "laws of physics," i.e. temporarily changing the natural mechanisms that govern physical interactions.

One reply to this is to claim that God governs the universe and all physical interactions, and hence he can do as he wishes without breaking anything. Well given this claim, the question then is whether God has himself set up mechanisms or rules (which I was calling natural mechanisms or physical laws) that determine the outcome of physical interactions, or if he decides every time two atoms get close how they will interact. The incredible success of physics at describing nature strongly points to there being a consistent set of interaction mechanisms. So whether these are God governed or not, God must break them in order to answer someone's prayer.

Another reply: due to quantum mechanics, given the state of the world at any time, there are many possible outcomes. Prayer asks for God to select a particular outcome of the possible ones. In this way surely it wouldn't be breaking physical laws, but it would still be influencing the world. However, the problem with this is that while there may be many possible outcomes, their likelihood is governed by a probability determined by the wave function. This statistical probability is part of the physics of the system. If this probability is changed by fixing the outcome, then the physics is also changed.

So this is a serious thing: do we really want the laws of physics to be broken or changed by God so that our desires can be satisfied? Is it possible for me to think scientifically, and at the same time believe in prayer causing physical changes in the world? There are surely many scientists that hold onto both, but if they do it is in separate spheres: the lab vs. personal life. Making this separation is a contradiction that many people are happy to live with. Not only that, this power to break the laws of physics within the reach of everyone is very attractive -- a kind of David vs. Goliath power. But if the world is filled with these outside perturbations, then the goals of physics are a lost cause. If anything does not fit the theory, it is probably God perturbing the world, and there is no point developing a more encompassing theory to describe it. This is opposite to the natural mechanism assumption that has lead to the success of physics. Which is one to choose? Clinging to two contradictory world views is surely dishonest, and a truth seeker would not do that.

Is God Good?

Introduction

Christians frequently proclaim the goodness of God. But what exactly do we mean when we say God is good? We have a general idea of what it means for a person to be good, but do the same or different criteria apply to God? Once we can determine what it means for God to be good, then does he satisfy the criteria? One answer is to ignore the evidence and claim dogmatically that God must satisfy the criteria and so be good. But any religion could do the same with their God. A better way is to look at God’s recorded deeds in the Bible, and determine from these whether or not he is good. This is what I will investigate in this essay.

First let me explain the purpose of my question. Christians hold up God as someone to be worshiped, admired, loved and adored. Why should we have those attitudes and emotions towards God? Is it simply because he is all-powerful and creator? Surely that is insufficient. If he were all-powerful and created us to extract sadistic pleasures from us that should not inspire those attitudes. Say the devil were all-powerful, should we worship him? I would say no, despite the possibility that he might treat us better as a result of groveling before him. For me, the crucial property that God must have before I would admire him is goodness. Without this, worshiping him would be like worshiping whatever tyrant is in charge. This may benefit one, but it is surely a cowardly way to act. Hence, I will seek to understand what good must mean in application to God, and whether or not it does apply.

Human Goodness

Before one can ask if God is good, this term must be defined. I don’t intend to find an exhaustive definition, but I think a rough summary will do. I will start by exploring its meaning in application to a person. A good person demonstrates sacrificial love and care for other people and animals. He is honest, generous and merciful. He is not spiteful, mean or cruel. Goodness is a moral choice: the rejection of evil and pursuit of what is right or best towards others. There is plenty more that can be added, but this captures much of what it means except for a further stipulation that good excludes great evil. Consider the analogy of a doctor that through great effort manages to save the lives of 10 people per week, week after week. Indeed this may be a good man, but then say it was discovered that on the side he was periodically murdering one in a hundred of his patients to acquire their wealth. Even though on balance he is likely doing far more good than harm (saving many more lives than he killed), yet it is unlikely we would judge him as a good person. That is because being good is a high standard that is not compatible with his evil actions. Another interesting aspect of being good is that it never occurs in an isolated individual, but rather it is an aspect of one’s relation to other sentient creatures. If one lived in a universe with no other creatures it would be meaningless to say one is good or evil; one’s goodness is always determined with respect to others.

Divine Goodness

Given that we know that it means for a person to be good, then the question becomes: do these same criteria apply in determining if God is good? First let us look at the possibility that good as applied to God means something completely different than when applied to humans. By this we could mean that God, being so much greater than us, is governed by a completely different set of laws, or we could mean that God’s character is what defines what good means and so God is good by definition. If the first of these is true and God follows a different set of laws or protocols, then in calling God “good” we are redefining what “good” means. But “good” is already defined by common usage, and so it would be better to say God is foo, and define “foo” to be obedience to these higher laws or protocols. Then God is not good, and is something else. Well, consider the second possibility that God’s being defines the meaning of good in the same sense that the platinum-iridium cylinder in Paris defines what a kilogram is. Whatever God is or does is good and there is nothing he could do that is not good since he defines good. This may be useful for judging people, as we could say people are good in so far as they are similar to God. However, if one says God is good, this is a tautology. It is like saying John is John or the 1kg block is 1kg; true but useless statements. If God acted like the devil then he would still be good by definition. This tautological meaning of “God is good” is not something for which we could praise God, and so cannot be what we mean when we say God is good.

Next I will examine the arguments in favor of good as defined by humans applying to God. These include the many, many Biblical comparisons of God’s actions with human actions in which he is shown to be good in an analogous way to humans. God’s blessings on his people, his love for them and his protection of them are the big similarities, and in addition other properties such as faithfulness, truthfulness are what we praise God for when we think of him as being good, and these are exactly what we think of in a good person. In addition Jesus draws a very strong parallel between God’s goodness and ours, often comparing the actions of a good father with the good heavenly Father. One of his comparisons is:

“But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?” (Matt. 5:44-46).

Here God’s goodness is seen by how well he treats the unrighteous, and this is held up as an example for us. We see the same criteria for goodness being applied to God and mankind. Another argument in favor of this is that it is compatible with the notion of goodness being an absolute term. If goodness is absolute, then it must apply both to us and to God.

What happens when we apply our concept of goodness to God? Indeed we observe the many good and generous things God does, starting from his creation of a beautiful world for our benefit to all the blessings he gives us. Worship songs are filled with praises for these. But there is a dark side to his actions as well. We see God doing or ordering actions that we would term abhorrent. For example after defeating various Canaanite tribes he orders the slaughter of all the women, children and infants (ex. 1 Sam 15:3 “Put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys”, and other passages include Deut. 3:3, 7:2, 20:16-17, 25:19, Joshua 6:21, 8:26, 10:28, Numbers 31:17). Even if killing the Canaanites is a punishment for their sins, killing children who haven’t sinned is surely evil and unjust. But that form of punishment is claimed by God, as in Exodus 34:7, “He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” Other examples of abhorrent actions include God actively performing or ordering murders himself, such as the killing of all the firstborn of Egypt to change Pharaoh’s mind. In 1 Chronicles 21:14 God kills 70,000 Israelites for David’s sin. Or consider one of the greatest mass slaughters which God announces in Genesis 6:13, “So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.’” It doesn’t matter that all the non-violent people and children will be killed in the process. It is not only the Old Testament. The book of Revelation is brimming with tortures and punishments ordered by God on huge segments of the world’s population, completely ignoring the fact that innocent children will be among the victims (Revelation 9:1-6). Due to our distance from the events, we tend to consider them abstractly and indifferently. But when I think of my newborn child, and if anyone were to kill her or order her killed for someone else’s wrongdoings, I would never think that person was good. In those events a lot more than one innocent child died. If any human performed these actions, we would hold him with similar reprobation as we would Hitler. Thus, even though God may do many good and generous actions, the great number of evils he is responsible for ones means that God cannot be good.

There are a few responses to this. One is that God is also a judge, and his justice requires his meting out harsh judgments. However, this response does not address the issue in these examples, which is the killing of innocent ones for the sins of others. Surely no one would claim that this is a form of justice, especially when God is perfectly able to punish the guilty ones themselves and spare the innocent. Then perhaps it is okay if God makes it up to the people wrongly killed in the next life? This is saying that evil means are okay as long as the end is good. If one wrongly imprisons someone for five years, then indeed one should make up for it as best as one can, but no matter what the compensation, an injustice has been done and nothing can change that. That is, a good person or a just judge cannot use evil actions or unjust punishments as a means to a greater good, as then he fails to be good or just. Thus a reward in the afterlife does not get God off the hook for evil or unjust actions in this world.

Then perhaps God’s actions are okay because all are guilty of sin, even the babies. The argument here is that justice requires God to do something that looks evil but is really a just punishment. If the action weren’t required by justice then the action would be evil. So does justice require that God kill babies or others who have not done anything different from the rest of humans? If so, then surely justice requires that God immediately kill most of the rest of the human race. If that is not required, then justice did not require God to kill the babies, and so the action was evil.

Another response is captured by the potter and the clay analogy (as in Jeremiah 18:1-6). God is the potter and we are they clay. The potter has the right to do whatever he wishes to the clay; to make a pot and to smash the pot. There is nothing evil about God taking away a life he has made, just like a potter can smash the pot. The problem with this analogy is that the pot is inanimate; there is nothing evil that the potter can do to the clay, but similarly there is nothing good that he can do to it either. If this analogy is used to justify evil actions by God, then it must be taken in full: we are objects at God’s disposal, to do with in any way he sees fit. We have no rights, nor claim to justice. There is no conceivable evil God could do to us, not because we sinned, but simply because he made us as objects and so is fully justified in anything he does to us. One important problem with this arrangement is that if no action against us is evil, then actions towards us do not fall under the “moral” category and so no action towards us is good either. Just as one cannot be evil towards a pot of clay, neither can one be good towards one. If this is the case, then God is neither good nor evil towards us who are pure objects to him. But I think most would hold that we are more than pure objects and God faces a moral choice in his actions towards us. In that case, then from the examples cited above it is clear God has done great and unjustified evils towards many.

Conclusion

To answer the question of whether God is good or not, one can either consult various people’s claims about God’s properties, or one can look at his deeds. It appears these tell very different stories. It is pretty easy to claim that God is good, especially if one is blessed by him, but as Jesus pointed out, it is easy to be good to those one loves, however true goodness demands treating even one’s enemies well. Unfortunately, the Bible details numerous examples of God’s cruelty in punishing people for the sins of others. As argued, these actions cannot be explained through a requirement of justice nor by God’s rights over us. These actions must surely be condemned as morally reprehensible, and so the Biblical God cannot be good.