The omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence capability of
a god begets a lot of question for the critical mind, one we must never
overlook. Rowan Atkinson said “To
criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but
to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to
criticize ideas-even if they are sincerely held beliefs-is one of the
fundamental freedoms of the society. A law which attempts to say you can
criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very
peculiar law indeed” Religion has a
great effect on the world and we must not stop in analyzing and criticizing the
dangerous aspects of it, in a war to make our society healthier.
Let us look at these god-qualities critically, assuming
religion not being man made. According to the creation story in the bible,
every creation step always ends with a phrase “and God saw that it was good” which means everything created is
perfect. A world of perfection with tsunamis, hurricanes, wildfires and so many
other natural disasters is a paradox. An omniscience god that created Lucifer (whom the adherents of Christianity claims
is responsible for the world plagues today), was well aware of the consequences
of creating such a being, also went ahead to create humans knowing fully well
that the forbidden fruit will be eaten and that majority of the world will burn
in hell fire according to his standard. This same god has the power make
everything all good but will not do it. It’s worrisome for the sane mind.
The standpoint of god being omniscience springs up a lot of
question such as; does freewill really exists? If god knew you before you were
formed in the womb, knew the situations you will grow up to face, knew the
prayers you will say about it, knew the ones he is going to answer and also
knows whether you are going to end up in hell fire or not; how does freewill
come into that? Then we are like puppets and life becomes movie god has seen so
many times. Being omnipresent, god was fully around when the serpent deceived
Eve, but kept quiet refusing to re-enlighten a being who does not know the
difference between good and evil. It is like a stranger putting food a baby’s
mouth, the baby is only aware it is food and is not wise enough to care who it
is coming from. Yes, anyone who does not know the difference between good and
evil is as good as a toddler.
The question of the origin of evil is the biggest challenge
to the omnipotence of god. The presence of evil in a world created by an
all-powerful god is an indication of malevolence on the path of the creator. It
is a far cry from the overused title “merciful”. The Great Lisbon earthquake
was a disaster that happened on November 1; the holy day of ‘All Saints Day’.
This earthquake destroyed almost all the major churches in Lisbon, namely the
Lisbon cathedral, the basilicas of Sao Paulo, Santa Catarina, Sao Vincente de Fora,
the Misericordia Church and a large percentage of the congregation died. It
caused a lot of anxiety and confusion among the citizens of a staunch and
devout of Roman Catholic Church. A lot of people lost their faith and you
cannot blame them and of course many saw it as the divine judgement. This led
to a lot scientific, philosophical and theological write ups, a necessary
reaction by the academics. The noted writer-philosopher Volataire used the
earthquake in ‘Candide’ and in his Poeme sur le desastre de Lisbonne (“Poem on
the Lisbon disaster”). He attacks the notion that all is for the best in a
world that is closely supervised by a benevolent deity. It made it obvious this
world is not created perfect but “god saw that it was good”. If we are to blame
the devil for the vices in the world then he seems more responsible for things
happening in this world, so where is the omnipotent.
The one who knows all does not make mistakes, but the god of
the bible seems to make mistakes, complain and then make corrections that are
not adequate enough to fully solve the problem on ground, so much for an
all-powerful and all-knowing being. From the story of Noah in the bible, water
was devised as a means to cleanse the world, but even after the celestial orchestrated
genocide; the world today does not look like it has once been cleansed. The
story of cleansing of Sodom and Gomorrah by genocide, so as to rid the world of
immorality such as sodomy which still exists in the world today is another epic
fail. These show a trend of mistakes, corrections and confusions.
At the end of the day the god of the bible regretted
creating humans, regret is not supposed to be an attribute of the all-knowing. A
verse of the bible also said “I form good and create evil, i the lord do all
these things” that makes the world an amusement park tuned by the celestial
being. We should ask ourselves the questions Epicurus asked;
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he’s not
omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able
and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call
him God?”
