The human being is a machine. An automatic machine. It is composed of thousands of complex and delicate mechanisms, which perform their functions harmoniously". For each one of these thousands of mechanisms the Creator has planned an enemy whose job it is to harass it, pester it, persecute it, damage it, afflict it with pains, and miseries, and ultimate destruction. Not one has been overlooked". It is the Creator's Grand Army, and he is the Commander-in-Chief. Along its battlefront its grisly banners wave their legends in the face of the sun: Disaster, Diseases and the rest". It is wonderful the thorough and comprehensive study which the Creator devoted to the great work of making man miserable". All of the Creator's specially deadly disease-producers are invisible. It is an ingenious idea. For thousands of years it kept man from getting to the root of his maladies, and defeated his attempts to master them. It is only recently that science has succeeded in exposing some of these treacheries.
Mark Twain, Letters From the Earth
The blunt truth is that there is no way that there can be a powerful, moral creator that gives a whit about the death of the children at
Every time this sort of disaster happens there is a long line of clerics and lay believers who go on, and on, and on, and on about how yes Virginia there is a loving God who is prolife and pro human freedom, and that it mourns the death of the little children the deity will be bringing into heaven and so forth. Where the patent bigotry comes in is how only believers are solicited for their opinions on these matters. Think about it. When was the last time you were watching or listening to a mainstream or even a progressive talk TV or radio program in the wake of a calamity man made or natural, and there was a known atheist included on the discussion panel, or in a stand alone interview, to offer the nonsupernaturalists' opinion on why bad things happen? I have not seen a single example this time around. Instead, one theist after another is invited to offer yet again the same set of tired clichà ©s and platitudes about how a speculative being of immense power and moral perfection could allow horrors to afflict there human creations, including the little tykes. It is not like we haven't heard it all before ad nauseam. It is an insidious form of casual bigotry in which most interview schedulers and program hosts don't even think of finding out what the atheists think, and automatically turn to the supernaturalists, even though they never have anything new (i.e. newsworthy) to say (http://www.gregspaul.webs.com/WPoped.pdf). This when recent survey data is indicating that about a fifth of Americans are at least marginal atheists (click here), and well over a third are nonreligious (redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/RED-C-press-release-Religion-and-Atheism-25-7-12.pdf).
Another form of tacit, exclusionary bigotry against nontheists is interfaith gatherings to mourn the victims of mass shootings and other catastrophes. Again, think about it. Say you are an atheist. Say you are sitting in a meeting where the speakers are offering that the God of Love exists and cares, etc. Being an atheist you are aware that the possibility that such a being exists is minimal at best, so you are listening to an paranormalist lie. Worse, you are listening to a proposal that the deity cares about humans, when the violent deaths are in obvious contradiction to this amazingly common conceit. One reason many people are atheists is because they consider it outrageous to contend that a good god can allow such repulsive horrors to happen. To most atheists the belief that a benign creator has created a planet of death is obscene. So an atheist at an interfaith conclave is hearing depraved lies. And if an atheist dares get up and mention that the belief in a God good or otherwise is delusional they will be denounced for daring point out the obvious. Atheists are excluded yet again, even though it is the nonsupernaturalists who are correct.
What has yet to be fully appreciated is the absolute degree to which the atheist rejection of a moral creator is accurate. That is because far too few persons, even atheists, know the pertinent facts that render to existence of an ethical God of extreme power literally impossible. Much of the following discussion is based on an analysis I published in Philosophy and Theology, please refer to the PDF at gregspaul.webs.com/Philosophy&Theology.pdf (and click here).
Before we continue, please imagine the following. You are in an audience. The speaker asks you to raise your hand if think it is it acceptable for homicide, either by neglect or premeditation, to be committed on a mass basis against children? I assume you would not raise your hand. I wouldn't. Instead, you probably would agree that it must be the top priority of all caretakers of children to do all they can to ensure the comfort, safety and lives of children. Right? Hold those thoughts.
The first fact that all need to know is that somewhere in the area of 100 billion Homo sapiens have been born (click here and wvaughan.org/howmanypeople.html). The second and dreadful fact is a figure that should have become common knowledge long ago, but I was the first to bother to calculate. About 50 billion children have been tortured to death by diseases, plus other nonhuman causes. For thousands of years tens of thousands of children have died every single day. The Holocaust of the Children is the greatest catastrophe in human history, one that has gone inappropriately under appreciated because it has usually been a story of personal and familial tragedies and grief, rather than the spectacular disasters that garner attention. One reason that children have died like flies is because they lack adequate immune systems. Because a higher juvenile mortality rate would crash the population, the suffering and death has been maximal.
Just a few moments ago you (hopefully) agreed that there are no circumstances that justify to mass homicide of children, and that those responsible for the circumstances that kids live within must strive to optimize them. According to Abrahamism, the one God created the universe, our planet, and all living things. It follows that if a being of immense power created a tiny planet so packed with diseases that they agonizingly terminate the lives of half the children, then it is cannot be the priority of the creator to come anywhere near close to properly caring for the earthly welfare and lives of children. Instead, the creator has committed maximal mass homicide -- at best negligent, at worst premeditated -- against children. It further follows that it is not possible for a creator of our world to be moral and loving.
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