It cannot be overemphasized that there is no cogent counter argument. Theodicy is the desperate effort by theists to justify believing in a perfectly good God in a world of dire imperfection. Their core argument is that God gives humans the gift of free will so we can all decide whether or not we want to dwell with Him for eternity in His paradise. As John Polkinghorne contends, the "suffering of the world is such that we might be tempted to think that less freedom would be a worthwhile cost to pay for less pain. But do we really wish we had been automata?" (Belief in God in an Age of Science, 1998). In this theory the supposed creator cannot interfere in worldly events lest he risk aborting the free will of humans, and ends up being robotically worshipped by human souls that did not decide they wanted to do so. This is in accord with the common Christian claim that the only way to achieve heaven is to deliberately accept the grace of Christ.
The free will argument is blazingly stupid. Really, what are the theodists thinking? Because they lack mature free will, children are barred from signing contracts, etc., and are under the guardianship of adults. Obviously, the free will hypothesis can work only if every single human grows up to sufficient mental maturity and health to make a well-informed decision about their eternal fate. Instead, half of humanity has died as kids. Or in the womb, since at least half of conceptions (perhaps up the three quarters), fail to come to term because the human reproductive system is so badly designed. And a percentage of adults are seriously mentally disabled. It follows that if there is an ubercreator, then it does not care all that much about the free will of humans. And if those who die before they become adults get a free ticket to heaven, then paradise is largely inhabited by exactly the kind of automata that theologians deny that God wants, and that denies humans their freedom to choose who if anything they wish to worship for all time.
As I pointed out in the Journal of Medical Ethics (http://www.gregspaul.webs.com/remoteprayers.pdf) petitioning God with prayer to heal and save lives has been entirely ineffective, and there is no evidence that any god has done anything to alleviate the suffering and death of children (like providing them with effective immune systems, and informing adults about the need for sanitation). Who really cares about kids are the adult humans who have busted their butts to come up with the scientific means to save the children, driving juvenile mortality to wonderfully low levels in the last century. It is one of the pertinacious scams of our time that most humans still thank a god for what people should be given full and sole credit for.
Theism is wrapped up in the greatest bubble of denial of reality that there is. The obvious truth is that there cannot be a moral, loving supernatural creator that is prolife, or pro the freedom of humans. If there is a creator, it has perpetrated the greatest crime against humanity -- vastly exceeding those by the great human dictators -- and should be put on trial for the felony. Ergo, the still wildly popular belief that there is a God who truly cares about the earthly lives and ultimate freedom of kids is pretty much the biggest lie that there is. So no creator being cares all that much about the children gunned down in
And the theistic denial runs deep. In the Philosophy and Theology paper I detail how theologians over the ages have long bent over backwards to avoid addressing the problem of the childrens' holocaust. The premature death of kids just does not come up in their wordy tracts. It is literally true that some theodists have paid far more attention to the suffering of animals than that of children. I'm not making that up, check out their books. It is not hard to figure out why theists run away from the slaughter of the kids. It's because they have not a clue how to explain it away, it being undeniable that all the dead children means that any creator is not ensuring that most much less all humans have free will. The evasion continues. I sent a PDF of the P&T paper to every theodist theologian I could think of when it came out in 2009 (as well as some prominent theists such as Francis Collins). So far there has not been a single reply in to my academic publication in the literature or elsewhere. None. Because they don't know how to rebut it. Not that they will do the right thing and admit that there perfect God is made up.
Not that the P&T paper is not having a major impact. Theologians appear to be quietly abandoning the free will hypothesis that theism has been relying on for centuries without acknowledging it, and without coming up with a viable alternative (which does not exist). John Haught was a prominent proponent of free will theory, lately he has been proposing that God gave us the "gift of being" without explaining how this justifies the terrible suffering of the children. In his new Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism Plantinga tries to wave off the problem with; "Suppose God does have a good reason for permitting sin and evil, pain and suffering: why think we would be the first to know what it is?" That is a cynical nonanswer from a leading theist who has no valid apology on hand. And it is moral abrogation, accommodation and relativism of the highest order. It is the ethical duty of all mentally capable adults to examine moral questions in detail and make careful decisions about them. To instead trust in some speculative being to properly handle situations is a juvenile dodge of mature ethical responsibility, all the more so when it is part of a deal for expected supernatural favors in return. It is morally slack.
Most monotheists propose -- often vehemently -- that societies that fail to believe in a supernatural creator that alone can provide absolute morality are doomed to mayhem and murder. It's pretty much the position of the Republican Party. But this cannot be correct since there cannot be a moral god in the first place. And the stats bear this out. The
The nonsupernaturalists are, of course, right. There is no god of any type. Much less one that is good and cares about the welfare of children on earth. Worship of the gods does not suppress murder. If anything the opposite is true. So what do atheists get for knowing the facts? They are effectively banned by the mainstream media for pointing out these real truths, while the theist majority continues to dwell in the great supernaturalistic refusal to face reality.
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