Cory Ruda The Religious Contradiction Though the Church has held an extreme amount of power politically, militarily,

and economically through history, and religion itself has influenced both the minds, and bodies of men, leading them to do both great and terrible things, I must be of the opinion that there is no way to justify belief in the currently existing Abrahamic God figure. To dedicate your life, or any major changes of character, to any ideal whatsoever, and to lead a life with morals and choices based off of this choice, I believe there need be much more support and solid, nearly undeniable evidence for it, and that simply does not exist for such a God figure. To argue for this, I will respond to arguments given for religious belief in God, and explain why belief in religion is contrary to logical thought and science. Also, I will add, though many of the arguments will work against multiple forms of deities, there will be a stress put on the Christian God most specifically. Firstly and basically, the general definition of God will be examined. As it is commonly put, God is omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omnipresent. He knows all there is to know if it is available to know, is all-good, never committing an evil act, all-powerful (which I will give a generous interpretation to) in saying that he could do anything logically possible, as well as he is able to be present as one being anywhere and everywhere. There is a problem with this, however. The first contradiction is by pure definition alone. The definition of all-good is that God will not, thus cannot do anything evil. Does this not mean, however, that the allpowerful God is limited? How is this possible? Even if God can do evil, but limits and enforces that limit himself, then he is still unable to do something that (logically) should

be possible, and thus, he is not all-powerful. You can, however, overcome this by saying there is no evil at Gods Level, but this causes many more problems than it solves, which will be covered further on in the paper. Following the basic, yet encompassing definition of a god-being above, how could God be all of those things at once? It seems by basic definition, a god-being seems logically impossible and contradictory. Consider the world we claim as our own. There has been or is: Genocide, disease, starvation, crime, natural disaster, suffering, and a score of other things that are bad by their very existence. Now, imagine there is a being that is undeniable, by definition, good. Imagine further that he also is completely powerful, and able to stop the suffering, disease, crime, etc. with barely more than a thought, and that he is able to do it everywhere and anywhere at once. Would there be any good reason that he shouldnt or wouldnt use his abilities to end the evil and pain of anyone or anything? Imagine now that this being, who cannot lie, as that would violate his omnibenevolence, has created the race on which all the evil and pain is occurring. Throughout their existence he has stated, either directly or through prophets, numerous times that he loves and wants only the best for those people, and yet he has still not used his vast amount of power to help them, and ease their suffering. Could this occur? As a religious believer, there are two obvious, and likely options you are left with. You could say, There is no evil, which will be allowed even though most Holy Books refer specifically to the existence of evil.1 This being a response, you must believe that 1 22 Do not be angry, my lord, Aaron answered. You know how prone these people are to evil (2011). New Internation Version Bible, The. In Bible (pp. Exodus 32:21-23). Grand Rapids: Biblica.

murder, theft, etc. is acceptable in the eyes of a greater being and is only evil because we as people claim it is. However, that does not answer the problem of the pain, starvation, etc. aspect of what goes on in life. God, as an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God could surely end the suffering, correct? The second likely option is accepting that there is evil in the world. Many times it will follow that God allows it to happen. How can an omnibenevolent God allow evil and pain if he has the power to stop it? Is this not an evil act, which God is supposedly not able to commit? Therefore, I posit the conclusion that a God, by his very definition, is contradictory and logically problematic. This, coupled with the logical law of, (A & -A), (there cannot be both object A and not object A at the same time; a law that states there cannot exist a contradiction) it seems evident that there cannot exist a God. One reply that may be given is that God created everything, then simply stepped back and restricted himself from doing anything else to effect the world, or that he did so later on, but before our current generation. This would, effectively, be limiting the allpowerful God, as was done previously, another contradiction. Furthermore, would the all-knowing God not understand that, with direct presence, much more good would be done than evil? He has the ability to stop pain and evil, yet he chooses not to, to bar himself from doing so, as an absent God. Another response to much of the above is that God is, by doing any of the above, he is granting us, Free Will, such as what C.S. Lewis suggested. The idea is that God believes that Free Will is most important to his people, therefore by him interdicting in it, he would do us some great harm.
14.[4.149] If you do good openly or do it in secret or pardon an evil then surely Allah is Pardoning, Powerful. (1997). Holy Koran, The (pp. 4.149). M.H. Shakir, Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc.

Firstly, more and more as we advance technologically and step in to the field of neuroscience and begin to truly understand the brain and the human being, it seems that free will isnt as free as previously thought. Our brain is wired in specific ways, and will respond only in pre-established ways. Like it as you may, but whether youd choose A or B seems to have been determined by everything leading up to that point, and most likely could be no other way. Furthermore, and forgetting about that stated above, one must always question how free is too free. Man, as a person, could at any point go on a murdering spree, or steal, or rape. Man could, if for some reason it wanted to, destroy an entire hospital and all of its inhabitants. Any of the actions could be said to exhibit free will. Did those inside, or those Man stole from, or raped, use their free will to have that action caused against them? No, they had free will stolen from them. Is the villains free will therefore better than theirs, that he could take it at any point? How much free will is really too much free will? To limit it is to take away said free will, but to allow it openly seems to have been the cause and reason for many of the inhumanities that have befallen man over the generations. How could God have chosen to grant this free will, knowing it would cause pain, suffering, and grief? It is the choice of a sadist, not of an omnibenevolent being. Though most of this is directly stated against belief in the Abrahamic God, it also follows against any God which bears a similar definition: All-powerful, all-knowing, allgood, etc. It has followed against argument that this definition doesnt work. However, to change that definition is to change the God believed in, and anything that is below that

definition could hardly be given the title of God, or anything near it, which was not even close to the belief held previously. I continue in saying that there is so little that modern science has yet to explain, there is no reason to just wholeheartedly accept it and to forget the beliefs held in any Supreme Being, since there is no solid evidence to believe it. It only causes more problems, and contradictions, to believe in a God. It must be kept in mind that, just because we currently cannot explain something, there is no reason to simply say something along the lines of, God did it and leave it. To do so is irresponsible, and you gain nothing from it. With such a line, there is no pursuit of advancement.