A few things before we start: first of all know all of these things will have been written about and discussed by cleverer and more articulate people than me. I'm well aware that there's nothing new under the sun. Secondly I live in the UK where Christianity is the dominant religion, I I fact used to be a "born again" one, therefore I know a lot more about it than any of the other religions. I've never read the Koran or any other holy books so I am less able to talk about them, although I do know a little of the history of Islam and am able and will talk about it. Thirdly if you think I'm insulting your God or holy book - yup, get over it - I'm sure we'll cover that later. So anyway, here we go...
1) If your god needs you to kill in his name he is an incompetent god. Let's start with the one that started the whole thing off. I mean, it seems pretty self explanatory but it seems to be something people of all religions have had trouble with through the ages. The principal is simple though. If your god is the almighty being in the universe, who judges, punishes and rewards his people through his overwhelming power why does he need you to do anything. Is he outsourcing his power to you? If so then he's a pretty lazy god. Is he not able to punish us? Then he's not powerful and therefor either not a god at all or he's nothing to worry about, why bother with him? Is he just to busy or just not very good at his job - again, that's not how he advertises himself and it means he's not worth worrying about. I'm a software support technician, if I decided to get a load of people who were less intelligent and less capable of doing the job for me then lazed around listening to the same people praise me for being a great technician I'm pretty sure I'd be sacked. Im also pretty sure I wouldn't be able to honestly call myself a software support technician.
The other side of this is he's getting you to kill people! This is something that crops up in the Bible a lot and apparently in the Koran a bit as well. Your caring, all loving god gets his followers to kill people for him. Why not just convert those people? He wants followers to worship him, why not "soften their hearts" and magically turn them into followers? He has the power. Or maybe he doesn't, in which case he's a rubbish deity and just a bit blood thirsty. Does he enjoy the bloodshed? Again, if this is so he's not worth worshipping and he isn't the loving god he makes himself out to be.
2) If your God can't communicate clearly he is not a powerful or intelligent God. If I want to communicate with people I can do it very easily. I'm writing this blog which can be read by people all over the world, I can post on Facebook, Twitter, Google + (I know, I know, I giggled at that too), Tumblr and who knows what other social media site. I can write a book, I can post letters, I could get leaflets printed, I can text, I can call people, I can put up posters and I can stand and shout in the street. I can get loads of people to hear me and take notice of my opinions and I'm just a bloke from the north east of England. I'm nothing special at all yet I'm better at communicating than your god. That's pretty damning. All of the main religions are based around holy books written by primitive people centuries ago. The bible was written slowly by probably hundreds of different people between 3000 and 1500 years ago. Three thousand years? Three thousand?! What else do we take notice of that people wrote 3000 years ago? Nothing! Bugger all! Why? Because they knew bugger all! They had no clue how anything worked yet your all powerful god expects us to take notice of rules he got these people to follow back then and doesn't get back to us? He doesn't think, maybe I'll update them a little bit, you know, just to keep them ticking along. No, he gets a bunch of primitive, barely into the Bronze Age goat herders to write it all down in languages that he knew would change and be lost to history altogether and expects his word to make it through 3000 years of world history? He's obviously an idiot and therefor not worthy of worship.
Obviously that was about the bible but the other religions are just as bad if not worse. Islam is based on a book written about 700 years ago which itself is based on the rantings of what can only be described as a mad man with delusions of grandeur. To make it worse these rantings weren't even written down at the time. They were passed on verbally for several generations before they were allowed to be written in a book - because that's the best way of making sure the truth gets passed along isn't it? Relying on the memory of hundreds of old men who absolutely do not have their own axes to grind and agendas to pass the word of your prophet one and a half thousand years into the future. That is definitely going to work well. Hinduism is the oldest of the major religions, it's holy books are thousands of years old and its stories come from pre-history i.e. before humans could write anything down because we didn't know how! Yet those powerful gods who must be worshipped haven't given us any new information or signs that they exist since!
If your god exists and is worthy of worship then he should be able to communicate properly. If he can't then he either doesn't exist or isn't a god. Before you start mentioning his personal communication with individuals or his miraculous ways of communicating via crying statues and images in toast then stop and think. He's all powerful and wants us all to worship him. He is going about it the wrong way which means he's an idiot and not worth it. Or he doesn't exist.
3) If your god seems to favour a few then he isn't a loving god. Isn't it funny how more or less every nation at one time or another has thought it was god's favourite at one time or another? The USA and various countries in the Middle East seem to today. Britain used to up until we lost our empire. The Romans did until they lost theirs. So has France, Russia, Spain, Israel, everywhere at different times. Yet none of these countries actually show signs of being actually favoured. They rise, fall, suffer disasters, have times of peace and prosperity just the same as everywhere else, no more, no less. It seems that gods favoured nations don't get any special treatment. On the other hand, if you have children do you have favourites? I hope not, or if you do I hope you hide it. Do you strive to treat people equally and try not to discriminate against people? You probably do, obviously there are a lot of bigots in this world but they do it through ignorance, I don't believe they are doing it consciously to be nasty (maybe I'm wrong). So why does your God? Again, all the gods worshipped today want to maximise numbers so why play favourites? Why get the few hundred million Americans on side but ignore the billion Chinese? What's wrong with the Chinese? Is their praise of lower quality? Is got just a racist? Well actually the holy books would suggest yes, he is. In which case why would we want to worship him? Why worship something that you wouldn't even vote for in an election?
4) If your God can't get noticed everywhere maybe he isn't as powerful as he makes out. This links in with the one above. The religions are all very geographically distinct. Islam in the Middle East and around the Indian Ocean, Hinduism and Sikhism on the Indian subcontinent, Buddhism in South Asia, Christianity in the west. Christianity is the most spread about but this can be explained by history. The Roman Empire became Christian (because an emperor commanded so, not because it won any kind of argument), which meant that Europe became Christian so when the age of exploration began they spread it across the globe but notice how it is different to suit different cultures on different continents. I doubt a Protestant christian in Sweden particularly recognises the practices of a catholic in Bolivia or vica-versa. Why is this do you wonder? Why can't the obviously immensely powerful gods of India get any traction in Italy? Why hasn't the obvious truth of Christianity swept Japan like a particularly cute looking girl band? They say Europe is becoming more Muslim but this isn't through conversion, it's through immigration. The native populations aren't interested. Why? Is it because the devil has got to them? If it is how come the devil is more powerful than God? Again, if his word isn't convincing enough to convert the world maybe he isn't actually a god. He definitely isn't as powerful as his advertising makes out in which case - you got it - not worth worshiping. Or he doesn't exist.
5) If your God causes disasters but also performs miracles he is inconsistent and therefor dubious. There has just been a horrendous earthquake in Nepal, thousands of people have died horribly and tragically. Was this an act of your God? Why? What had the people of Nepal done wrong other than be born in the wrong place? And what about that man who was rescued after, what was it, 5 days, surviving by sucking water out of damp clothing? Was the fact he was spared a miracle? I'm pretty sure if it had happened in Oklahoma it would have been declared so. But why? That is very inconsistent of God. It's very cruel of this loving God. Again, making him not worthy, or is it that God can't control these things but if that is so then he isn't all powerful which means he isn't a God. It's actually almost like all of these things - earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, disease, hunger - are random events happening on a geologically active ball of rock flying through space not under anyone's or anything's (other than physics') control. Populated by living things that haven't quite evolved far enough to look after each other or control it enough themselves.
6) If your God needs to be explained to you by a man in robes there is something wrong. This comes back to the communication thing but is subtly different. Pretty much every religion has priests who exist to explain God to us mere plebs. This seems pretty pathetic. God, who can apparently enter your heart and make you understand the truth still needs a guy in clothing based on those from a thousand years ago or more to explain it all to you? I don't know about you but am at least averagely intelligent, I learned all sorts of things at school, I know and can do all sorts of stuff the Bronze Age primitives didn't have a clue about. I understand how microbes cause disease, I understand how plate tectonics causes geological disasters, I understand basic physics so I don't just know that the Earth goes around the sun, I understand why it does. I can even grasp things like relativity and quantum mechanics to an extent (not greatly but I at least get the gist). If I needed to I could learn how to make tools, build things, I can do relatively (compared to Bronze Age people) complex maths. Remember I'm just an average dude from England yet I can do all that, and so can you. Some of you can do much, much more, yet God and his simple rules need to be explained by men (and a few women) who have studied his book? No, that's rubbish. If God can do anything he likes he can explain it to me himself. I'm up to the task if he is. Or maybe he isn't. Or maybe he doesn't exist.
7) If your God is easily insulted maybe he isn't a particularly worthy God. In many religious people's eyes this entire blog post is an insult to their God and possibly even to them personally. If you think about it for a moment though why would the all mighty being in the universe be insulted by something I say? That would be like me getting upset at a particularly vocal ant making fun of my ginger hair. Is he really that bothered by me? We have all been insulted throughout our lives by people, did we get mad and stay mad at them or did we rise above it, at least eventually? Yes, most of us do because we're modern, intelligent human beings who know that there's no point getting so upset but God apparently doesn't think like that. He gets mad and he stays mad. Almost like he's an ancient war God who reacts on instinct rather than taking a moment to think about things. Who basically acts like we would expect a character out of an ancient myth to act. Hmm. Also, if he does get so insulted why does he need you to defend him? Is he not capable of striking me down? Or more sensibly making me see the error of my ways and realising in his ultimate truth and goodness? No? He needs you to threaten me with hell and damnation in a fire filled place I don't believe in? Well that's a bit rubbish isn't it? Again, is he outsourcing to you because he can't be bothered or is it just because can't? If either of those things is true then once more, he isn't a God or just isn't worth worshipping. Or he doesn't exist.
There, I'm done for now. I may add more later, we'll see (I mean I haven't touched on god's sexism I realise) and if you have more to add go for it in the comments.
*Edit: I've just had it pointed out to me that there's a fair amount of ancient Greek maths and science we still take notice of from around 3000 years ago. A good point well made and well taken. I suppose the difference is that it all can be proved again and again today in the same way modern science can be so stands up to scrutiny.
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