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From ancient Greece to modern America, from short essays to long arguments, from individual lives to history and philosophy, in words reasoned quietly or
shouted loudly,
The Atheist God Would Read (or watch or listen) . . . offers a wide range of books for rational people in an often irrational world.
New titles added weekly. Plus DVDs, MP3s and more.
Added February 2010: Fiction: an eclectic selection of
novels and short stories from an atheist perspective. Come browse.
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If God knows everything, human beings do not have free will.
If God does not know everything, he is not God...
God knows everything - he is omniscient. Human beings have free will - we make our own decisions and chart our own lives. That means, religion tells us, that we choose whether to be good or bad, to obey God's laws and go to heaven or sin and spend eternity in hell.
Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? But there's a problem: you can have either God's omniscience or human free will, but you can't have both.
The explanation is simple. Take the game of pool. If you know the speed at which a ball is traveling, the exact point it will hit another ball, the weight of each ball, air pressure, friction and all the other factors that affect both balls, you can predict exactly in which direction and how far the second ball will travel.
It's a fairly simple calculation for physicists and it's instinct for good pool players. The rest of us know how it works but we don't have the skills to play good pool every time.
The same principle applies in every situation in life. Given enough information, we can predict what will happen next, in nature and in people. We look at dark clouds and know it will rain soon. If the sun comes out it'll be warm and we'll maybe get a tan. A duck lays an egg and at some point a duckling will hatch.
It's the same for human beings. If we know them well enough, we can predict what they will do in most situations. Aunt Mildred is a grouch; when we visit, she's going to complain about her neighbour. Friend Mary is wealthy and good-hearted; we know that when we ask her for money for a good cause she will give it. We can tell how friends and family will vote, we have a good idea of the kind of life partner they will end up with and we know whether they will be glued to the television watching the next World Series or Olympics.
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Problems with God
Chapter One showed us that if there is a God, we cannot be certain about his nature. So let's look at the question from another perspective: Is there a form of god that can exist?
We start by looking at the god described in the Bible and Quran; does the information there support or reject the idea of God? Then we look at general concepts of God and see if they make sense.
2.1: In the Bible
Do inconsistencies in the Bible make it irrelevant?
2.2: The Jesus myth
Biblical evidence suggests that the Son of God never lived
2.3: Other scriptures
What do other scriptures tell us about God?
2.4: Forgotten tongues
Why can God not speak modern languages?
2.5: Male order
God's fondness for men
2.6: Compassion and bloodlust
God claims to be compassionate but frequently causes pain and death
2.7: Disease and disaster
Why do they happen?
2.8: Omniscience and free will
One or the other, not both
2.09: Miracles and prayer
How does God make his presence known?
2.10: Eternal life
Do we really want to live forever?
2.11: Alien beliefs
Do they know God on Betelgeuse?
2.12: Summary
Finished this chapter? Move on to
Chapter 3
God the creator?
God does not have to be the creator of the universe; in some religions the world comes first and then the gods apprear.
In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, however, God is the
creator of the universe. How does he do it?
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We sometimes get it wrong, but only because our knowledge is limited. We could predict the girl our son is going to meet and fall in love with ten years from now if we had all the information. We would know that on a certain date he will be downtown; it'll start to rain and he won't have an umbrella so he'll go into Starbucks and find himself sitting beside an attractive young woman who apologises for dripping water on him. We'd know that it was going to rain if we could predict global weather systems. We'd know he will be downtown because we'd know the job he is going to get. Whether he applies for that job will depend on how late he stays up one night writing out the application and whether he is offered the job will depend on how much sugar is in the coffee of the person making the decision. Each factor depends on hundreds of factors preceding it, but knowledge of every factor makes prediction possible.
Of course we don't have that information - and we never will have it. If we did know everything about everyone and everything, we would be God...
And that is the point. God knows everything. He knows every detail about us, from the chemical content of the air we breathe to our exact DNA, from every thought that we hide from ourselves to the slightest nuance of our every mood. He knows what we will do and say in every situation, whether we will lie or tell the truth, whether we will love our neighbor or hate her, whether we will worship or spurn him.
We think we have free will - but only because we do not understand the near-infinite influences on our
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DNA model with phosphate structure
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personalities and lives. But for God, we have no free will. He knows already the complete pattern of our lives and whether it will please or disappoint him. It makes no difference whether we pray and worship or sin and blaspheme; God knows, even before we are born whether we will enter Heaven or Hell after we die. Our free will is an illusion; our lives are forever fixed in the amber of God's mind.
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It's not only humans who have no free will - neither does God. Because he knows everything, he knows his own being and future.
He cannot choose to act because he knows already what his choices and actions are. God is trapped in eternity in his own omniscience...
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Some believers accept this principle, known as predestination. They accept that God knows who will be saved and who will not and nothing anybody can do will change that situation. Within that group, some believe that they have been saved, which means that it doesn't matter how badly they behave because God has reserved a place for them in heaven. You can work out for yourself the fault in their logic...
We therefore come to one of the following conclusions:
a. If God exists, he knows everything - and if he knows everything, we have no
free will
b. If God exists but does not know everything, he is only a superior being, not God
c. God does not exist.
These conclusions appear different, but in fact they all point in the same direction - towards the non-existence of God. According to a., God can only exist if we have no free will. According to b., if we have free will, God is only a superior being, not the omniscient creator of the universe. And comparing the three conclusions with
Occam's razor (the simplest solution is always most accurate) we have to reject both of these in favour of c. We can have either free will or God, but we cannot have both.
Postscript
If God doesn't exist, does that mean we really do have free will? Yes and no. Much of our lives are determined by things over which we have no control - we don't decide whether our parents will copulate, as infants we cannot choose the food we eat that will determine our life-long health, as children we are subject to myriad influences that determine our personalities, and even as adults we are subject to events much more than we control them.
From that perspective, we have no free will.
And if we are starving in the desert or dying from a roadside bomb, a suckling infant or a severely disabled adult, our choices are indeed limited.
But if we are relatively healthy and wealthy, we have at least the illusion of free will. We believe that we are free to choose who to live with, where to live, what job to seek, which lifepartner to live with, whether or not to have children, our diet, our mood and so on.
Does it matter that our personality and our situation - and therefore our life choices - have been determined long before we reach this point in life?
No; this is one case where illusion is indeed reality - and even the knowledge that reality is illusion changes nothing.
To achieve true free will would be to deny and destroy every aspect of our lives - it is an impossible contradiction.
As long as we have our health and wealth we are each as free as we need to be.
Next:
Chapter Two: Section 9
Miracles and prayer
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If God existed, he would...
admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create
recognize that eternity is meaningless
deny both heaven and hell
disown all men and women who speak in his name
denounce the harm caused by religious "morality"
help the human race to thrive without him
If God existed, he would be an atheist.
What is the difference between science and faith?
science is certain of nothing and requires proof of everything
faith is certain of everything and requires proof of nothing
Which do you trust?
"I know there is no God"
or
"I believe there is no God"
???
Check the answer
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