I think when believers attack my position, that I think something can come from nothing (which is actually a Strawman, I don’t hold that position at all) they rarely stop and think about what position they hold. The existence of a deity has very strange consequences which I want to discuss in this post.
The theist in most cases whether a Christian or not holds to what Genesis 1:1 says: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
This means that at one point there was nothing in existence but an all powerful, eternal, omnibenevolent being. This being has always existed and it exists for no reason whatsoever. This being just is. See this is what Atheists point out when they ask “Who created God?” because the implication of theism is that an all powerful, omnibenevolent God can just exist, uncaused and for no reason. When I think about it, I find this position flat out crazy!
But it has even more implications: Since God just exists it necessarily follows, that his attributes are completely random. There was no deciding factor that God is all powerful or all loving (at least not under theism, in my opinion of course he’s made up and man assigned these qualities to him) he again just happens to have these attributes for no reason instead of other attributes. Lucky us, that we don’t live in an alternative reality in which God just happens to have different qualities.
The same of course then goes for morality: A morality based on God is also completely random. When I ask a theist if God can change his nature, they always say that he can’t. They do this so they don’t have to concede, that their morality is arbitrary completely dependent on God’s choosing of what his nature is going to be. While I don’t see why he couldn’t change his nature this doesn’t solve the problem. Because the theist is now stuck in a position where he has to believe that God’s nature just is, what it is for no possible at all. If God’s nature just happened to be different, we could live in a reality where murder could be moral. Theistic morality necessarily boils down to God who theists can’t account for so they’re stuck with circular justification for their morality.
The last one is really ironic since they accuse me that I believe something can from nothing, when in reality theists believe in exactly that themselves. They believe God created matter and energy ex nihilo. I’d argue that creation ex nihilo is impossible in all worldviews. If God caused nothing to become something, he didn’t cause anything to become something, which means he didn’t affect anything and therefore didn’t cause anything. Scott Clifton describes the incoherence of this better than I ever could.
All in all I find this worldview to be crazy. It’s untenable to believe that and if you really ponder these things and elaborate further on the implications then you quickly realize, that theists are in nop position to mock my beliefs or Strawmen versions of it.
Goodbye from yours truly,
Rene von Boenninghausen @Renevelation
Tarsier Renevelations 