Sadistic Ventriloquist

If this god is omniscient, then there is no "free will", assuming that he also created the universe. Since this god is omniscient or all-knowing, he must have already known what will happen. Since he created the universe, everything in this world is scripted by him. There is no free will, only an illusion of it.

If there was no free will, there would be no point in having us do these "tests" since he already knows the result. Moreover, if a follower decides to defect from his faith because of the gravity of these tests, it would be this god's fault for doing so. Therefore, this god is a sadistic ventriloquist and we are the puppets following his every whim.

The concept of heaven and hell would also be a farce. Since there would be only one outcome (the outcome that this god knows), the people would surely enter their destined realm. The concept of repentance and redemption would be all for naught, another reason to call him a sadistic ventriloquist.

If he already knew that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit and wouldn't want his creation to fall into sin, he would not have created that cursed tree in the first place. But since he supposedly did, then it is either he didn't know the outcome or mankind was meant to sin.

Believers believe that every obstacle in life is a "test" from him. As we all know, we test something in order to know the outcome of certain events. College entrance tests, medical examinations, crash tests, taste tests... All these are needed since we can't see into the future in order to determine whether you're eligible to get into college, whether you need special treatment, whether the car needs better airbags, or whether the soup tastes salty. If this god is omniscient - and by extension, knows all future events, why would he need to test our faith?

On the other hand, if free will did exist, the concept of omniscience would not suffice, since all would be subject to uncertainty. Since he is not omniscient, he wouldn't satisfy the definition that Christians have made.

It's either there is a god and he is a sadistic ventriloquist, or there is no god at all and everything just happens at random.

I'd go for the latter. The thought of a sadistic ventriloquist is just scary...

Neither Omnipotent nor Benevolent

"Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?" - Epicurus

If this god is both willing and able to defeat evil, then why is evil still present?

A friend of mine tried to retort this claim by saying "god needs time to combat evil". Okay... But that would lead to god being not so powerful. Power requires workforce and time as expressed by the equation Power = Work / Time. Therefore, assuming that this god is omnipotent (power being of an infinite level), the divisor of the equation, time, must either be zero (meaning this god doesn't even need to snap his fingers in order for evil to disappear) or the dividend of the equation, work, must be infinite. His mere existence will make evil disappear. Having any value for time other than zero would give the quotient a definite amount, which contradicts the concept of omnipotence.

As for having the work variable set to infinite, it will also nullify the time time divisor since time will be meaningless for something of infinite capability. It will still lead to the same question.

Saying that this god needs time to combat evil is saying that this god is not strong enough to do so. Therefore, if this god really is omnipotent like the believers say, he's just not willing to combat evil (according to Epicurus' quote).

It just boils down to a choice: either this god propagates both good and evil or he is against evil and just not powerful enough to totally suppress it. If the only requirement to totally eliminate evil is for humans to turn back to god, he is indeed powerless, not being able to handle it on his own.

Considering the concept of Yin and Yang, good cannot overcome evil and vice versa. That leads us to the possibility that god and Satan might be two opposite faces of the same card, creating a definite balance that holds the universe in place. This equilibrium, in turn, creates a paradox in the Christian belief.

This god could now be "all powerful", but his own negative power negates his positive power. Now, it's either god has Dissociative Identity Disorder or Christians just misinterpreted everything from the beginning. Whatever the choice is, their god wouldn't really fit the ideals that they might think.

Brain ache? I'll sum it up: This god doesn't equate to omnipotence. This god doesn't equate to benevolence. This god isn't god - the reason why all throughout this entry, the word "god" with the capital G never occurred.

"Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?" - Epicurus