Before we show why this is the case, we’ll have to say a word on which god we are referring to. For this article we limit the god concept to the one proposed by the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, based on their common origin in the so called Old Testament.
Quoting from various Christian ministries online, we read for example that: God is spirit, trustworthy, love, righteous, holy and merciful. http://www.biblword.net/what-is-the-character-of-god
God is the uncaused, all-powerful, all-knowing, merciful, gracious, eternal Spirit whose personality and attributes are manifested in the pages of the Bible. Kyle Butt, https://compositebiblereflections.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-coherent-definition-of-god-by-kyle.html
Combining this with Merriam-Webster’s definition of god, we can sum up as follows: "God is the eternal spirit, the infinite mind, the being perfect in power, wisdom and goodness, creator and ruler of the universe, who is:
omnipotent: god is all-powerful, everything consistent with god’s nature is possible;
omniscient: god is all-knowing of past, presence and future;
omnibenevolent: god is all-good and all-loving;
omnipresent: god is everywhere at any time
eternal: god has always been, is always and will always be."
After 40,000 years of cultural history, god still is first and foremost an ignorance-plug (“god of the gaps”). God is used as the default answer for everything mankind cannot explain. However, since the past three centuries or so, science has increasingly progressed and many holes in our knowledge are no longer plugged by god but actual understanding of the workings of nature. Evidently, the more knowledge we gain, the more questions will reign. Gullible believers and profit seeking pastors, ministers, imams and rabbi’s will therefore still be able to find one another in the foreseeable future and vast streams of money will keep finding their way to the temples - of whatever religion and whatever form - and the people controlling them.
The circumcision of the son of Moses - Jan Baptist Weenix, ca. 1640 Part of the narrative in which the murder attempt by "god" of Moses is thwarted by his Midianite wife's blood magic. As show of gratitude, Moses would later order the complete annihilation of the Midianites.
In the shrinking number of holes in our understanding of the universe, religious apologists have piled more and more refined attributes onto their imaginary friends. Yet those attributes, like some of the above, remain hopelessly contradictory. Omnipotence for starters is in and by itself a very problematic concept. The obvious example is the well-known paradox of god creating a stone so heavy he cannot lift it. Omnipotence contradicts the possibility of omniscience; the idea that god is unchanging is consistently contradicted in his bible so he is not eternal. If god knows everything, then he cannot change his mind nor does he have the free will to act differently than what he already knew/knows he would do. Of course, in the bible god changes his mind on more than one occasion, so in spite of their claims, the biblical god is definitely not omniscient.
The god of the bible is far from omnipotent either. Like a vampire repelled by garlic or a werewolf by silver, iron chariots are too much for this all-powerful immaterial warlord (Judges 1:19). It is no surprise that modern bible versions take enormous liberties in their translation and interpretation of this passage (even adding words that are nowhere to be found in earlier versions) in order to excuse or circumvent the inferiority of the bible god. How about the time El Shaddai (the Destroyer) tried to kill his freshly appointed holy prophet Moses, but was defeated by Zipporah’s blood magic? (Exodus 4:24-26). Clearly the mighty Destroyer is not so almighty! Volumes can be and have been written on these paradoxes and we will not elaborate much further.
A clear example of god's inferiority is that god cannot lie. At least, that's what said about god, 'cause god does lie several times in the bible. The assertion is repeated often enough none the less. One example is the forged letter of Paul to Titus, which states in verse 2 that god cannot lie. But what if your lie can save someone's life? Imagine being a Dutchman in German-occupied Amsterdam during WWII and you're hiding a Jewish family in your basement, to save them from deportation to a labor or extermination camp. In comes a Gestapo officer with two SS soldiers and they ask you if you're hiding Jews. I suppose most would lie about the fact that they are. But if god was doing the hiding and cannot lie, there would not be much sense in hiding the Jewish family in the first place. Unable to lie, god would have to admit that he is hiding Jews, which would mean their death. Humans can lie whether for good or for bad. God can't.
Humans can commit suicide. Suicide goes against our nature to want to live, but some decide otherwise. Suicide is seen as a sin by many religious organizations. They feel it is god who gives us life so it is for god alone to take it. Suicide however robs god of this sole authority. Moreover, it shows that humans can do something god can’t.
God cannot commit suicide. If it is god’s nature to be eternal, then he does not have the omnipotence or free will to kill himself. The question why he would ever want to do so is irrelevant [ Even coming to the idea of wanting to kill himself seems unlikely for god, because he would always have known to want it but simultaneously always have known that he could never act according to such desire… etc. etc.…). This god, specifically this god from some book, is true to his nature. If this is true, then he cannot change his nature. If he cannot change his nature, then god cannot do anything that goes against it. If it is god’s nature to be eternal, then he cannot kill himself nor even come to the decision to do so. God does not have the free will to want to live or die. God is inferior to humans.
Richard Dalet PHD, January 2021
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