Chapter 7: Self-Defeating Omnipotence

There are many religions all over the world that believe in an Omnipotent God. They believe, quite firmly, in the fact that their God not only created the Universe, but that he also knows absolutely everything. It's these religions that tend to also believe in a fate-based universe, because with an omnipotent being anywhere in the equation, it's essentially a requirement to believe in fate as well. This all comes down to the sheer power behind the meaning of the word omnipotence. If a being is omnipotent, then it has all the power and knowledge in the universe. It has done everything, experienced every conceivable and inconceivable detail to every conceivable and inconceivable event. It exists right now in the moments of today, yesterday, tomorrow, two-thousand years from now, and two-thousand years ago for infinity onwards. There is not a single event in the entire Universe that an Omnipotent God hasn't already experienced, because as the word omnipotence demands, he already knows absolutely everything. If he were to remove one atom from the face of the Earth today, he would already know every single effect that decision would make for all of eternity. An Omnipotent God really does know everything.

Therefore, it's impossible to believe that your God is omnipotent without also accepting that fate is a part of your life as well. I can't tell you the number of times I have had this argument with people; people who believe very strongly that their God really is omnipotent, but at the same time gave humanity free will. I can only stare in question upon hearing this argument, for it never ceases to surprise me. How could it ever be true, yet alone possible?

When I lived in Hong Kong, my Religion teacher argued with me about this very topic. He told me that, as a Christian, God gives us all choices. We are allowed to make decisions in our lives on our own because God has faith in all of us. When I asked him then if his God was omnipotent, he quickly assured me that he was because the Christian God is the one true God, with unlimited knowledge and power, he really is omnipotent. When I asked him how a God could know absolutely everything, and yet not know what decisions we were going to make, my teacher told me that in truth God did know what I was going to do, because he knew everything. So once again, I asked him how I have a choice when God already knows the answer? All he said was "you have a choice. God just already knows what it's going to be." I think he failed to see the flaw in his logic.

For the sake of ensuring that you also see the flaw in this argument, I am going to break it down bit by bit. I am not doing so because I doubt your intelligence, but because I want to be absolutely certain you understand exactly how I am thinking. After all, this book is about just that; I want you to understand the mind of an Atheist through-and-through. I want you to know me like you know yourself, to understand me so well that maybe, just maybe, you can respect what I believe just as much as I respect what you believe. Because though I may not agree with whichever religion you have but your faith into, I will always respect it, and your faith will never be the reason that respect is lost.

My teacher made a very common mistake when telling me about his Omnipotent God. He didn't fully understand the word "omnipotence." It was either that, or he didn't understand the word "fate." Both are mistakes I stumble across far too often when talking about religion. See, when it comes to omnipotence, especially for Christians like my teacher, God really is as all knowing as possible. There are no if, and, or buts in the equation. He simply knows everything. And by knowing everything, just like my teacher said, He knows exactly what decisions you are going to make in your life. But not only that. After all, this God knows everything. He doesn't just know your choices. He knows when you are going to take a breath. He knows when each of your cells are going to die. He knows every single word you are going to say for your entire life. He knows which people are going to interact with you when, He knows what they are going to say, how each of those things are going to make you feel, and how you are going to react to every single little thing that will ever happen to you. And He knows this for everyone, for as long as humanity exists, until we all die and are removed from the Earth and Universe ceases to exist. And then He knows what will happen next.

If God knows all of this, for all of time, then where is the choice? Using me as an example, an Omnipotent God already knew that I was going to write this book. He knew, long before the first spark of the Universe burst into life, that the next word that was going appear on this page was "Gobbledygook." He even knew that when I typed the word "Gobbledygook," I was going to misspell it and write "Gobblediegook" instead, and that I would right click the word and fix it to what spell-check told me was correct. And sure, I had a choice, I could have written any other word in any language. I could have even made up a word and put that non-word on paper instead. But then, if I had, God would have already known, before the first spark of the Universe was born, that I was going to type that word instead. Why? Because he is omnipotent. Because He has all the power in the Universe and beyond. Because He knows absolutely everything for all of eternity.

And so, even though you could say I was given a choice, that my brain could have written anything on this page, my choice is nothing but the illusion of choice. Because where is the choice really if God already knows exactly what I am going to do? Sadly, it isn't there. It's just somewhere in my mind, making me believe that what I do matters when in truth, God already knows every little detail of my life, and nothing I can ever do will change that He knows exactly what I will do from this very second onwards until the day I die. Why? Because He's omnipotent.

Now though, I need to address another issue. This one has less to do with fate, and more to do with omnipotence. I am going to ask you to force your brain into a concept that is rather difficult to grasp, and that's putting it lightly. I want you to try your best to imagine that you are omnipotent. I know that this is an impossible task, because like understanding what the process of death feels like, you could never really know until it's too late to talk about it. So, just try. Imagine that you know absolutely everything. You exist right now just as you did yesterday and ten million years ago. Time means nothing to you, because you have no concept of it. You can never age and you have absolutely no questions about anything. You already know everything there is to know in the Universe, and so questions are senseless. And because you know everything, you have no fear. Fear is a manifestation of failed-understanding, but you already know absolutely everything, and so fear cannot exist for you. Sure, you know what it is and how it feels, that goes along with being all knowing and all powerful, but you don't actually experience fear like human beings do. This is where it gets tricky, especially for those of you that believe in a loving omnipotent God. You do not love. Love is an attachment, one that you cannot have when you already know absolutely everything. You exist always, and so you lack the ability to love because you gain no attachment to anything. Everything in the entire universe already exists in your endless knowledge, and so how can you care for something that to you has never been born, always exists, and has been dead forever?

This is where we run into what is considered a fairly common philosophical argument against omnipotence, one that I personally subscribe to. You know everything. Everything. You know the final product to making the Universe no matter what you change. You know what will happen in the end in every conceivable and inconceivable possibility because in your mind of endless and unstoppable knowledge, you have already done everything. And so I ask you, as an Omnipotent God who knows everything, who has done everything, what motivation do you have to create the Universe? For you, the Universe has already existed. It exists now in your mind, even if it doesn't in reality, because time means nothing to you. Why would you use that unlimited power to create something that to you, you have already created?

Quite simply, you wouldn't. You wouldn't need to or want to. You already have. It's in your mind, in that endless pit of knowledge existing with-in you. There's no sense in actually making it, none what-so-ever, because you already have and you saw it through to the end.

What is it then, that could possibly motivate a God which knows everything to act? What could make a God with no questions say to himself "I wonder..." In my opinion, one shared with several religious philosophers and writers alike, the only thing that could motivate something that knows everything to act would be to find out what happens when you know absolutely nothing. When the ability to retain knowledge no longer exists. Your only drive as an omnipotent being would be to stop being omnipotent. And the only way that I can see something with immense knowledge of doing that would be to die.

But to something that has no fear, death would not be the same as it is to us. It would not be frightened of no longer existing. It would be motivated to discover, to learn something it can't possibly know, because by knowing absolutely everything, the only bump is knowing what it is to know absolutely nothing. Much like the Chinese concept of Yin-Yang, one side cannot exist without the other, and so in knowing everything God would be unable to know nothing. And for a God that has unlimited power, what happens when he goes from knowing everything to knowing nothing is a question to which he simply couldn't help but learn the answer.

And now we have come full circle, back to the beginning. When someone tells me that they believe in both an Omnipotent God and Free Will, I take a breath, and casually apologize to them for their loss. When prompted with the question of why, I state: Because unfortunately, the only way that an Omnipotent God and Free Will could exist together would be if your God was already dead, and your life was simply the aftermath of his destruction. Only then would you have a choice, because the God that once had all the answers has chosen to know nothing, and in doing so he gave you Free Will.

Chapter 6: The Effects of Free Will

I hope that by now you understand my point of view in regards to the importance of religion. I say this because the rest of the novel may seem confrontational if you don't understand my beliefs. Maybe that isn't such a bad thing, though. Confrontation is the only way to inspire change, and given the fact that this entire book is being written to motivate readers to change their beliefs about Atheists, confrontation may not be such a bad thing. But that isn't really the way I like to do things when it comes to religion. Religion is, and has been, a taboo subject for a very long time for many reasons, the most important being exactly what I said in the previous chapter: Faith is a choice, and every single persons religion is part of who they are deep into their being. It's personal.

Now though, we need to touch on the subjects that make Atheists turn away from organized religion, and I believe there is no better place to start than with what is considered to be one of the most common Atheist arguments; Religion is the birth of all evil.

Choosing where to begin with this argument is quite difficult. I suppose I should start by saying that though I see where Confrontational Atheists get their opinions from, I don't really agree. In the long run, the argument doesn't make sense. See, the Confrontational Atheist mindset tends to blame religion for the worlds problems because they take the actions of radical extremists and blame the entire population for that sub-groups actions. If that's not the case, then they claim that this belief in God is a weak-man's way of dealing with the problems of the world. They tend to consider themselves above Believers, and for this reason they treat the believing population as if they are second class citizens of the world. In my opinion, how is that any better than the hostility created by radical Believers?

The true problem with religion has absolutely nothing to do with God. The flaws lie in the individuals who have chosen to believe extremist views. It is unarguable that religion has been, in documented history, the birth place for some of the most violent and horrific slaughters of human beings, but I refuse to believe that it was God that did this. And that's because, as an Atheist, I believe in Free Will.

Free Will is one of the most important facts of life to most Atheists. By claiming that there is no ultimate being ruling the world, we automatically subscribe to the belief of Free Will. In doing so, we accept that every single thing a person thinks, feels, and does comes from their own mind, a decision they have made on their own without any other form of external control. We believe that every single person has a choice in everything, and their actions are the fault of nobody but themselves.

I believe that this is where religious hatred is born. When you have a man or woman motivated by the word of God, believing that they are causing harm to others for a higher purpose, then they are wielding a weapon so powerful that it cannot be stopped by any mortal means. Though they may be going against everything they believe in, they have been told that it's for a higher purpose, and are therefor operating against the code of their creed. Like a Christian in the Crusades, the violation of the commandment "thou shalt not kill" means nothing when you believe in a free-pass system. And yet, there it sits, one of the 10 laws of the Christian faith that was transcribed in stone for one purpose and one purpose alone, to never be changed, altered, ignored, or violated by man for the rest of their existence on Earth. Let me continue the First Crusade metaphor as an example to explain myself further:

Imagine that you are a Christian European. You have been told by Pope Urban II, a man you believe has a direct line to God himself, that you are tasked with returning the Holy Lands to your own people. In doing so, you will kill countless thousands of others, spill the blood of hundreds upon the soil of a place that they too consider to be holy in their faith. But you are told that these people are savage beasts, and they have no claim to the land because the one true God is yours and yours alone, and that the Holy Land belongs to Him and all those who follow Him. So, you march across the world, and you meet these foreign people, these men who pray to a different God and live their lives by His teachings, and you kill them all because you know that they are following a false God and are sinners. And as your sword strikes every man you come across into the ground, you feel no shame because you are killing for God, and the Pope himself has promised you that you will be absolved of all your sins because killing these people means returning a piece of dirt to the hands of its rightful owners. So with that thought in mind, you assault the grand city of Jerusalem, and you charge through its walls and you kill everyone you see, man, woman, and child. You kill them all not because they pose a threat to you, but because they threaten your God by not believing in him, and by killing all these false-believers, you are sending the sinners to Hell where they belong, just as all your religious leaders have told you.

Now, as graphic as that may sound, I want you to look at where this all began. Try, for a moment, to see it from an Atheist's point of view, even if you are not an Atheist yourself. With such immense bloodshed, it becomes clear why Confrontational Atheists hold so strongly to that belief that Religion is the root of all evil. It's understandable, at least in some degree, to read about something as horrific and senseless as this slaughter and draw the conclusion that all of this was done because of a being called God, and the power he has over all the people beneath him. It's also makes sense why those same Atheists would believe that if you cut the head off the snake, and removed God from the equation, none of this would happen.

But how can we blame God when it was he who told his people never to kill another? How do we blame this all on God when we believe in Free Will?

Almost all of the Atheists that believe that religion is the source of all evil believe in Free Will. They also do not believe in God. So, in not believing in God, there are several very important steps to be taken before making such a rash statement as "without God there would be no evil." First, you must acknowledge that by being Atheist and not believing in God, you also believe that the Pope's direct line to God in this situation is a lie. He cannot hear the voice of God, he does not speak with him regarding issues of the world, and he was not chosen by the ultimate creator to lead his people. He is just a normal man who has reached a seat of political and social power by saying and doing all the right things in the eyes of those who will elect him. With this being the case, the Pope's actions cannot be viewed the same way. It is not Religion or God or any other faith-based power that has motivated him to action. He is just a man in a position of immense power who has chosen to misuse his authority, no different to a King or Queen of a country who becomes a tyrant and kills off his or her own citizens. He is motivated by selfish gain. Be it for wealth, authority, or to be remembered for all eternity, he is just a man, a man who has chosen to take something beautiful like Faith and use it for evil.

The fault here lies not in Religion or in God. The majority of the worlds religions were born through the struggles of life to motivate the people to keep living. Religions gave people strength when they had none, taught men and women to treat each other like equals when those in power refused to do so. They gave the tired, the hungry, and the unfortunate something to live for, because after all, their God or Gods loved them.

The fault lies only in the hands of man. Throughout history, people in power have chosen to abuse it time and time again. They have taken the Free Will that was handed to them at birth, and have used it for terrible terrible things. The only problem is that with religion, the power of warped-faith is one that is almost unstoppable. After all, what better army exists out there than one which believes that even in death, they will live on for all of eternity in the bliss of heaven?