Have you heard of the ichneumonidae wasp? They are evil little fellas. They lay their eggs inside the body of living caterpillars, and when the eggs hatch, the offspring starts eating its host alive.
It's not a pretty sight - the poor caterpillar, eaten alive from the inside till it dies.
If you created the universe, would you come up with the ichneumonidae wasp?
You see, when believers are asked for evidence of God, they do not point to the ichneumonidae. They point to frozen waterfalls and rainbows and sunsets and shooting stars.
But ichneumonidae exists, whether you like it or not.
If God created you and I, then he created ichneumonidae as well. Original sin had no part in it.
So where is the evidence that God exists?
He didn't scribble his name on the bottom of my foot, he didn't leave a signpost describing his creation. He didn't put his initials in the corner of my eyeball.
There is no obvious evidence that God created all this.
Which leads to the question: Why would God create us, then leave us to be confused, each civilisation birthing their own incompatible gods and religions?
Why not make it obvious?
If you have an answers for these questions, I would truly love to hear them - like Mulder, I want to believe.
And if you insist God exists, despite the inexplicable lack of evidence, let us have a look at what evidence there is. In 2004, a massive tsunami wiped out 250,000 of the poorest souls on earth including 85,000 children. If there were a loving God, these are the exact people we might hope he would use his divine powers to aid. Instead, of course, he oversaw their horrific, terrifying drownings. Imagine just one of these panicked children, a five year old boy ripped from his mother's arms, struggling to stay above water, only to finally be overwhelmed and down. This is what happened to 85, 000 children. And God was watching and did nothing. A tsunami is not caused by sinful people, the inevitable and regretful collateral damage caused by giving us free will. God and God alone could cause or prevent this. He either chose not to, or didn't have the power to stop it.
And, regretfully, this is not the only opportunity God missed to save a child's life. Every year, 9 million children under the age of 5 die because they are poor. Because they were born to communities that lack food, safe water and basic medical facilities.
That's 16 thousand children, five September 11 towers full of children, every day.
You cannot justify witnessing this and choosing not to intervene, despite having the power to do so. If God exists, he is at best an accomplice.
As Sam Harris so clearly articulated, God is either impotent or evil. He either can't act, or chooses not to.
But that doesn't cover it for me. Because I can also imagine a God who creates universes like my daughter creates paintings. She makes hundreds of these swirling messes, they get hung on the wall, never to be looked at again. You can create something and then move on to something else. Maybe God just isn't that interested in us. We could only stare at an ant colony for so long before getting bored and moving on to something else. It would be kind of troubling if a human paid too much attention to ants. It might be a sign of mental illness.
Have you had your God diagnosed for a mental illness?
So I would add indifferent to Harris' list - impotent, evil or indifferent. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
How do you explain God's lack of action in these specific circumstances?
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