Not In My Name!

While I hate getting emotional in my posts there is an issue over which I get incredibly inflamed: religion.

 I have never really believed in a God but could only really be said to have considered the subject in depth when I was about 11 or 12. It was only at this age did I realise that there were people in the world who did. I had assumed that it was akin to Santa Claus, everyone being in on the secret. To my dismay however I discovered that religion was not only widespread but also immensely powerful.
Growing up in Catholic Ireland, I received all the sacraments from Baptism to Confirmation (still believing it was a social custom of no real importance), this was mainly due to how it was forced upon us in schools which are predominantly run by the Catholic Church, something I never noticed as a child. When I did turn 11/12 and began to speak out against religion openly (particularly in our religion classes at school) I was a fully-fledged atheist and could take on any of my religion teachers who quickly turned their attention to...less questioning...students.

I never considered myself a Catholic but I never formally left (never bothered). Recently however I had some free time and so decided to go about it and spoke to the priest of the local parish. He said it would he would investigate it. While I have yet to hear back from him I have discovered in the mean time that the Catholic Church no longer accepts formal defections. While I have yet to speak to the priest again (its a busy time of year) this very fact irks me no end.

How dare they count me among their number? Many of my friends ask why I care. Well there is a very good reason as to why I care. The Catholic Church derives its credibility and power from the number of people they claim. When they approach politicians in Ireland and point to the ~87% Catholic population they appear relevant, they appear to be in touch with the people, they appear to be important. It is through these statistics which do not accurately reflect the level of religious belief that they defend the virtual Church monopoly on schooling, that they defend the Church's involvement in the healthcare system.

Well, I say no longer. How dare they hold a politician's ear in my name, how dare they manipulate the health and education system in my name, how dare they systematically rape and abuse entire generations of children in my name. NOT IN MY NAME!

An Evil Deity

   I put this question out to the blogosphere about God, Yahweh, Allah [insert deity here] etc. (I will refer to all of the above as 'God'). The question is how do you know God is good? Now to qualify this I'm going to put out a few caveats.

First off, I care little for the semantic "God is defined as good". So, in order to eradicate this pointlessness, I am going to define good in the colloqial sense e.g. not killing is good. In another sense the question could be couched in terms of suffering, how do you know God wants to 'save' us and is not merely revelling in our suffering?

With that out of the way, I will address the next point. Many theists will be reaching for their holy book at this stage and pointing to where it says God is merciful, God is good etc. so I'm going to ask would an evil God not write that he was good? Would an evil God not get his kicks from convincing his hapless creations that he was their route to being 'saved'? Would he not relish in creating a false hope in order to crush it later? Would it not please such a being to see people worship the very cause of their misfortune?

 Now, the next objection is generally "why would an evil God even create a universe?". Well, to torture the inhabitants obviously. Indeed, why would any God (whether good or evil) create a universe?

Finally, the theist will say "what about all the good in the world?" Well, as we know, God works in mysterious ways and any seeming kindness is merely part of God's greater (evil) plan.

So, this is the question I put to theists. Many atheists are probably eager to point out the incredible number of atrocities in the Bible (or Qu'ran etc.) but I must ask them to hold. Instead I want to ask the theists how (even if the Bible was squeeky clean) do they know that God is good rather than evil. 'Personal revelation' won't cut it either.