By Dave Hren

Atheists think that purpose in life is subjective and not dependent on what a god has decided. An atheist may think there is no purpose to their life. That life just is. However, many atheists believe that their purpose is what they make of it: without the need of a god to provide a purpose.

The fact that we do in fact have the capacity to perceive beauty and purpose does not mean that a god had to furnish that ability. But let's talk about the purpose of humanity from the viewpoint of the Christian God. If there really is one.

In the Garden of Eden, God punishes Adam and Eve (and the rest of humanity) for becoming aware and disobeying Him. The Biblical God's idea of a perfect world without sin was a world where Adam and Eve were incapable of knowing right and wrong and didn't even understand nakedness. In the beginning, had Adam and Eve not eaten from the tree of knowledge, humanity would be ignorant servants of God: ignorant animals that would live in peace forever.

If the Bible is true, God did not want them to eat the fruit, but knew they would and set them up to fail. Adam and Eve were like infants not knowing good from evil and thus, they were not unlike animals. After all, they didn't even know they were naked and felt no shame. But after they had eaten the fruit, their eyes were opened and they had become like God, knowing good from evil.

Having a purpose requires elements of mystery and uncertainty, but with the Christian God, the “purpose” of life is an attribute provided to mankind by God. What then is the human purpose? Human purpose is an attribute of God, not mankind.

This God would create man in his image and create mankind knowing full well that mankind would fail to reject evil, and then lament the fact that His creation had disobeyed. Why should he be upset, wasn't this his plan from the start? He created man knowing the plan, knowing the final score.

How can God even have a plan, when there is no chance for it to fail? God does not plan things; he just does things, right? Even if He could plan things, He should be happy that His all powerful plan is taking shape and that even unrepentant sinners are still behaving according to His plan. Do they really have any choice? According to Christianity, it is impossible to be sin free as a human and to be sin free is to be God. According to Christianity your purpose in life is serving God, always knowing that you were born evil and your one hope is to have enough faith in God or Jesus to forgive you of the sinful nature that He gave you in the first place. Sounds like a rat running the maze to me.

If it is impossible for a human being not to sin, how is that free will? God designed it that humanity would have the ability to sin, must sin and every human would be born into sin after Adam and Eve. And then God would require sinners to get His forgiveness of the sins that He made certain that it would be impossible for humanity to avoid. Even going so far as to say that everyone Adam and Eve begat would be guilty of sin the day they are born. You don't even have to be an active sinner to be guilty of sin. Dizzying isn't it? But all you have to do is ask forgiveness from God to have the sins, that this same God required you to commit or be born with, in order to be a human and not a god, be forgotten.

Some Christians use the old “God created the fact of sin, not the act of sin” argument. This argument sounds good at first, but fails on at least three points.

#1. God created sin.

#2. All humans are guilty of sin simply by being born.

#3. God's design mandates that humans are incapable of living without committing sins.

Here's an analogy.

God is a scientist.

God the scientist, using his mind and sheer talent, CREATES a substance that he knows will come to life. However, being extremely intelligent, the scientist knows that when the substance does in fact come to life it will exhibit undesirable properties. In this case, the scientist knows that the substance, when animated, will eventually become unstable and destroy parts of his laboratory and some of his other stable and useful substances. The scientist knows that when he created this substance it will come to life, it will have unstable properties and it will be destructive to his laboratory and other stable substances. The scientist knows also that this life form will also become intelligent and develop a purpose that is counter productive to his own purpose. Most importantly, the scientist knows all of this before he creates the substance.

The scientist creates the substance anyway, watches the substance become animated, destroy parts of his laboratory and some of his other useful substances. Just like he knew it would.

The scientist is then angered by the behavior of his creation knowing full well what it would do after he created it. And then he takes his most perfect, stable substance... a substance that represents his finest work and inserts it into the counter productive and destructive substance and in the process destroys his most perfect and stable substance temporarily. Not to stop the destruction, but to ensure that some of the unstable substance is changed into a somewhat stable substance and eventually will be totally stable.

Instead of just making stable substances in the first place.

The scientist, being “intelligent”, also made it so his living substances would have a limited lifespan. So after creating the substances, he watches them die. The scientist decided before he made the unstable substance that the unstable substance should be re-animated as an eternal living substance so he can punish it forever. While re-animating the dead stable substance as an eternal living substance so he can reward it forever.

The scientist is punishing and rewarding his substances for being exactly as he designed them to be. Unstable and stable. Unforgiven and forgiven respectively.

This scientist is mad.

The scientist planned to give each substance he created, certain properties. Some useful and some destructive. The substance had no choice to be created or not... to be useful or not. To be a creation with properties known in advance by the creator, is to be a creation with absolutely no free will.

If this scientist created you, and already knows what you will do with your life, your purpose... and this scientist will reward or punish you based on what properties he designed you to have, what then is the Christian's purpose? Is it to hope that you have been created to be “stable” and remain that way?

As an atheist, I would rather have no purpose at all or invent one of my own. A life without purpose makes more sense compared to the Christian God's purpose for humanity.

The Christian could argue that just because God knows what you will choose, doesn't mean that it's according to his plan or design. That would be an even more terrible character flaw for God to have. It would be like you being able to know an innocent person was going to be murdered at some point in the future and then doing nothing to prevent it. And then say, yeah I knew it was going to happen and I could have prevented it, but it wasn't part of my plan. If lowly humans like us did something similar, we'd probably go to jail. When God does the same thing, Christians say we can't understand the ways of God because we are inferior to Him.

I disagree.

Even when we are preoccupied with our basic desires and needs, the human being is a far more compassionate and reasonable being than the Christian God. Because as a human, I could look upon the unfortunate souls subjected to Hell and understand that an eternity of suffering and fire is ridiculously punitive for any conceivable, finite, Earthly sin. The loving and “merciful” God of the Bible knows no such mercy. Especially when it is taken into consideration that He created evil, sin and Hell in the first place.

I ask the Christian: Is it possible for a human to be sin free according to the Bible? I'm not asking about forgiveness, either. Can a human being live its life without sinning? The answer is a resounding no according to the Bible.

I ask the Christian: What difference does your so called free will make, when you are born with evil and sin in your heart? So that no matter what you choose to do in your life, you automatically need God's forgiveness anyway. You are born into a system in which you must, at minimum, repent of the sins that you are cursed with at birth, through no fault of your own. Is this freedom? It's like being born with a deformed leg and then hoping God will forgive you for not being able to walk very well.

The God who would create sin, evil and Satan himself, letting each one flow onto humanity or through humanity and then watches the suffering and eternal torment of dead people who have been romanced by sin and evil and have committed the sin of unbelief (people that He knew would never come to believe) is also a God, even if real, who should not enjoy the love and faith of so many.

Be a good rat, negotiate the maze, obey God, believe in Him and He will lead you to the cheese.

Of course, there are other gods besides the Christian God. Allah, Zeus, Vishnu, Thor and “The Great Spirit”, just to name few. All equally unbelievable because there is little evidence to support their existence. Just like the Christian God.

As an atheist, I cannot prove that there aren't gods. I can just provide evidence that there haven't been any known yet that have proved themselves more powerful than humans. Theists create gods and theists destroy gods. Theists get angry at gods for their misfortunes and praise gods for their successes.

And as an atheist, I have rejected the idea of gods to make room for more plausible and interesting things.

Dave Hren