The Concept of God Solves All Problems!?

One of the reasons I started this Blog is because I was curious to see which arguments have the best chance to persuade Christians that their faith is false. Sadly, I am no closer to figuring this out then when I started, and I think I know why.

The bottom line seems to be that when someone believes in God, then his concept of God becomes the answer to all of his problems.

The problems I refer to here are intellectual complexities, socio-political troubles, and personal difficulties. If something bad happens to the believer, for instance, he believes either God has a reason for it, or God will bring good out of it. The same goes for unanswered prayer, for the believer will claim it just wasn’t God’s will, or that it’s not in God’s timetable.

I don’t mean to suggest that there are no problems for the believer. He does indeed have problems. But he also has an explanation for them in that God allows him to experience them in order to strengthen his mind, character, and body, or that they are the punishment for sin. I only mean that with his faith the believer has a solution to all problems, and they are solved by his concept of God.

The Christian thinks this way, as I’ve seen, but so does the Muslim, so does the Jew, so does the Hindu, so does the Buddhist, in their various respective ways. But because religious believers have their problems solved by their faith it’s nearly impossible for them to see that it’s their faith itself that solves these problems, and not the object of their faith. This is especially true when the believer is fearful to doubt.

When you stop to think about it, with such a faith it's nearly impossible to see that faith for what it really is: faith in a concept of God. Such a concept must solve all problems. It cannot be otherwise. By definition the theistic God must answer or solve all problems and/or difficulties, otherwise he's not worthy as a God concept.

I watched the movie Troy (starring Brad Pitt as Achilles) just recently. I liked the movie a great deal even though it was long. It was very entertaining and loosely based on Homer’s The Iliad, along with Greek mythology. You ought to watch it! So long as it’s even close to how the ancients thought about the gods, it’s enlightening. The confidence they had when they spoke of the gods of Apollo or Poseidon or Zeus was absolutely amazing to me, and reminds me of how confident Christians are too, even though there are differences in how they determined the will of the gods. Kings consulted the priests for signs from the gods about whether or not they will win a battle, and the priests saw omens in nature to indicate what the gods will do. [Christians determine God’s will from a book that was written by the same kind of superstitious people, too, although they will never acknowledge this. But even in the Bible divine guidance was sought for through Rhabdomancy, Hepatoscopy, Teraphim, Necromancy, Astrology, Hydromancy, Casting of Lots, and Dreams (look these up yourselves). And while there were many prophets proclaiming what they called God’s word, how did anyone back in those days actually know which ones were from God, if any of them were? I know the so-called tests for a true prophet, but the so-called false prophets didn’t think they were false prophets, did they?...nor did those who followed them. Who would you really believe in Jeremiah’s day, since he was walking around Jerusalem proclaiming that it would fall? On Jonah’s story see here.]

The basis of their faith rests in ancient pre-scientific superstitious people, and in when and where they were born, but they refuse to acknowledge this.

Take for example religious diversity. Why is there a proliferation of religious belief systems? Well, if you believe in a specific concept of God then God is your answer. Consider the arguments used to explain religious diversity by adherents of different religious faiths. These explanations are similar in kind to each other, if not exactly the same. They will argue that those who don’t accept their particular religion are either ignorant of the truth, willfully ignorant, unenlightened, deceived by Satan, or that God has good reasons for permitting this state of affairs. Cultural factors are downplayed or even ignored, even though they play an overwhelming role in what a person believes.

Take for instance the issue of miracles. Miracles don’t occur in today’s world (Pentecostal believers will very rarely claim they happen in today’s world nearly as often as the Bible records, or with such force). But if you believe in the Christian God concept, then God is your answer. Miracles must’ve occurred, even though believers face a double burden of proof, and even though believers must overcome Lessing’s Broad Ugly Ditch

Take for instance the problem of evil. If you believe in a Christian God concept, then God is your answer. God knows what he’s doing, and what he does is good, even though Christians have no answer as to why God didn’t explicitly condemn slavery, or create all human beings with one color of skin. Intense suffering speaks volumes against the Christian faith. Believers will even try to justify why people end up in hell with arguments that seem absurd, because of a faith that believes God solves all problems.

With a God concept like this who solves all problems, it’s nearly impossible to help the believer to see his faith for what it truly is, as a Freudian wish fulfillment, or Nietzsche’s will to power, or the Marxian opiate of the people. Ludwig Feuerbach was correct, human beings have fashioned God in their image rather than the other way around.

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Since I’ve mentioned the movie Troy, according to Greek mythology when Achilles was born, his mother, Thetis, tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx. As she immersed him, she held him by one heel and forgot to dip him a second time so the heel she held could get wet too. Therefore, the place where she held him remained untouched by the magic water of the Styx and that part stayed mortal or vulnerable. Achilles died from a heel wound as the result of a poisoned arrow fired by Paris. To this day, any weak point is called an “Achilles’ heel”. I think the Achilles’ heel of Christianity is to be found in the advance of modernity.