answered — just think of the hundreds of millions of people that suffer from
malnourishment and disease. Think of the myriad of issues that plague
humanity. Why would the same god that ignored their far more desperate
prayers answer your trivial prayer for an ‘A’ on a calculus test or to win a
football game? Why should we, as well-fed, privileged people who live in
lavish conditions compared to many in the world, plead for divine
intervention? The whole notion strikes me as manifestly egocentric and
naive.
In addition, if God has a plan for us, does it not clash with the much-touted
concept of free will? And, though perhaps I digress, how is it just for God to
punish all of humanity because one woman, Eve, disobeyed him in a single
instance? It would be like sentencing you and your entire family to languish
in prison because one of your distant predecessors committed murder. Such
a punishment is redolent of North Korea’s “three generation punishment,” a
punishment in which the state imprisons not just political dissidents, but also
their children and grandchildren.
The Hydra of Religion
For millennia, billions have believed with just as much conviction that their
religions, the gods in their pantheons, were the only paths to truth. As time
passed, new religions were invented, and the religions of antiquity drifted
into mythology. The religions of the current age are no different. Eventually,
they will fade into obscurity, and will be viewed in the same way we today
view the ancient Norse and Egyptian religions—as relics of unenlightened
ages. Is it not a remarkable coincidence that out of the thousands of
religions that have existed, your religion, the one you were born into out of
good fortune, is the only true one? Does it strike you as odd that most
deities, as depicted in paintings and architecture, invariably resemble their
followers?
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