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Many atheists, skeptics and agnostics make the claim that God is evil and immoral.

How would you respond to the following quote by the famous atheist Mr. Dawkins?

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Seek God

God is a God of love and justice.

The claims that God is evil suffers from a misunderstanding of God’s character. Speaking of God as a tyrant and an unabashed killer takes the position of Socrates who once said that it is better to suffer injustice than to do it, better to be the victim than the perpetrator. Apparently many would be more comfortable with God if He were a victim rather than a sovereign.

In making such assertions, the Godless also follows the lead of atheist Robert Wilson who wrote, “The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer.”

In addition, many charge that God is the creator of evil and wickedness, and therefore asserts that God cannot be the holy and righteous deity described in the Bible. In theology, this is the problem of theodicy, which is the branch of theology that vindicates God’s divine attributes (particularly holiness and justice) in the face of the existence of physical and moral evil.

With respect to the assertion that God is a tyrannical murderer of the innocent—the Godless displays a gross misunderstanding of history, which compounds their misunderstanding of God’s character.

For certain, there are apparent difficulties that arise when one begins studying the Bible. But a person should not assume God doesn’t exist and/or the Bible is in error just because he encounters a problem in the Bible that he can’t immediately understand or explain.

The scientist doesn’t throw out science just because he/she sees something in the physical world he can’t immediately explain. Neither should we do the same with theology or the study of Scripture. Misunderstandings like those committed by skeptics are the result of not thoroughly investigating matters or dismissing a belief based on a presupposition that is buried deep in a person’s heart or lifestyle (or both).

And the danger in both cases is something Pascal warned about many years ago: “People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.” What self-described atheists find attractive about denying God is that they think if they deny Him, they will never have to deal with Him in any way. Sadly, they couldn’t be more wrong.

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