Wednesday, March 2, 2011

God Isn't Great

I know I'm hardly the first person to point this out. Christopher Hitchens wrote an entire book about it. But it's worth reiterating again in the wake of yet another set of killings by a fanatical Muslim.
A gunman shouting "Allahu Akbar" opened fire on a bus carrying U.S. airmen in Frankfurt, Germany, killing two and wounding two others before his gun jammed and he was subdued, officials said.
Assuming that God even existed -- a gigantic assumption -- the Islamic version, like the others, certainly doesn't appear great at all. Why does he need murderous followers screaming "God is great" all the time? If he really was great, wouldn't it be obvious? How does this type of attack demonstrate his greatness? Why is God too weak to destroy the infidels himself? Shouldn't he be able to make the entire U.S. military drop dead just by willing it to happen? It appears that he's even too weak to prevent an inopportune gun jam.

On the other hand, maybe he's really upset that radicals are perverting his religion of peace -- as some would have you believe. But it seems he's just not strong enough to do anything about that either. All these people running around killing people shouting his name and claiming he's great are giving him and his religion a bad reputation. Couldn't he at least rein them in a bit? Maybe the gun could have jammed before two people were killed and two wounded? Is that really too much to ask from a great God?

2 comments:

  1. Oh, but He did step in! If He hadn't, many more people would have been killed. It's similar to the logic applied in the analysis of Obama's economic stimulus.

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  2. Yeah, that's always a popular explanation. Although my personal favorite is the who are you a mere human to question the ways of God? line of argument.

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