ClaytonB
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Cosmic Horror and Atheism -- What if God is Evil?
Disclaimer: Before jumping in, let me clarify that I do not believe God is evil, in fact, God is the highest possible good. God is good "all things considered", meaning, he is good in the broadest possible sense. He is not just good as we understand human goodness, but he is more good than that. He is at no point less good than humans, meaning, there is nothing that you truly understand to be good which God is against. God is the very essence of what we mean by the good, the true and the beautiful...
In the genre of cosmic horror, perhaps the most famous author is H.P Lovecraft. Lovecraft painted pictures of transcendent, cosmic entities that are intrinsically sinister and hostile to all life, including or especially human life. The category of cosmic horror is basically an exploration of the question, "What if God is evil?" What if God hates you? In the chemical burn scene in Fight Club, Tyler Durden schools Jack on theology:
Modern atheists rarely, if ever, consider this question. It is treated as an unserious question. "Look around you, do you see anything sinister and evil? Seen any ghosts lately? Seen any interdimensional entities peeking at you through the fabric of spacetime? If you have, you should see a psychiatrist." Nyuk, nyuk.
But this is actually the single biggest blindspot in atheistic theology. Wait a minute, did I just say, "atheistic theology"? Isn't that a contradiction? No, it is not a contradiction at all. Atheism is a theology, specifically, it is the theological view that posits that there is no God at all, or no God/gods having specific attributes, and so on. What I am asserting, here, is that most atheists are just plain crappy theologians, that is, they're bad at theology. For many atheists, their unbelief actually flows from their lack of theological ability, not from any kind of truly deep insight into the world.
When the atheist rejects the existence of a good God, he inadvertently opens the door to the possibility of an evil God. The most common atheistic objection to God is that "if God exists, he would be evil" since we live in an evil world, as though that settles the matter; as though God can't exist and be evil. But it doesn't settle anything, it just says that God could be evil.
So, let's suppose that God exists, for a moment, and that he is evil. The jerks of the world shout for joy: hooray, God is on our side! But they are bound to be severely disappointed because God has no use for them. He is the omni-competent, universal jerk and he does not need helper-jerks. The only use he has for humans, whether jerks or not, is their unendurable agony, forever. In other words, the lake of fire. As for the rest of us normal people, sure, the world looks fine. Everything seems to be OK. But most prey in every part of the natural ecosystem are permitted by Nature to grow into maturity before they are caught by their natural predator and eaten alive. So there is no comfort to be found in the apparent normality of the daily humdrum, either.
If God were omnipotent evil and pure, blind malevolence, we'd already be in the lake of fire. So, perhaps he's a more sophisticated kind of evil and he wants to toy with his victims by letting them live ordinary lives for a while before pouncing on them. It's conceivable. We do have many great examples from human history that demonstrate what real evil looks like. Real evil looks something like Caligula, Hitler, Stalin, Epstein or choose your own favorite historical villain. While God may be vastly more intelligent in how he implements his cosmic tyranny, the essence of what tyranny is, is not difficult to understand -- something like Stalin without the limitations of physics, body, mind, etc.
Many people have survived tyranny throughout history. Most people have done it by "laying low". And we see the same pattern in Nature, as well -- prey that live in a place where they have many natural predators tend to stick close to the ground, close to cover, stay well camouflaged, move under cover of darkness, etc. etc. If God exists and he is evil, the atheist (along with the rest of us) would do well to lay low. So, the atheist shows by his behavior that he does not take seriously the possibility that God exists and he is evil. In other words, the atheist says, "God can't be good because the world is evil" but then he proceeds to conclude "God can't exist" because God can't be good. Well, if God can be evil, then he can exist.
If the evilness of the world is the reason that you do not believe in God, then you are in a very dangerous situation. You have a deeply flawed theology and you do not realize it. You are like the man under Stalin's regime, living in a far-flung village who says, "I don't believe in Stalin. I'll believe in Stalin when he shows up." But when Stalin shows up, it will be too late because Stalin exists... and he is evil.
Proving that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God cannot exist may seem like a cakewalk. I would venture that most atheists consider this nearly obvious. But proving that a cosmic horror does not exist is much harder. You can say, "Where is the evidence? I will believe when I see evidence." But the ant has no evidence of the humans which are about to pour molten lead down its anthill.
The atheist response is to shrug the shoulders and say, "Well, then I shall die a little early" but this fails to take the metaphysical problem of an evil omnipotence seriously. If God exists, and he is an evil omnipotence, there is still nothing about the natural world which constrains him in any way. In fact, a good God might be constrained by his own nature not to disrupt the order of things which he has established and thereby cause great suffering to his creatures. But an evil God is not so constrained. The Moon goes around the Earth, planets spin around the Sun, the seasons come and go, animals and humans live and die, and all things go on as they were until the evil God is ready to have his meal. Then, the cosmic horror begins. And it is this metaphysical possibility which is the single greatest blind-spot of the majority of atheists.
I also think this accounts for a lot of the disconnect between believers and unbelievers -- I speculate that most people who are believers have at least considered the possibility that God is evil, and they have realized that, in some sense, we "need" God to be good. Because all the other possibilities are simply terrifying beyond contemplation. If the permanent annihilation of consciousness really is the default state of all beings in the universe, then death is nothing to be feared. But nobody knows that because nobody has died and come back from death to tell us what to expect. So, death is an impenetrable veil towards which we are all sweeping and the only comfort that atheists can offer is a metaphysically baseless optimism that it will turn out all right.
The argument I'm making is a bit like the plot of the 2020 animated movie Sausage Party. Ironically, that movie examines this very question and sees it as a debunk of theism. But notice that the only metaphysical solution it offers to the theological problem it raises is that... it's possible you will be eaten alive after "death". In other words, God does not exist and you might go to hell anyway. That could be considered a "third way" between God exists and he is good, on the one hand, or God exists and he is evil, on the other hand. But a cosmically evil God might also orchestrate the world in such a way that he does not appear to exist, even though he does, and torments us forever, (whether before or after bodily death is irrelevant to the theological problem.) So, it's an unsatisfying and useless argument, even if it's true. If God is a cosmic Stalin, we would at least want to know if there is some way to "lay low" and "blend in", in the hopes that we may, by some miracle, avoid the lake of fire.
The point of all of this is that most atheism is founded on shoddy theological reasoning. The "probability" that Chthulu exists, based on the "evidence" is not the point, here. The question of the possibility of Chthulu's existence is logically prior to metaphysics, and that is what makes it an aspect of faith. The modern false dichotomy between faith and reason tries to paint faith out as having to do with superstition.
The reason that theists believe in God, according to many atheists, is that they are just continuing the old superstitions. Believers have an unexamined metaphysical grounding, that's why they're believers. But this is just rude and condescending, as though I am somehow less competent to critically examine my own metaphysical and epistemological grounding by virtue of the fact that you disagree with the outcome of that examination. I will help you examine your own metaphysical foundations, but if you assure me that you have made such an examination, and you are confident in it, then I will not take the cheap-shot of simply discounting that. This post is aimed at common mistakes I see in the reasoning of most atheists, but it's not a final diagnosis of every last atheist. Much more powerful arguments for atheism exist, it's just that most atheists are not atheist for those reasons.
If you're an atheist, or you know someone who is, I recommend listening to this interview to try to encounter faith from a more realistic and grounded perspective, with less of the gotcha-style bullhorn argumentation that usually characterizes this kind of discussion.
Faith is not just "making up your mind" to believe in something, reason and evidence be damned. While faith is supra-rational, it is also consistent with reason. There is no dichotomy between faith and reason. It's just that reason only has legs, while faith has wings. Legs will get you from place to place eventually, but wings will get you there faster, and you will need wings if you want to cross a vast body of water. Because legs will get you around well enough for ordinary life, many people falsely suppose that they will never need wings. But that happy-go-lucky naivete can only last until the crisis hits. That is when many people who formerly despised the idea of mounting up on the wings of faith finally realize that the legs of reason are not sufficient. At least think about it ahead of time, it's in your own interests...
Disclaimer: Before jumping in, let me clarify that I do not believe God is evil, in fact, God is the highest possible good. God is good "all things considered", meaning, he is good in the broadest possible sense. He is not just good as we understand human goodness, but he is more good than that. He is at no point less good than humans, meaning, there is nothing that you truly understand to be good which God is against. God is the very essence of what we mean by the good, the true and the beautiful...
In the genre of cosmic horror, perhaps the most famous author is H.P Lovecraft. Lovecraft painted pictures of transcendent, cosmic entities that are intrinsically sinister and hostile to all life, including or especially human life. The category of cosmic horror is basically an exploration of the question, "What if God is evil?" What if God hates you? In the chemical burn scene in Fight Club, Tyler Durden schools Jack on theology:
Modern atheists rarely, if ever, consider this question. It is treated as an unserious question. "Look around you, do you see anything sinister and evil? Seen any ghosts lately? Seen any interdimensional entities peeking at you through the fabric of spacetime? If you have, you should see a psychiatrist." Nyuk, nyuk.
But this is actually the single biggest blindspot in atheistic theology. Wait a minute, did I just say, "atheistic theology"? Isn't that a contradiction? No, it is not a contradiction at all. Atheism is a theology, specifically, it is the theological view that posits that there is no God at all, or no God/gods having specific attributes, and so on. What I am asserting, here, is that most atheists are just plain crappy theologians, that is, they're bad at theology. For many atheists, their unbelief actually flows from their lack of theological ability, not from any kind of truly deep insight into the world.
When the atheist rejects the existence of a good God, he inadvertently opens the door to the possibility of an evil God. The most common atheistic objection to God is that "if God exists, he would be evil" since we live in an evil world, as though that settles the matter; as though God can't exist and be evil. But it doesn't settle anything, it just says that God could be evil.
So, let's suppose that God exists, for a moment, and that he is evil. The jerks of the world shout for joy: hooray, God is on our side! But they are bound to be severely disappointed because God has no use for them. He is the omni-competent, universal jerk and he does not need helper-jerks. The only use he has for humans, whether jerks or not, is their unendurable agony, forever. In other words, the lake of fire. As for the rest of us normal people, sure, the world looks fine. Everything seems to be OK. But most prey in every part of the natural ecosystem are permitted by Nature to grow into maturity before they are caught by their natural predator and eaten alive. So there is no comfort to be found in the apparent normality of the daily humdrum, either.
If God were omnipotent evil and pure, blind malevolence, we'd already be in the lake of fire. So, perhaps he's a more sophisticated kind of evil and he wants to toy with his victims by letting them live ordinary lives for a while before pouncing on them. It's conceivable. We do have many great examples from human history that demonstrate what real evil looks like. Real evil looks something like Caligula, Hitler, Stalin, Epstein or choose your own favorite historical villain. While God may be vastly more intelligent in how he implements his cosmic tyranny, the essence of what tyranny is, is not difficult to understand -- something like Stalin without the limitations of physics, body, mind, etc.
Many people have survived tyranny throughout history. Most people have done it by "laying low". And we see the same pattern in Nature, as well -- prey that live in a place where they have many natural predators tend to stick close to the ground, close to cover, stay well camouflaged, move under cover of darkness, etc. etc. If God exists and he is evil, the atheist (along with the rest of us) would do well to lay low. So, the atheist shows by his behavior that he does not take seriously the possibility that God exists and he is evil. In other words, the atheist says, "God can't be good because the world is evil" but then he proceeds to conclude "God can't exist" because God can't be good. Well, if God can be evil, then he can exist.
If the evilness of the world is the reason that you do not believe in God, then you are in a very dangerous situation. You have a deeply flawed theology and you do not realize it. You are like the man under Stalin's regime, living in a far-flung village who says, "I don't believe in Stalin. I'll believe in Stalin when he shows up." But when Stalin shows up, it will be too late because Stalin exists... and he is evil.
Proving that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God cannot exist may seem like a cakewalk. I would venture that most atheists consider this nearly obvious. But proving that a cosmic horror does not exist is much harder. You can say, "Where is the evidence? I will believe when I see evidence." But the ant has no evidence of the humans which are about to pour molten lead down its anthill.
The atheist response is to shrug the shoulders and say, "Well, then I shall die a little early" but this fails to take the metaphysical problem of an evil omnipotence seriously. If God exists, and he is an evil omnipotence, there is still nothing about the natural world which constrains him in any way. In fact, a good God might be constrained by his own nature not to disrupt the order of things which he has established and thereby cause great suffering to his creatures. But an evil God is not so constrained. The Moon goes around the Earth, planets spin around the Sun, the seasons come and go, animals and humans live and die, and all things go on as they were until the evil God is ready to have his meal. Then, the cosmic horror begins. And it is this metaphysical possibility which is the single greatest blind-spot of the majority of atheists.
I also think this accounts for a lot of the disconnect between believers and unbelievers -- I speculate that most people who are believers have at least considered the possibility that God is evil, and they have realized that, in some sense, we "need" God to be good. Because all the other possibilities are simply terrifying beyond contemplation. If the permanent annihilation of consciousness really is the default state of all beings in the universe, then death is nothing to be feared. But nobody knows that because nobody has died and come back from death to tell us what to expect. So, death is an impenetrable veil towards which we are all sweeping and the only comfort that atheists can offer is a metaphysically baseless optimism that it will turn out all right.
The argument I'm making is a bit like the plot of the 2020 animated movie Sausage Party. Ironically, that movie examines this very question and sees it as a debunk of theism. But notice that the only metaphysical solution it offers to the theological problem it raises is that... it's possible you will be eaten alive after "death". In other words, God does not exist and you might go to hell anyway. That could be considered a "third way" between God exists and he is good, on the one hand, or God exists and he is evil, on the other hand. But a cosmically evil God might also orchestrate the world in such a way that he does not appear to exist, even though he does, and torments us forever, (whether before or after bodily death is irrelevant to the theological problem.) So, it's an unsatisfying and useless argument, even if it's true. If God is a cosmic Stalin, we would at least want to know if there is some way to "lay low" and "blend in", in the hopes that we may, by some miracle, avoid the lake of fire.
The point of all of this is that most atheism is founded on shoddy theological reasoning. The "probability" that Chthulu exists, based on the "evidence" is not the point, here. The question of the possibility of Chthulu's existence is logically prior to metaphysics, and that is what makes it an aspect of faith. The modern false dichotomy between faith and reason tries to paint faith out as having to do with superstition.
The reason that theists believe in God, according to many atheists, is that they are just continuing the old superstitions. Believers have an unexamined metaphysical grounding, that's why they're believers. But this is just rude and condescending, as though I am somehow less competent to critically examine my own metaphysical and epistemological grounding by virtue of the fact that you disagree with the outcome of that examination. I will help you examine your own metaphysical foundations, but if you assure me that you have made such an examination, and you are confident in it, then I will not take the cheap-shot of simply discounting that. This post is aimed at common mistakes I see in the reasoning of most atheists, but it's not a final diagnosis of every last atheist. Much more powerful arguments for atheism exist, it's just that most atheists are not atheist for those reasons.
If you're an atheist, or you know someone who is, I recommend listening to this interview to try to encounter faith from a more realistic and grounded perspective, with less of the gotcha-style bullhorn argumentation that usually characterizes this kind of discussion.
Faith is not just "making up your mind" to believe in something, reason and evidence be damned. While faith is supra-rational, it is also consistent with reason. There is no dichotomy between faith and reason. It's just that reason only has legs, while faith has wings. Legs will get you from place to place eventually, but wings will get you there faster, and you will need wings if you want to cross a vast body of water. Because legs will get you around well enough for ordinary life, many people falsely suppose that they will never need wings. But that happy-go-lucky naivete can only last until the crisis hits. That is when many people who formerly despised the idea of mounting up on the wings of faith finally realize that the legs of reason are not sufficient. At least think about it ahead of time, it's in your own interests...
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