IF GOD EXISTS THEN GOD IS NOT INFALLIBLE

They say most people will look at the title of the article or news report before deciding whether to read it or not. So ‘Dog bites man’ will not interest you to read the piece like ‘Man bites dog’ would. And I am sure the title ‘If God exists then God is not infallible’ will interest both those who believe in God as well as those who don’t.

Anyway, now that I have got your attention (and if you are reading this — the second paragraph — then I have certainly got your attention) let us begin.

God, the Abrahamic God at least, is supposed to be perfect, clever, all knowing, etc., in short, all-everything with no defects whatsoever. Okay, none of us dispute that, right?

According to the ‘story’, after God created Adam from earth and blew (breathed) life into this lifeless clay statue, Iblis, the angel made from fire (there were many types of angels that God created), refused to kowtow (bow) to Adam like God ordered because Adam (humankind) is so weak, ambitious, egoistic, selfish, greedy, lustful, jealous of others, cruel, defiant, and much more.

And Iblis did not possess any of these weaknesses that humankind possesses (we are told). Iblis was very perfect. So for sure a perfect Iblis should not be made to bow to a weak human, not even by God. (Hmm….Iblis has an ego and was jealous of Adam so maybe he does have some weaknesses after all).

This, according to the story, angered God.

Okay, so Iblis’s defiance angered God, so say the ‘Holy Books’ of the three Abrahamic faiths. But then did God not know this was going to happen (meaning Iblis was going to defy God) since God is all-knowing, even about the future? Furthermore, anger is a human weakness and would not God be exempted from human weaknesses like anger?

So, did God not know that Iblis was going to defy Him, or did God already know it was going to happen (as any God would most certainly know) and hence is just playing games with Iblis? And why would God want to play mind games with Iblis when God could, as the Holy Books say, just utter ‘Be!’ and it will automatically happen?

Hence God could have ‘programmed’ or created Iblis to obey every command of His instead of allowing Iblis to defy Him. And if God already knew that Iblis was going to defy Him (as a God should know) why create Adam just to cause friction and trigger a crisis?

An all-knowing God would know about an impending crisis before it happens and could have made sure that the crisis is averted before it happens. Either do not create humankind or create an angel called Iblis that will never defy or disobey God under any and all circumstances.

Hence God failed in His creation of Iblis. He created an Iblis who fought back and refused to obey His command. Or maybe God was caught off-guard and was not aware beforehand that by creating humankind one of His angels, Iblis, would cross over to the dark side and turn rebel.

Whatever the reason may be, either way God made a strategic blunder. By creating humankind God lost one of his most valuable and powerful angels who now joined the opposition and is actively and fiercely campaigning against Him.

God then charged Iblis with treason and sentenced him to an eternity of condemnation in the fires of Hell. Iblis did not contest the charge but appealed a stay of serving the sentence, which God agreed. Hence serving of the sentence would start only once the world ends.

Iblis then made a bet with God and God took the bet.

So now God is a gambler as well.

The bet that Iblis made with God is that he (Iblis, that is) would attempt to mislead humankind to prove to God that He is wrong about humankind and that humankind is weak, selfish, ambitious, egoistic, greedy, lustful, jealous of others, cruel, defiant, and much, much more.

God found the bet interesting and very challenging and He agreed to take on the bet. God then gave Iblis total authority, freedom, and carte blanche (blank check) to do his worst. Try to mislead humankind, God told Iblis, and let us see who is going to win this bet.

Not only is God a bad gambler but God also misjudged Iblis’s sharp political skills. God did not realise that Iblis was more powerful and cleverer than Him and that Iblis’s opposition Party of Hell was going to gain more members than God’s Party of Heaven. (Hmm…so God can’t see into the future after all).

So now those who follow Iblis is many times more than those who follow God. Hence Iblis appears to be winning the battle of the hearts and minds of the people compared to God, who is on a losing streak.

And Iblis is very smart. Instead of using the strategy of trying to convince humankind that God does not exist, which means Iblis might lose the propaganda war, Iblis convinces us that God does exist and that we must fight in defence of God and his true and perfect religion.

So, with the help of Iblis, humankind starts creating religion, many religions in fact. And Iblis convinces humankind that only their respective religion is the true religion while all other religions are false and should be wiped out.

Therefore, since the beginning of time, humankind began creating religion after religion and started killing each other in the name of their respective religions.  And the beautiful thing about Iblis’s brilliant strategy is that humankind kills each other not in the name of Iblis but in the name of God. So people kill and die thinking that they are doing this for God and not for Iblis.

And every time this happens, Iblis gains more and more members for his Party of Hell while God loses more and more members from His Party of Heaven.

Eventually, because of the violence and evil done in the name of God, humankind begin to not believe in God and become Atheists (or at the very least Agnostics). And Iblis wins even more converts to his cause because of this.

Taking the latest worldwide poll into consideration (or even just in Malaysia and just based on the Allah word controversy alone), the Iblis versus God campaign is very far in favour of Iblis ten to one or more. It appears God, in spite of being more powerful than Iblis, is losing the battle of trying to win the hearts and minds of the people.

God probably did not realise (even though as God He should have known this would happen before it happened) that Iblis’s brilliant strategy of not trying to convince humankind to follow him (as many would probably not want to do that) but to follow God (which many people are more prepared to do) is a far better strategy than God’s strategy of trying to convince the people to follow Him and to reject Iblis.

Now, if God was actually aware of Iblis’s reverse-psychology strategy all along and He pretended that He is not aware of it and intentionally allowed Iblis to win, then God must be quite cruel to allow Iblis to deceive humankind and to win the battle of the hearts and minds of the people and then punish humankind by throwing us into hell when it is not our fault we were deceived but it was Iblis’s fault this happened, and worse, with the permission of God on top of that.