Humanity has a very special place in this universe, in the eyes of the theist. According to the Judeo-Christian tradition, man is created in the image of God, and the fact that God loves us just as much as himself is demonstrated through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. The bible declares that there is "no greater love" than that which God has for humankind. We are his intimate creation, and he does not will that any of us should suffer. So great is his love that he laid down his life for our sake.

In spite of all these common sentiments shared by many theists, history and scripture do not serve to support this view of God as humanitarian extraordinaire. Besides, if God truly cared so much about humanity, would he not do everything in his power to protect and help us, like any loving parent would? Theists might argue that God lets tragedy befall us in order to bring us closer to him or so that we might learn a lesson, but there are innumerable examples from the bible and our past that are far too stained in blood and darkness to be whitewashed by apologetics.

I. In the Beginning There Was... Mass Extinction?

The Permian-Triassic extinction was an event that occured approximately 251 million years ago and wiped out as much as 96% of all marine life and 70% of all land species [1]. There are five different major extinctions that have taken place on Earth, so far as we know. To think humanity is specially protected from future extinction could be a dangerous oversight. Apparently God didn't think highly enough of us to create humankind first, and so he experimented with several other species, but after a while of watching animals endlessly eat, mate, and reproduce, he decided to start over... five times... and he almost restarted from scratch after the Permian era.

A recent genetic study suggests that humanity may have come very close to extinction about 70,000 years ago, with as few as 2,000 of our species left at some point [2]. According to the bible, sometime in the last 3,000 years or so, God became very frustrated with his human experiment after some time and intended on drowning all of humanity in a global flood. Thanks to Noah's meddling, God spared his family... but still destroyed the rest of humankind. If God was willing to annihilate the human race, simply because we didn't live up to his "righteous" standards, how can you justify a belief that we have some special, divinely-given entitlement in this universe?

II. Plagues and Punishment

Priests in the 14th century proclaimed that the Black Death was an act of God's judgement upon the sinful, but in recent centuries many Christians have come to the conclusion that plagues and pandemics are due to other natural causes, not divine intervention. The original explanation would seem to make more sense in a Christian world, yet it falls apart when one notices that the sinners are not always the ones being struck down. However, if plagues and debilitating diseases are not divine punishment, why doesn't God put an end to them?

Most believers will argue that 'we live in a fallen world', 'we have free will', 'the Lord works in mysterious ways', and they will invent other excuses to resolve God of responsibility for the atrocious acts of nature. Some will even go so far as to claim that suffering is necessary to bring one closer to God. Exactly how this can be achieved in an event like the Black Death - which wiped out 30-60% of Europe's population - is not so easy to determine though. Perhaps God thinks that the horribly agonizing death of several thousands is worth it to bring a handful of believers closer to him.

Why don't many Christians still assert that disease and epidemics are punishment from God? Probably because the knowledge we've gained from advancements in medical science has taught us that such assertions were only primitive attempts to understand our intense suffering and reconcile it with the religious worldview that was dominant at the time. But surely God punishes people for disobedience, doesn't he? What does the bible say about God's decisions to mete out punishment?

III. God Does Not Discriminate

The Christian god is an equal opportunity punisher. It does not matter if you're man, woman or child, poor or wealthy, faithful or unfaithful - on this earth, you will receive the same treatment as those who despise the very notion of God. The unbeliever appears to do just as well in life as the believer does, and sometimes he's even more prosperous. We can observe this in our day to day lives, and the bible seems to confirm it. But it would be foolish not to, since serious doubts would be raised if the bible said, 'the wicked will always be immediately punished and the righteous immediately rewarded', as we know this is not true.

Is the fact that we can observe this really an affirmation of the biblical claim though? Not remotely. First of all, to explain that God does not discriminate in who he punishes or rewards is no different an outcome than we'd expect from sheer chance, random distribution of consequences. Furthermore, one needs to consider and question why God would choose such an arbitrary system of dishing out consequences. He certainly doesn't seem to recognize the potential merit in motivating people to believe in him by a system that fits the punishment to the crime or the reward to the worship.

Some believers will say that what happens in this life doesn't ultimately matter, since unbelievers will eventually be roasting in flames for all eternity, and the faithful will be spending the rest of their days in paradise. I still fail to see how that exempts a 'good and just' god from having to be fair in its treatment of human beings. God's alleged mercy and grace only apply to punishment too. Is it merciful or gracious to inflict your devout followers with the same torments you inflict upon those who reject you?

IV. Prayer Doesn't Have a Prayer

A study conducted in 2006 monitored 1,802 patients undergoing coronary bypass surgery. The patients were split into three groups: 1 group was prayed for with the patients' knowledge, 1 group was prayed for without the patients' knowledge, and 1 group was not prayed for at all. The prayers were delivered by several congregations, who used the names of the individual patients and asked for a "quick, healthy recovery with no complications". The study found no difference between those who were prayed for and those who were not, and it was even noted that the group of patients who knew they were being prayed for ended up having some minor complications [3].

What does this mean? This means that prayer is no more effective than a magic 8 ball. But true believers will always rationalize such findings however they can, as one interviewee in the article demonstrated:

Actually, there have been numerous studies done on prayer (at least ten in the last six years, as the article says), and this person's statement is kind of telling too. If you play the odds long enough, you'll win a decent amount of times to possibly convince yourself that you're on a winning streak and can't lose. Just how much evidence would it take to make a firm believer doubt or reconsider the usefulness of prayer? Committed believers will always be convinced prayer works, in spite of evidence to the contrary, because personal experience and perception carry much more weight with them than any unbiased, objective testing.

A few Christians have said to me that prayer just doesn't work that way. God will sometimes answer "yes", "no", or "maybe", and we should not pray greedily. In other words, please keep your requests of God to a minimal level of importance, as he is very busy and doesn't like doing all those flashy miracles anymore. Yet the bible spells it out plainly in Matthew 21:22, "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." There are other verses that essentially make the same promise as well, like Mark 11:24 and 1 John 5:14-15. Why is it that God is afraid to show up when we want to see if there's any truth to something like prayer? What kind of god is this that seems so skilled at hiding from our detection, apparently desiring to stay hidden while damning those who find no evidence of his existence to an eternity of terrible suffering?

V. An Uncaring God in an Uncaring Universe

As is so often the case, the most telling evidence against a god that cares for humanity comes directly from the bible...

It seems quite evident that, despite claims of loving everyone and not willing that any should perish, God sees humankind as both expendable and inherently wicked. Christians are quick to say, 'God accepts you just the way you are', but if that were true, why would he require you to believe in him and forsake your own desires for your life? God does not accept or love you as you are, he wants to shape you and mould you to conform with his own values and desires. And God is an egomaniac that desires nothing less than complete and total submission.

There is no reason to assume that our species is something special among all lifeforms that have existed, currently exist, and will come to exist later. God appears to be indifferent to mass extinctions, plague and disease, prayer, and obedience or disobedience to any specific religious creed. Either he's an evil mischevious god, a god who is unaware of, or unconcerned with, humanity's presence, or maybe he's just simply a figment of our imagination. It can be quite lonesome in this cold, uncaring universe, especially as the only known creatures with our level of consciousness and communication. We turned to faith out of a desire to feel a sense of importance and significance, and so very human insecurities and imperfections can be seen in the Abrahamic deities. When it comes to caring for others, our mythical gods, created in our own image, bear the same handicap of general apathy.

1. Permian�Triassic extinction event. Wikipedia.org. Last retrieved Feb. 20, 2010.
2. Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says. Cnn.com. Retrieved Aug. 26, 2008.
3. Carey, B. (2006) Long-Awaited Medical Study Questions the Power of Prayer. Nytimes.com. Retrieved Aug. 26, 2008.