Taking a break from my long diatribes about music, I'll use this opportunity to give a long diatribe about my atheistic viewpoints. Today I'll discuss how not only is life not a test, but it cannot be a test. This is based on the essays of TJ Kirk.
It's a popular Christian and Muslim viewpoint that life is a test. For example; God chooses not to appear before all of the world because he wants to test our faith. He chooses not to eliminate all evil from the world because he wants to test "our worthiness for salvation". In short, life on earth is a pinprick on your finger before the doctor gives you a sucker. But the idea that life is a test simply does not hold up to scrutiny; when you look at it critically, the idea's validity just unravels, as is the case for most underdeveloped ideas taught in the Bible. Look at it this way, a test by definition is designed to gauge, or measure, the abilities of those taking the test, which in this case is everybody. But the thing is, this god - weather it be Jahova, Yahweh, Elohim, or Allah - is all-knowing. That means that he is already perfectly aware of the moral character of every single human being that he himself was supposed to have created, so why in the world would he need to test us? Oh well, let's imagine here that God for some reason is not all-knowing so he cannot determine who is worthy of salvation until he first conducts this test. It still makes no sense.
Here is an example made by TJ Kirk in his audio essay "Whence Cometh Evil?". Lets imagine here for a minute that you have a classroom full of 4th graders, and the teacher has just handed out a test to every student in the classroom. Some students are expected to turn in the test within a half an hour, others get the privilege to work on it little by little every day as long as it's turned in by the next week. Some students cannot receive any help on the test while others can use their books. Some tests are short, others are long. Some students are asked easy questions like "2+3=?" while other students are asked very difficult questions like "Can you list and explain the most prevalent problems inherent in utilitarian moral philosophy?" which would probably be impossible for a 4th grader to answer even if the students were allowed to use their books. Would anyone take the results of that test seriously? Of course not! The point here is that for a test to be an accurate measure of anything, the test has to be fair, unlike the test in the example I just gave. And for the test to be fair, the test has to be the same for everyone who takes it. So the idea that life IS a test holds absolutely no water because, as I'm sure you all have heard, life isn't fair. Life is not the same for everyone, so life obviously cannot be a test. But now let's imagine that life somehow does meet the criteria to be a test. If life is a test then the way you pass the test is absurd. You pass the test when you abandon all logic and reasoning and blindly accept the divinity of the christian god despite the only evidence for his existence being an ancient, error and contradiction-filled book of desert tribe myths written by primitive man in a pre-science society before reliable historical records were kept. What sort of god would reward that?
And not only does this test stipulate that you have to believe in something that honestly seems imaginary, but you have to believe in a particular idea of what we call god. So, if you believe in unicorns or pokemon instead, then you have failed the test. And there's so many versions of who we call "god" just underneath the christian umbrella alone among all the denominations, then you have every other god that people worship in this world. So many gods, and only one can be right. It's like asking someone which cup the ball is hidden under. Some one calls you over to a table he's sitting behind and says, "Hey man, I've got three cups in front of me and there's a ball under one of these cups, which cup is the ball hidden under?" and you say, "Well, I don't know." and he responds with, "Well, then you better decide right now, because if you pick the right cup you get to go the heaven, but if you pick either of the wrong cups then you have to go to hell and burn forever." and you say, "Wow, that sounds really risky, how about I choose NOT to play and don't pick any cup?" and his response is, "That's fine, then you still burn forever. You have to at least pick a cup in order to have a chance." Now that's bad enough. Now just imagine that you have a thousand cups, one cup for every faith on earth, but there's still only one ball under one cup. To make things worse, if you pick any of the 999 wrong cups, then guess what you just did; you just gave yourself no option than to be tortured forever in God's own personal torture chamber, or whatever version of hell or punishment exists in the correct religion under the correct version of god. At this point, getting into heaven feels a lot like playing the lottery. Every faith is just another ticket, and what you have to do is review you options, make a choice, and then cross your fingers and pray that you have the right numbers (the right faith). So I'll leave you God fearers with something to think about: out of all the gods out there, if there is in fact a god who liberally dolls out punishment based solely on whether or not you believe in him, or whether or not you believe in the correct version of him, then it looks like almost NO ONE is going to go to heaven! The odds just aren't that great. Chances are that every christian reading this right now is doomed, just as doomed as any atheist.
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