scene: joes dies and is standing before god’s court for judgement.
god: i gave you the choice to believe in me, and you chose not to.
joe: what? that’s ridiculous. first of all, there isn’t any freewill, and second, the evidence you provided for your existence is dubious.
god: are you saying you couldn’t choose to believe in me?
joe: that’s precisely what I’m saying. you’re omniscient, right? you created the universe and the laws by which it worked. this means that you made the universe work a certain way, and also knew prior to any future state, what events would happen.
god: yeah, so?
joe: what do you mean ‘so?’ do you not understand what this implies? how ironic that i have to explain this to you. listen man. you know everything that was and will be, right?
god: yes
joe: and eveything you know is true; meaning, you can’t know something that is false, you can’t be wrong, as that would mean you weren’t omniscient.
god: yeah, sounds right.
joe: okay then. so, if you know that in three minutes i’m going to go to the restroom, i’m not free to not go to the restroom in three minutes, because if i was, it would mean that you were mistaken about what you thought was going to happen. if that’s the case, you wouldn’t be omniscient.
god: damn
joe: see what i mean now?
god: yeah, i see. well still you chose to go to the restroom because you didn’t know you were going to go, nor that you had to.
joe: that’s irrelevant. the point is, YOU knew. it doesn’t matter that i didn’t know and felt like i chose to do so. it can’t be an act of freewill if you had already predetermined it to happen, regardless of what i think or do.
god: hmm
joe: it’s logic dude, and you can’t violate the rules of logic.
god: sure i can. i designed them, i can break them.
joe: then make a circular triangle, or create a married man that’s a bachelor. g’head, see if you can do it.
god: looks away, embarrassed
joe: that’s what i thought. anyway, don’t tell me i had a choice. that’s horseshit.
god: well whatever. you still coulda believed in me.
joe: yeah right. like i’m gonna believe some wing-nut who says you spoke to him on a mountain or while meditating in the desert. that’s not proof, dude. you wanna prove you exist, give me an experience that i’d not be able to explain with ordinary terms. your problem is, no experience of you could be ruled out as not being an hallucination, nor would a paranormal experience necessarily denote that christianity was true rather than, say, shintoism or zoroastrianism.
god: i see what you mean. hadn’t thought of that, actually.
joe: no kidding. so what’s the verdict then? hurry up, i got shit to do.
god: uh, tell you what. i won’t send you to hell, but i won’t let you into heaven either.
joe: that’s fucked up, bro.