The Idiot Genius Contradiction

In my life I have had many conversations with people who don’t believe in God. Believe it or not, I welcome them. This does not scare me. This does not intimidate me. These are some of the most important conversations I’ll have. Christians need to be skilled in these subjects and not view them as a threat. In my conversations, I frequently run into what I call:

The Idiot Genius Contradiction.

In my observation, this is a major pillar of atheists and agnostics contention to Christianity. And in order to accept it, you must accept two contradictory theories at the same time and believe them both simultaneously. Although they should largely negate each other (if we are ‘intellectually honest’), somehow they survive each other, together.

The contradiction is this:

Christianity (and Judaism to a lesser degree) is built on the brilliantly maniacal manipulative writings of an elite group of people (i.e., the Bible). This group has been able to translate, re-translate, craft, and re-craft the Bible in a way that has enabled them to control the masses, proliferate their religion throughout the centuries, and maintain their own positions of power. With it and through it they prey on fears, promise rewards, and punish disobedience.

And at the same time…

Somehow this elite group was not smart enough to make God perfect, his followers flawless, and his will universal and clear as the Caribbean waters in those same writings. Obviously, this would require no apologies and phony justifications while helping the elite ensure more power, influence, and amass more money. Instead, in the Bible, they make much of alleging God (and often his followers) as an ethical tyrant, moral monster, racial hatemonger, oppressive master, violent father, indifferent to suffering, and permissive of evil. But somehow we were all tricked into following this God while reading all of this.

In short, this elite crowd was not smart enough to frame a God that didn’t seem bi-polar and is at least good, yet somehow invented the most successful religion (Christianity) ever. It’s very similar to the 9/11 conspiracy theories: somehow President Bush was an evil genius that destroyed the Word Trade Center to line his (and his cohorts) pockets by starting a war for oil without leaving a hint of evidence–but was also the biggest bumbling idiot at the same time.

That’s the Idiot Genius Contradiction. So the Bible is brilliant and stupid all at once. Somehow both are true.

Got it? I just think it’s an interesting part of the conversations about God that we should be aware of, since it often comes up.

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