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/ (atheism) % "An all-powerful being      \
| would have the power to punish a        |
| sinner, by any means                    |
|                                         |
| he might choose to employ. However, the |
| Scriptures not only attribute to        |
|                                         |
| God a horrible vengefulness but also    |
| suggest that God is incredibly stupid.  |
|                                         |
| It would be stupid if an individual,    |
| intent on punishing a sinner or group   |
|                                         |
| of them, expended his destructive       |
| energy not only on those who it might   |
| be                                      |
|                                         |
| said deserved such punishment but also  |
| on enormous numbers of innocent people  |
|                                         |
| who simply had the bad luck to be in    |
| the physical proximity of evildoers.    |
|                                         |
| To argue that God works in this way is  |
| to put him precisely on the same moral  |
|                                         |
| plane as those modern terrorists who,   |
| to kill a particular individual or      |
|                                         |
| small group, will place a bomb on an    |
| airplane in the full knowledge that in  |
|                                         |
| addition to the five or six intended    |
| victims all the other occupants, in     |
| whom                                    |
|                                         |
| the terrorists have no particular       |
| interest, will be killed."              |
|                                         |
| [Steve Allen, "More Steve Allen on      |
|                                         |
\ the Bible Religion, & Morality"]        /
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