Quotes / God Is Evil

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent.
Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?"

— The riddle of Epicurus, also known as The Problem of Evil or The Epicurean Trilemma^note Note the phrase is first noted by a Christian writer centuries after Epicurus' death. Epicurus or an Epicurean may have written it, but that is not certain. If the riddle was real, it likely did not address God(s), but the idea of providence, possibly in a criticism to the rival school of Stoicism. If it was not, it probably became attributed to Epicurus due to his criticism of traditional theism and his belief that gods were uninterested in human affairs (roughly speaking, Epicurus would have agreed with the riddle).

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Anime & Manga

(After having killed a slew of Demons.)
Would you look at that. I imagine you get a lot of them in places of worship. God shows Himself upon the ground. These are His miracles.

— Guts to Farnese, Berserk

Comic Books

Vae, Gaudium Fugax!
There is a garden in the east, serene and perfect, but a Seraph guards it with a flaming sword. For God has seven thousand names, and one of them is Bastard.

— Lucifer

Goddamn, you think bein' fucked over by the Lord makes you unique? Look at it! Look what He made! All them years filled with sufferin' an' slaughter, just like He knew they would be! 'Cause He wants us to choose Him, to love Him, an' how much more satisfyin' that'd be when the hell of this earth makes that choice so goddamn hard!

— Jesse Custer, Preacher

"God the Father." It sounds so stale. I always fancied myself more of a rogue. Though everything in Job is true. And still hilarious, if you ask me.

— Wick, Clive Barker's Next Testament

Film — Live-Action

Lemme give you a little "inside information" about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do? I swear for His own amusement, His own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition! It's the goof of all time. Look. But don't touch! Touch. But don't taste! Taste. Don't swallow! Ahaha! And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is He doing? He's laughin' His sick, FUCKIN' ass off! He's a tight-ass! He's a sadist! He's an absentee landlord! Worship that? NEVER!

— John Milton (aka Satan), The Devil's Advocate

You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, He hates you.

— Tyler Durden, Fight Club

Ansel: Do you believe in God, Sergeant?
Steiner: I believe that God is a sadist, but probably doesn't even know it.

— Cross of Iron

Think someone could spend half their life in a slam with a horse bit in their mouth and not believe? Think he could start out in some liquor store trash bin with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and not believe? Got it all wrong, holy man. I absolutely believe in God... And I absolutely hate the fucker.

— Richard B. Riddick, Pitch Black

You asked earlier 'Who punishes a child?'. God does.

— God on Trial

Literature

I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs, a very endearing sight, I'm sure you'll agree. And even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters, who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen. Mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that is when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become His moral superior.

— Lord Vetinari, Unseen Academicals

A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave His angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required His other children to earn it; who gave His angels painless lives, yet cursed His other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell — mouths mercy, and invented hell — mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none Himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honourably placing it where it belongs, upon Himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites His poor abused slave to worship Him!

— Satan, The Mysterious Stranger

I think back to the sermons of my childhood, booming affirmations in the church of Praise Jesus, The Lord Is Mighty, and I recall how the preachers used to say that God's eye is on the sparrow, that He sees and marks even the least of His creations. [...] Yet this same God sacrificed John Coffey, who tried only to do good in his blind way, as savagely as any Old Testament prophet ever sacrificed a defenseless lamb... as Abraham would have sacrificed his own son if actually called upon to do so. I think of John saying that Wharton killed the Detterick twins with their love for each other, and that it happens every day, all over the world. If it happens, God lets it happen, and when we say 'I don't understand,' God replies, 'I don't care.'

— Paul Edgecombe, The Green Mile

Since this partial answer to his prayer, Hannibal Lecter had not been bothered by any considerations of deity, other than to recognize how his own modest predations paled beside those of God, who is in irony matchless, and in wanton malice beyond measure.

— Thomas Harris, Hannibal

Current events have challenged the very core of our beliefs and thrown all that we held sacred into doubt. One thing must remain clear, that we follow the teachings of Jesus Christ that provide a good and just basis for all of human conduct. But we cannot deny that these have been corrupted and misapplied, that grave mistakes have been made and that crimes of great magnitude committed. At times like these we must admit to ourselves that we have been misled and deceived by imposters and tricksters who succeeded in leading us down a false path. We can be sure that the 'God' whose misdirection has led us down this false path is not the God of whom our Lord Jesus Christ speaks. We can be sure it is those deceivers and imposters, and in particular those who lead them, that are responsible for the grievous errors that have been committed in our Church's name. We must cast out such deceivers and purify ourselves so that we can, once more, follow the teachings of Christ as they were meant to be followed.
To do this I call upon other religions to join the Holy Catholic Church when we excommunicate God.

— The Pope, The Salvation War

"God puts an apple tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden and says, do what you like guys, oh, but don't eat the apple. Surprise surprise, they eat it and He leaps out from behind a bush shouting 'Gotcha.' It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it...Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end."

— Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The conclusion I dread is not “So there is not God after all,” but, “So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.” … No, my real fear is not materialism. If it were true, we … could get out, get from under the harrow. An overdose of sleeping pills would do it. I am more afraid that we are really rats in a trap. Or, worse still, rats in a laboratory. Someone said, I believe, “God always geometrizes.” Supposing the truth were “God always vivisects?”

— C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed^note He reaches a very different conclusion

You came to me asking how my faith survived the Day of Judgement. I will tell you a secret. When the stars fell, when the seas boiled and the earth burned, my faith didn’t die. That is when I began to believe.
God was real, and He hated us.

— Cyrene Valantion, Horus Heresy: The First Heretic

Many Catholics bitterly complain that they don't read the Bible beyond the New Testament. They often envy Protestants, who take the Scripture as a guide according to the interpretation of their own spirits. But the Catholics who feel that sadness ignore, all too usually, that the Ancient Testament shows a God vigilante, vengeful, sexist and ruthless, who deceives men, who punishes, curses, exterminates them. A God that, as in the case of Job, whom He crushes without compassion to prove his faith, makes bets with the Devil at humanity's expense...

— Albert Cloister's reflections, 616

Live-Action TV

Tyrion: The Lord of Light has his enemies burned. The Drowned God wants them drowned. Why are all the gods such vicious cunts? Where's the god of tits and wine?
Varys: In the Summer Isles they worship a goddess of fertility with sixteen teats.
Tyrion: We should set sail immediately.

—Game of Thrones

Oh, Laura. And the Lords of Kobol are real? Reigning from a metaphysical mountaintop in those silly outfits? Zeus? Handing out fates out of an urn like they were lottery tickets? "You're gonna work on a Tillium ship." "You're gonna be an Admiral." "Your family's gonna be evaporated in the attack on the colonies, but you'll survive for three more years in a moldy compartment on a freighter until your body starts to eat itself up alive." Those are the gods that you worship? Capricious? Vindictive?

—Emily Kowalski, Battlestar Galactica (2003) ("Faith")

Is that what God does? He helps? Tell me, why didn’t God help my innocent friend who died for no reason while the guilty roam free? Okay, fine. Forget the one-offs. How about the countless wars declared in His name? Okay, fine! Let’s skip the random, meaningless murder for a second, shall we? How about the racist, sexist, phobia soup we’ve all been drowning in because of Him? And I’m not just talking about Jesus. I’m talking about all organized religion: exclusive groups created to manage control. A dealer getting people hooked on the drug of hope, his followers nothing but addicts who want their hit of bullshit to keep their dopamine of ignorance! Addicts afraid to believe the truth, that there is no order! There’s no power! That all religions are just metastasizing mind worms meant to divide us so it’s easier to rule us by the charlatans that want to run us! All we are to them are paying fanboys of their poorly written sci-fi franchise. If I don't listen to my imaginary friend, why the fuck should I listen to yours? People think their worship's some key to happiness. That's just how he owns you. Even I'm not crazy enough to believe that distortion of reality. So fuck God. He's not a good enough scapegoat for me.

—Elliot Alderson, Mr. Robot

You know I don't need you, right? The messiah thing? It's just...it's...it's showbiz! I could blow the whole thing up myself at any time, for...for any reason!

—God, Preacher (2016)

George: God would never let me be successful; he'd kill me first. He'd never let me be happy.
Therapist: I thought you didn't believe in God?
George: I do for the bad things.

— Seinfeld

I'm saying, if there is some geezer up here with a big white beard, he's a world heavyweight cunt! Yeah, he's got a hard-on for mass murder and giving kids cancer and his big old answer to the existential clusterfuck that is humanity is to nail his own bleeding son to a plank. That is a cunt move! Come on, even you got to agree with me there. We should lob a fucking nuke at him, get it over and done with. You know what I'm saying? All right, good talk. Think about it. I'm here all day, alright?

— William "Billy" Butcher, The Boys (2019)

Music

I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors
But I think that God's got a sick sense of humor
And when I die
I expect to find Him laughing

"Blasphemous Rumours", Depeche Mode

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

— John Lennon and Plastic Ono Band, "God"

I burn down your cities — how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say "how blessed are we"
You all must be crazy to put your faith in Me!
That's why I love mankind

— God's Song, Randy Newman

Oh so many ways for me to show you
How your savior has abandoned you
Fuck your God, your Lord, your Christ
He did this, took all you had and
Left you this way, still you pray, never stray, never
Taste of the fruit, never thought to question "Why?"
It's not like you killed someone
It's not like you drove a hateful spear into his side
Praise the one who left you broken down and paralyzed
He did it all for you...
He did it all for you...

— A Perfect Circle, "Judith"

You're always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown.
Those lost at sea and never found,
And it's the same the whole world 'round.
The hurt I see helps to compound
That Father, Son and Holy Ghost
Is just somebody's unholy hoax,
And if you're up there you'd perceive
That my heart's here upon my sleeve.
If there's one thing I don't believe in
It's you... Dear God.

— XTC, "Dear God"

Stand-Up Comedy

"God put [dinosaur fossils here] to test our faith!" I think God put you here to test my faith, dude. Does that bother anybody else? The idea that God might be fucking with our heads? I have trouble sleeping with that knowledge. Some prankster God runnin' around, [pantomimes digging] "Hehehehe we'll see who believes in me now. I am the Prankster God. I am killing me!"

—Bill Hicks on fossils and the Creationist belief that the Earth is only 12000 years old, Revelations

Theatre

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.

Gloucester, King Lear

Video Games

I created you. All of you. And what is mine, is mine to destroy.

— Ultima, Final Fantasy XVI

God is loving, woman! He is sending his love to his true followers, the Nazis, and is giving them the power to destroy all of the evil on this Earth, mainly the Jews, homosexuals, and so on!

— Jesus Christ, The Last Resurrection ^note Jesus, of course, was Jewish himself.

Humans die and reincarnate over and over in this world. This is the Axiom, which cannot be overturned. But it is YHVH, the god of the covenant, who is turning this universe into hell. He created this universe himself. And then made it the crucible for human suffering. He claims that those who survive the suffering will be saved so long as they submit to him. And so he created Lucifer, to deceive them and prolong their suffering. One does not lose their way solely through order, and one does not suffer by entrusting themselves to chaos. Only with the order of angels and the chaos of demons do humans lose their way. Humans are bound to their covenant with YHVH. They depend on him, submit to him and suffer humiliation.

— Krishna, Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse ^SpoilerDespite being the Big Bad for most of the game, Krishna turns out to be right.

There is no need... for gods that only take! For gods of death!

—Asura, Asura's Wrath

Zanza: Something wrong? Is this the height of your skill? You call yourself a god?! And you talk of sharing this world with me?! So that's why. The dead boy is important to you. The Homs are nothing but bacteria clinging to my body!
Meyneth: They are living beings! If you cannot understand this, you have no right to call yourself a god!
Zanza: And who decides that? A god. Because only a god may decide. This world only needs one god, Meyneth. May you rot in that shell for all eternity! Face me like a god. If not, then say goodbye to your putrid friends!

— Xenoblade Chronicles 1

Webcomics

Oh dread occasion, I know I can't beg for mercy so I'll just babble timidly 'til I start screaming.

Unnamed devotee of Sithrak, Oglaf

Man: God, why do bad things happen to good people?
God: Because it's funny!
Man: So, when my son fell off that bridge—
God: Hahahahahahahaha!

—Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Web Original

As with most fundie crazy preachers, Piper has a knack for taking natural phenomena as signs unequivocally pointing to whatever political opinion fits his fancies at the time. For instance, a small tornado occurring during a conference of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America in 2009 was a “gentle but firm warning” from God regarding the ELCA’s consideration of its position on issues concerning homosexuality (rather than a warning to him for being a piece of shit). In 2012 he told the victims of the recent tornado storms in the South and Midwest that “God gave the command” for the tornadoes that left at least thirty-nine people dead. Pat Robertson had earlier claimed that the tornadoes resulted from a lack of prayer rather than being God’s doing, but Piper argued instead that God sent the tornadoes because of the sins of the region, recognizing God’s “fierce fingers” all over them; and of course it must be God...Apparently the fact that tornadoes tend to hit areas that are statistically very religious and don’t support marriage equality is not taken to be relevant, however, since in that case the obvious conclusions wouldn't fit as well with Piper's preconceptions and bigotry.

But wasn’t God supposed to be, you know, good? Piper explains it here. Basically, the idea is that you don’t deserve an explanation, but you better thank God for killing your family, else He’ll do it again.

—Encyclopedia of American Loons on Pastor John Stephen Piper

"What's the difference between heaven and hell when heaven is an eternity in the presence of the architect of all your misery?"

—E. Clark Avery, Incorruptible

...if there is a God so fickle, with such an enormous ego and a inability to compromise, that He would damn someone to eternal torture and fire for loving another person just because that other person happens to be of the same sex, then that is not a God worthy of worship.

—Feeding the Trolls

But here we are 18 months into the Great Tribulation. The authors have skipped past the calm before the storm because it is the storm itself that fascinates them. All Hell is about to break loose. Wait, no, scratch that. In this story, the source of all this pain and suffering is not Hell. In this story all Heaven is about to break loose, battering humanity and the rest of creation with earthquakes, hail, famine, pestilence, demon locusts, a supernaturally fiery sun and worse. (In this story, there’s nothing scary about “the valley of the shadow of death,” but “thou art with me” becomes terrifying.)

— Fred Clark on Tribulation Force, Slacktivist

Tell her the truth, Michelle! That blood money is not a metaphor, that your wallet is heavy with those who have untied themselves! Tell your daughter that God is the bully with the biggest fist and you can only hope that He is on your side!”

— Sierra DeMulder, To Michelle Bachmann

I think there is a God, and I think She wants us dead.

Isle, The Backrooms on Nostalgi Gaius’ page.

Western Animation

Oh, I love God! He's so deliciously evil!

— Stewie Griffin, Family Guy

My sense of god is my sense of outrage at the universe.

— Looney Tunes, after Albert Einstein

God does not simply laugh at the "Man Walks Into A Bar" joke. No, God needs subtle irony and farcical twists that seem macabre to you and me. All that we can do is hope is that God got His laugh and this kind of tragedy can be avoided in the future.

— Father Maxi, South Park

Chef: Stan, sometimes God takes those closest to us, because it makes him feel better about Himself. He is a very vengeful God, Stan. He's all pissed off about something we did thousands of years ago. He just can't get over it, so he doesn't care who he takes. Children, puppies, it don't matter to him, so long as it makes us sad. Do you understand?

Stan: But then, why does God give us anything to start with?

Chef: Well, look at it this way: if you want to make a baby cry, first you give it a lollipop. Then you take it away. If you never give it a lollipop to begin with, then it would have nothin' to cry about. That's like God, who gives us life and love and help just so that He can tear it all away and make us cry, so He can drink the sweet milk of our tears. You see, it's our tears, Stan, that give God His great power.

— South Park

Now I know that God is the scariest monster of all in Halloween.

— Orel, Moral Orel

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