the trial of god

Day One.
Supreme Court, Judge Erwin Liberal presiding.
The case: The State versus God.


The prosecuting attorney is British actor Stephen Fry who has brought a class action law suit against God accusing him of not existing. Fry has a double jeorpardy case against God with an additional charge if he does exist, of not having created the universe the way Stephen Fry would have liked it.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Al Qaeda and Planned Parenthood have filed amicus briefs in support of the case against God.
The plot thickens as God is being defended by James Healy who may or may not be up to the job.
In addition, Judge Liberal, an infiltrated Irish IRA mafioso, has a grudge against God ever since he recognised himself in one of the Bible's teachings about an unjust judge.
Can God hope to get a fair hearing in a court run by atheistic liberals and with his own defence team led by me?
You the jury must decide.

Judge Liberal: Order, order. This court is now in session. Mr Fry you may call your first witness.

Stephen Fry: Call Richard Dawkins.

(Mr Dawkins is sworn in.)

Stephen Fry: Does God exist?

Richard Dawkins: I would say speaking as a scientist that the consensus among thinking civilised intelligent people is that God does not exist.

Stephen Fry: Are you sure? Can you prove it?

Richard Dawkins: I am sure. Consider it. If there's one God, why not many? Look, I cannot prove that the flying spaghetti monster does not exist either. Yet no one seriously asserts that he does.

Stephen Fry: You have a certain animosity towards the Christian conception of God do you not?

Richard Dawkins: What I have said is that the God described in the Old Testament is an evil, misogynistic, racist, genocidal, bully. This is an objective assessment.

Stephen Fry: But you insist he doe not exist?

Richard Dawkins: There is no evidence for his existence.

Stephen Fry: No further questions.

Judge Liberal: Mr Healy, your witness.

James Healy: Mr Dawkins you have described the God of the Old Testament in a particular way.

Richard Dawkins: Yes.

James: An evil mysogenistic racist bully?

Richard Dawkins: Yes.

James: The God who said: Thou shalt not kill.

Richard Dawkins: Among other things attributed to him yes.

James: The God who said: Thou shalt not steal.

Richard Dawkins: My point is...

James: The God who said: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Richard Dawkins: If you let me...

James: The God who said: Honour thy father and thy mother.

Richard Dawkins: You are missing the point.

James: The God who said: Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Richard Dawkins: Those sayings are attributed to him by unidentified tribal scribes.

James: The God who said: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods.

Richard Dawkins: This means nothing.

James: The God who said: "You shall love your neighbour as much as you love yourself."

Richard Dawkins: Are you finished?

James: The God who said: Hear oh Israel, I am the Lord thy God. And thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart, all thy soul, and all thy being."

Richard Dawkins: What is your point?

James: Are these the words of an evil mysogenistic bully? He tells us we cannot kill. We cannot steal. We cannot lie about our neighbour. We must love our neighbour as though our neighbour is our own self. Because God said so. No other reason. And he has written this law on our hearts.

Richard Dawkins: Poppycock. You are taking those words out of the context in which they were written and ignoring the mayhem perpetrated and justified in the Old Testiment by the God to which they are attributed.

James: The words are what they are. Are you familiar with Jesus summation of the Bible.

Richard Dawkins: Refresh my memory.

James: Jesus, whom the Christians claim is God made man, is reported by the gospel witnesses to have said that the greatest commandment in the Bible is to love God. The God you assert does not exist Mr Dawkins. Jesus then said that the second greatest commandment is close to the first, namely to love your neighbour as much as you love yourself. And he said that these two are all of the Law and all of the Prophets. The whole Bible. The whole Bible as far as Jesus is concerned Mr Dawkins is love God and love all people. But of course you have summarised it differently.

Richard Dawkins: Gospel witnesses indeed. One wonders who confirmed their bona fides. You are selective in everything you say. You omit what is inconvenient to your case.

James: Do you believe in the devil Mr Dawkins?

Stephen Fry: Objection, objection, objection. M'lud Mr Healy is introducing a second mythical character into the discussion.

Judge Liberal: I will allow it.

James: Well Mr Dawkins?

Richard Dawkins: No, of course not. There is no scientific evidence for the existence of the devil.

James: So you testify that God does not exist? And you testify that satan, the enemy of God and man, does not exist?

Richard Dawkins: There is no scientific evidence for the existence of either of them.

James: The American commentator Ben Stein once asked you how sure you were that God did not exist.

Richard Dawkins: I told him I was very sure. I don't want to put a figure on it. If I had to, I'd say I was 99 percent certain.

James: As Ben Stein said, then why not 98 percent? Or 97?

Richard Dawkins: No. I don't want to put a figure on it.

James: So you're not actually sure. There is a chance that God exists.

Richard Dawkins: A very small one.

James: Fifty, fifty?

Richard Dawkins: Oh much smaller than that.

James: You say the universe exists for reasons that exclude God. You say it just exists due to some sort of physical Darwinian process as yet not understood. I say God exists and created the universe but I don't know why he exists. I'm saying he just exists. It's fifty fifty Mr Dawkins. In your own terms. Either the universe just exists for no reason and always did in some form. Or God just exists for no reason. We're at Fifty Fifty. From the philosphical and scientific point of view. I think you're enough of a genius to know that.

Richard Dawkins: There is no scientific evidence for the existence of God.

James: No scientific evidence? Is the testimony of scientiests like Neils Bohr, Einstein and Arno Penzias not a category of evidence affirming the existence of God? The mathematician David Berlinski avers that the hypothesis of God is consistent with Big Bang cosmology. He adds that your own supposedly scientific postulations about the origin of the universe when stripped bear of the concealing mystification of pseudo scientific terminologies are akin to tribal myths about gods giving birth to eggs. Are his words about your own evidence, not in themselves an important category of evidence? And what of my own testimony? Is it not evidence?

Richard Dawkins: Your own testimony is not credible evidence. You have asserted in The Heelers Diaries that light has no speed and that time is not a medium. Aside from a few buzz words you are entirely lacking in scientific knowledge. Anyone can say anything. It does not necessarily amount to evidence.

James: Nobel Prize Laureate Arno Penzias says that if he didn't have the body of observational data that science has accrued, that what he is finding out now about the nature of the universe is exactly what he would have expected to find from a reading of the Bible.

Richard Dawkins: Obviously I disagree with him.

James: The astronomer Fred Hoyle who invented the phrase The Big Bang, maintained that life could not have started spontaneously by chance. He said that was as much chance of life starting spontaneously by chance as if a tornado hit a junk yard and assembled a 747 Jumbo Jet.

Richard Dawkins: Yes but Fred Hoyle believed that the explanation for the origin of life on our planet was that aliens had seeded it here. I accept there may be some merit in this theory.

James: And where did alien life come from?

Richard Dawkins: The answer is we don't know. And bear in mind that although Fred Hoyle named the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe, he then refused to accept it had happened. He did not believe the universe had a beginning. And he remained an atheist all his life.

James: As far as we know.

Richard Dawkins: What do you mean?

James: Neither of us were with him at the end.

Richard Dawkins: Throughout his public life Fred Hoyle never accepted the existence of God.

James: He preferred to believe in uncaused aliens.

Richard Dawkins: That is your summation not mine.

James: The physiologist George Wald, also a Nobel Laureate and an atheist of your persuasion, has admitted that life cannot have started spontaneously be chance.

Richard Dawkins: I don't know if he has admitted that.

James: His exact words were: We (presumably he meant atheistic scientists in general) choose to believe the impossible, that life started spontaneously be chance. Surely Mr Dawkins, in this he was admitting as Fred Hoyle admitted, that what you followers of Charles Darwin assert when you say life started by chance is not only unscientific, it is impossible. Surely that is his clear undisputable testimony. He is saying he will willingly advocate something that is not true, ie impossible, rather than accept God does and must exist.

Richard Dawkins: Your interpretation of George Wald's words may not be correct. He might have wished to have chosen other words.

James: Does God owe you an explanation for his existence?

Richard Dawkins: Well as the philosopher Bertrand Russell has pointed out, we might legitimately wonder if God exists why God has so wondrously concealed himself from us.

James: There are old women mumbling in country churches who have not been gifted with your or Bertrand Russell's intellect or education, and yet they can see God and rejoice in his goodness every hour of their lives. Children too. And geniuses. And people in Concentration Camps. And me.

Richard Dawkins: I don't think they can.

James: But do you know?

Richard Dawkins: On the evidence I know there is no God.

James: A psalm in the Bible says: "The fool has said in his heart that there is no God."

Richard Dawkins: The Bible would say that, wouldn't it?

James: Mr Dawkins, God loves you and wishes you to become one of his followers so that you may live forever and do good upon the earth.

Richard Dawkins: Why then has he permitted me to persist in what must surely be my folly and ultimate damnation?

James: You may not be damned. You may be closer to God than any of us. He sees your heart. Because even the mistakes you have made, will be turned to goodness and glory by his light. The Lord turns to the good all things for those who love him. And even if your advocacy has been evil, which I do not insist it is, it has inspired scholarship and honest enquiry. God is doing good through you already. He has shown his favour to you every day of your life.

Richard Dawkins: There is no evidence for this. It is deluded semi literate wishful thinking.

James: Repent and be saved Mr Dawkins. The kingdom of God is at hand. It is right here. He is knocking at the door.

Richard Dawkins. No. No he isn't. I don't see him. So he's not there.

James: I have no further questions for this witness, Your Honour.

Judge Liberal: Thank you Mr Dawkins. You may stand down.