Horrible Gods: The Little Book of Atheist Horror Stories
“The Evidential Argument From Evil against the existence of God was summed up quite succinctly two thousand years ago by the Greek philosopher Epicurus:
“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?”
In Horrible Gods, Wrath James White poses these questions again and adds yet another, “What would the world be like if God were real? How terrifying a place would it be if an all-powerful being as selfish, capricious, egotistical, and insecure as the one described in the bible were actually running things?” The result are stories that are both terrifying and depressing, hilarious, and disturbing, thought-provoking and infuriating.
From the story of a woman who has been told all her life that her sexuality was a “demon” inside of her that needed to be exorcised, to a man set on freeing mankind from the tyranny of a higher power that has manifested itself on earth, to the story of a computer program that allows the players to create their own worlds with intelligent life and a “freewill button” that gives the gamer the option to blame any mistakes on the beings they create, absolving the gamers of all guilt and responsibility, Wrath takes the question of God’s existence and benevolence for a ride in one gruesome tale after another.