Great atheist minds who blame God

Ezekiel 33:17: [17] Yet the children of thy people say, The way of the Lord is not equal: but as for them, their way is not equal.

"They're saying, 'God's not being fair to us.'

Verse 20: [20] Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. O ye house of Israel, I will judge you every one after his ways.

"These people are in captivity saying, 'We're pining away over here and you're saying it's because we're sinful and it's our iniquity. That isn't right; we're okay!'

"You see where it says in verse 13, 'if he trust to his own righteousness'? These dudes in captivity aren't in any better shape than the ones still in the land; that's why they're in captivity.

"They're not believing the message; they're not acknowledging their sin. They say, 'We're here and it's God's fault, not our fault. We don't deserve this!' They're arguing that they're unjustly in captivity: 'It's the Lord's fault.'

"Now, from verse 11 down to verse 20 you have a long exhortation about how it's not God's fault; it's their fault. God didn't put them in captivity; their sin put them in captivity.

"There are always people who blame God. One of the great atheistic minds, Christopher Hitchens, used to do this all the time. Hitchens and Bill Maher are my favorite two atheists. They know how to express things very carefully.

"Hitchens used to talk about 'the God of the eternal torture chamber.' You've heard people talk like that. You go to hell--'That's the eternal torture chamber that God has to torture people for their sins.'

"That is so goofy. God didn't create hell because He didn't like people. He created hell because of sin. We saw that back in Ezekiel 28. 

"Where did hell come from? It came OUT of what Lucifer was doing. It came out of HIS activities. 'The wages of sin is death.' The thing that causes people to die, here's the Lord's answer:

[32] For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.

"That's the question. Why die when you can live?! As Moses says in Deuteronomy 30:19: [19] I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

"That's God's recommendation. But when people choose death, that's not God's will; that's their will."