July 24, 2007

Why many atheists annoy me

There's an interesting article in the LA Times by a reporter who covered religion, and his journey from faith to unbelief.

He recounts how he was initially inspired to cover this beat because he wanted to reveal the inspirational power of religion. But he soon encountered the Catholic sex abuse stories, the Protestant televangelist con-men stories, etc., and started to lose faith. He sums up his loss of faith as follows:

The questions that I thought I had come to peace with started to bubble up again. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God get credit for answered prayers but no blame for unanswered ones? Why do we believe in the miraculous healing power of God when he's never been able to regenerate a limb or heal a severed spinal chord?

In one e-mail, I asked John, who had lost a daughter to cancer, why an atheist businessman prospers and the child of devout Christian parents dies. Why would a loving God make this impossible for us to understand?

He sent back a long reply that concluded:

"My ultimate affirmation is let God be God and acknowledge that He is in charge. He knows what I don't know. And frankly, if I'm totally honest with you, a life of gratitude is one that bows before the Sovereign God arguing with Him on those things that trouble me, lamenting the losses of life, but ultimately saying, 'You, God, are infinite; I'm human and finite.' "

John is an excellent pastor, but he couldn't reach me. For some time, I had tried to push away doubts and reconcile an all-powerful and infinitely loving God with what I saw, but I was losing ground. I wondered if my born-again experience at the mountain retreat was more about fatigue, spiritual longing and emotional vulnerability than being touched by Jesus.

And I considered another possibility: Maybe God didn't exist.

Anyone who's taken an introductory philosophy course will recognize this as an example of the so-called "problem of evil": how do we reconcile God's alleged benevolence with all of the suffering in the world? It is a problem which, admittedly, brings many people to atheism or agnosticism. It's interesting, by the way, that these people have to see suffering first-hand before they decide to become atheists. I guess reading about it in the newspaper you work for isn't enough. But I'm happy to say that the problem of evil had nothing to do with my converting from Catholicism to agnosticism, and then to atheism. The argument has always annoyed me, and this article helps to show why.

Here's how I used to think of the problem of evil, before I even became an atheist: Quit your whining! And I still feel that way. The fact is that it is an extremely subjective response to the already subjective idea of God. I'd like to ask the reporter: If the world were filled with nothing but joy and peace and completely chaste priests, would it then be okay to believe in God? So we're supposed to decide what exists in the furthest depths of the universe on the basis of whether or not the world happens to meet your tastes today? Give me a break. What if Pastor John's tastes run in the direction of the malevolent? He obviously likes the idea of a mysterious God who sees suffering as a means to higher ends. How do we fill in our ontology on the basis of these conflicting subjectivities?

No, if you want to decide whether or not God exists, you need to a) get clear on the essence of what God is supposed to be, and b) look for evidence concerning it. You don't need to consult accidental characteristics like God's alleged all-loving nature. God knows He didn't show this side of himself in the Old Testament. The question of God's existence needs to be considered in the most general terms: Is there a spiritual being existing in a supersensible world?

When I read a section in a particular handy book describing the definitive absence of evidence for such a being, I converted to atheism from agnosticism almost instantly.

Posted by admin at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)

Why many atheists annoy me

There's an interesting article in the LA Times by a reporter who covered religion, and his journey from faith to unbelief.

He recounts how he was initially inspired to cover this beat because he wanted to reveal the inspirational power of religion. But he soon encountered the Catholic sex abuse stories, the Protestant televangelist con-men stories, etc., and started to lose faith. He sums up his loss of faith as follows:

The questions that I thought I had come to peace with started to bubble up again. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God get credit for answered prayers but no blame for unanswered ones? Why do we believe in the miraculous healing power of God when he's never been able to regenerate a limb or heal a severed spinal chord?

In one e-mail, I asked John, who had lost a daughter to cancer, why an atheist businessman prospers and the child of devout Christian parents dies. Why would a loving God make this impossible for us to understand?

He sent back a long reply that concluded:

"My ultimate affirmation is let God be God and acknowledge that He is in charge. He knows what I don't know. And frankly, if I'm totally honest with you, a life of gratitude is one that bows before the Sovereign God arguing with Him on those things that trouble me, lamenting the losses of life, but ultimately saying, 'You, God, are infinite; I'm human and finite.' "

John is an excellent pastor, but he couldn't reach me. For some time, I had tried to push away doubts and reconcile an all-powerful and infinitely loving God with what I saw, but I was losing ground. I wondered if my born-again experience at the mountain retreat was more about fatigue, spiritual longing and emotional vulnerability than being touched by Jesus.

And I considered another possibility: Maybe God didn't exist.

Anyone who's taken an introductory philosophy course will recognize this as an example of the so-called "problem of evil": how do we reconcile God's alleged benevolence with all of the suffering in the world? It is a problem which, admittedly, brings many people to atheism or agnosticism. It's interesting, by the way, that these people have to see suffering first-hand before they decide to become atheists. I guess reading about it in the newspaper you work for isn't enough. But I'm happy to say that the problem of evil had nothing to do with my converting from Catholicism to agnosticism, and then to atheism. The argument has always annoyed me, and this article helps to show why.

Here's how I used to think of the problem of evil, before I even became an atheist: Quit your whining! And I still feel that way. The fact is that it is an extremely subjective response to the already subjective idea of God. I'd like to ask the reporter: If the world were filled with nothing but joy and peace and completely chaste priests, would it then be okay to believe in God? So we're supposed to decide what exists in the furthest depths of the universe on the basis of whether or not the world happens to meet your tastes today? Give me a break. What if Pastor John's tastes run in the direction of the malevolent? He obviously likes the idea of a mysterious God who sees suffering as a means to higher ends. How do we fill in our ontology on the basis of these conflicting subjectivities?

No, if you want to decide whether or not God exists, you need to a) get clear on the essence of what God is supposed to be, and b) look for evidence concerning it. You don't need to consult accidental characteristics like God's alleged all-loving nature. God knows He didn't show this side of himself in the Old Testament. The question of God's existence needs to be considered in the most general terms: Is there a spiritual being existing in a supersensible world?

When I read a section in a particular handy book describing the definitive absence of evidence for such a being, I converted to atheism from agnosticism almost instantly.

Posted by admin at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)