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About Me
- The Atheist Missionary
- I am a Canadian father, lawyer, columnist, skeptic and humanist interested in furthering a critical analysis of religious belief systems. The name "Atheist Missionary" is a sarcastic jab at religious fundamentalists. Atheists don't proselytize and are unified only by their freethinking nonbelief in the existence of a supernatural deity. In my preferred reality, philosophers would be treated like rock stars.
Sites which I commend to my visitors
- Advocatus Atheist
- Animal Rights: The Abolitionist Approach
- Atheism: Proving the Negative
- Common Sense Atheism
- Dan Carlin - Common Sense and Harcore History
- God is Imaginary
- Humanist Toronto
- Journeyman Philosopher
- M and M
- Pharyngula by PZ Myers
- Randal Rauser
- RichardDawkins.net: A Clear Thinking Oasis
- Skeptics Annotated Bible
- Stephen Law website/blog
- Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne
- Why won't God heal amputees?
Highly recommended books
- How Are We To Live? Ethics In An Age of Self-Interest
- Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence
- Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists
- The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
- The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason
- The Life You Can Save: Acting Now To Save World Poverty
- The Philosophy Gym: 25 Short Adventures in Thinking
- You Can't Go Home Again
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It's unfortunate, but I think the slaughter, genocide and violence of the old testament and the idea of hell in the new, desensitizes many Christians to these kinds of stories, unless of course it affects them directly
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Dave Mabus is back.
DeleteErroll, (TAM),
ReplyDeleteNow in the article you say you don't want rebuttal, but on your blog you do ask for some.
A nicely written piece and, I fear, not too unusual for someone to despair of God's existence in the face of evil or tragedy.
Too many present God as if you only have enough faith that you will not experience anything bad, but only health and wealth. This is crap spouted by those trying to "market" the Church. Letting people know that they are sinners who need a savior just doesn't sell these days so folks want to move on to something with a little sizzle. But, it unravels in the face of tragedy.
Why does tragedy strike this person and not the other?
The answer, I believe, is quite unsatisfactory. We don't know.
Why does God allow evil to exist? We don't know.
It is not a comfortable God because it is a God beyond understanding; beyond our control.
What we do know is that God understands suffering because in the midst of all the evil and tragedy of life we know that Jesus, God in flesh, suffered and died for us on the cross.
This, is also horribly offensive to us, that God would need a sacrifice of atonement.
God's ways are not our ways.
Have a blessed football season. Go skins.
Kevin
Pastor Kevin wrote: The answer, I believe, is quite unsatisfactory. We don't know.
ReplyDeleteWhy does God allow evil to exist? We don't know.
It is not a comfortable God because it is a God beyond understanding; beyond our control.
I never took you to be a skeptical theist. It has some very disturbing implications for conventional morality. Here's a simple example: we don't know why your God would allow a pitbull to chew the face off a toddler but presumably, if He allows it to happen, it is for the greater good and for reasons beyond our ken. If this is true and I happen across a pitbull that has already chewed 90% of the face off a toddler, why should I bother to intervene?
I understand what you mean but I think the real question is could you see that and do nothing?
DeleteI mean even if there was a religious person who held that view, I still don't think that it would cross their mind in such an emergency situation. I think if anything people use it to try and explain how bad things happen and yet there still be a benevolent God, but I don't think it actually dictates how someone would react in those types of situations.
MA, that is precisely my point. Theists simply ignore the perverse implications of their theological beliefs in order to overcome the cognitive dissonance created by them.
DeleteFor those interested in an excellent description of skeptical theism, I commend a reading of Justin McBrayer's article "Skeptical Theism" which can be found at: http://faculty.fortlewis.edu/jpmcbrayer/Skeptical_Theism_Philosophy_Compass.pdf
ReplyDeleteStephen Maitzen also gives a far better explanation than my pitbull dilemma in his paper "Skeptical theism and moral obligation": http://philosophy.acadiau.ca/tl_files/sites/philosophy/resources/documents/Maitzen_STMO.pdf
TAM,
ReplyDeleteI didn't say everything is for the greater good.
There is evil in the world and it is the vocation of all of us to combat the corruption of the world. This is why we cut the grass and paint the house, and rescue toddlers, and arrest criminals.
What we don't know is why doesn't God simply return and destroy evil now. "Thy Kingdom come!"
As atheist, how do you even know that the pit bull attacking the toddler is wrong. Both the toddler and the pit bull are simply the product of endless, random mutation. Survival of the fittest is just playing out. And yet you know it is wrong. And you know the toddler is more valuable than the dog and you would put yourself at risk to save toddler because you feel in your heart the vocation to fight evil.
Peace,
Kevin
Pastor Jud,
ReplyDeleteI take issue with the phrase "survival of the fittest is just playing out". You have misused this phrase in what I find to be a grotesque attempt to prove your point. First of all that phrase has nothing to do with the way you used it. In biology the term fitness refers to the ability of an organism to produce more viable offspring than other organisms of the same species. It does not refer to one species being able to capture, kill, etc. of other species. So the pit bull attacking the child is not "survival of the fittest".
Mormon Atheist,
ReplyDeleteWhat does the word "viable" mean?
I find it interesting that we use the existence of evil to refute the existence of God. But if there is no God, there is no knowledge of evil. We are just doing what our little evolved selves have evolved to do.
Peace,
Kevin
Paster Jud,
ReplyDeleteBy viable I mean the ability of the offspring to survive and then produce another generation of offspring.
And what is it that you think we have evolved to do?
Mormon Atheist,
ReplyDeleteI don't believe we evolved. I believe are to be fruitful and multiply.
Wouldn't an organism (the toddler) being killed render it not viable?
Kevin
The truth is the pit bull is not a natural predator of humans. The attack is an accident. And by accident I mean in the sense of how many people have dogs and yet don't ever get attacked. I am sure you would agree that dogs attacking humans is more of an exception and not the rule.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the toddler is attacked is more of an indictment on the parents than it is on the toddlers inability to survive. Most if not all toddlers would lose to a pit bull.
My whole point to you in the first place was that you were misusing evolutionary terms without a proper knowledge of them. Why would you think that anyone who accepts the evidence for evolution would be so cold?