Advice to Atheists
One of the most common arguments that Atheists use against Christianity is what to do about about all of the senseless evil, violence and suffering in a world governed by a good and gracious God. Indeed this is a serious problem with no easy answers. But I can’t really understand why a true atheist would even care about evil, violence, justice and suffering in the first place. After all, these things are just “sappy” religious sentiments that the irrational masses attach to meaningless events to try and make sense of them, right? My advice to atheists: why bother with trying to find meaning in life? Liberate yourself from the burden of caring! If the universe has no ultimate purpose or meaning beyond finding your next pleasurable experience while avoiding any pain along the way, then just go about your business, work on increasing your “pleasure-to-pain-ratio”, don’t worry about fools like us, and get yours before somebody else does. Leave the sappy religious sentiments to the mentally challenged.
-GJG
September 28th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Gordon,
Like you, I find Tom, the former-YEC-turned-atheist, to be a generally fair-minded and thoughtful atheist. Like you, I lament the false dilemma which was laid upon Tom by the YEC movement and in the end pushed him away from his Christian convictions. Wow!
In fairness, there are a lot of materialistic atheists who retain a kind of morality and sense of rightness and wrongness. I don’t know if they have considered where it actually comes from, but they are not self-absorbed pleasure seekers void of higher values. But you are correct in this. The problem of evil is only a problem for theists. It becomes a problem for atheists only when they consider theism as an alternative. My own view is that we, who call ourselves Ambassadors of the Kingdom of God, could do a better job of answering this ultimate challenge to God’s integrity, and our belief system. That is why I remain in the search of a better answer to the riddle of evil. And I actully have hope that such an answer may exist, and may be suggested by certain findings of science in our day.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Indeed, the image of God in man is difficult to hide! And I agree that atheists can be very moral people, sometimes even more so than self-righteous Chrisitans. I don’t know if you saw my latest comment over there, but I said something like this.
-GJG
September 28th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
“But I can’t really understand why a true atheist would even care about evil, violence, justice and suffering in the first place. After all, these things are just “sappy” religious sentiments that the irrational masses attach to meaningless events to try and make sense of them, right?”
No! You equate hedonism with atheism. Do I want justice? Of course! Do I have a sense of right and wrong? You betcha! Might some of my rights be your wrongs? Yes, and vice versa, but through democracy, we can come together and obtain consensus and priorities for each other, us as a community, us as a species, and set up policies for the planet as a whole. The moral compass is pretty straightforward, we put the shoe on one-anothers’ foot and sort it out. Other social animals sort it out without spoken words and a Bible, (Dare I say they are atheist?) it shouldn’t take too much for us humans to take it higher.
Fear of atheism has two parts: The eternal result of the decision (i.e. heaven or hell) and the daily. Regarding the daily, it is like a communist’s fear of capitalism. On the surface, its dog eat dog blatant selfishness which divides classes. (Will Heaven be capitalist or communist?) But capitalists realize its much deeper than that. Sure, some laws have to be employed to keep monopolies from occurring and to make the playing field fair, but these are put in place by capitalists who realize that true success relies on everybody winning. The eighties were filled with concern that Japan was taking over our economy so there was a push to resist Japanese products. When Japan’s economy tanked in the mid 90’s, there was a ton of American dollars spent on their economy because there was the realization that their economy was so directly linked to ours.
I like to think of it as a party. How much fun is it if I’m acting selfishly? My enjoyment is directly linked to the mood of everybody there. We share the experience.
BTW, I’m only a few pages into the book. It seems very well organized and presented. I look forward to mulling it over.
September 28th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Tom,
Welcome to the BTF Blog! As always, your comments are thoughful. I should first clear up a misunderstanding. I must have come across as believing that atheism always leads to a total collapse of morality. This is obviously not true. I don’t doubt, even one second, that atheists have the capacity to love, to be outraged by injustice, to give sacrificially of themselves for causes bigger than themselves, etc… To the shame of my own religion, athiests are often MORE CHRISTIAN than Christians. So I hope this clears up any misundersanding that atheistm automatically equates to hedonism.
You actually made my point better than I did. You said, “through democracy, we can come together and obtain consensus and priorities for each other…and set up policies for the planet as a whole.” My point is that in a materialistic worldview, that is all you have. But what happens when the majority says that slavery is ok? Or that gladiator games are entertaining and anyone convicted of a crime should be forced to participate in the games? Or dogfighting? Or State-sponsored religion? Or what happens when a majority decides to oppress a miniority? Hitler never violated any of his country’s laws.
We would all agree that these behaviors are wrong, immoral, antisocial, etc… But if the majority has blessed them, then what right do we have to protest? Why make sentimental value judgements about the moral compass of the majority? By what standard do we judge them?
Now I’m non ignoring the fact that wars have not been fought over theistic-based laws and standards. But to even be outraged over this requires some sort of appeal to a standard that exists apart from ourselves.
Anyway, I think you get the point. And I don’t expect that you agree, but I at least wanted to clear up any misunderstanding about the intent of my post.
I do like your capitalism analogy. I used the same analogy in my book when talking about how difficult it would actually be to maintain a scientific conspiracy in an environment where everybody is competing for funding and kudos. At any rate, I’m glad you are reading BTF and I sincerely hope that it helps you with your fundamentalist family members. I have been surprised by the friends, pastors, and family members of mine that have a completely changed their attitude toward the natural sciences after reading it.
-GJG
September 30th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Tom,
I had some more thoughts about this last night. I posted them on your site so your atheists friends can participate in the discussion.
My readers should go to:
http://recoveringyoungearthers.blogspot.com/2007/09/ecclesiastes-book-review.html
October 15th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Dear Cliff,
The sole answer to the problem of evil has always been the Cross. Only a God who submits to evil, himself, can satisfy that epistemological craving of the human race.
The good news is–you don’t have to wait for physical inquiry to reveal this answer. It’s already been revealed.
Let we who are believers refrain from looking for any answer better than this one.
peace
Judd