[QUOTE=Voyager]
…the greatest comfort is having an explanation for everything - though that explanation might be shit happens. I’m lucky in not having a lot of bad things happen to me in 54 years, but when I see a plane crash, or a child born deformed, or someone getting sick, I find it far more comforting to think that these things just happen, and are not the result of anything wrong the person did, or a result from a benevolent deity playing tricks. I find it far more comforting that we own our future. (But I like self-serve.) How useless it would be if we fought for a better future for our kids only to have God say “game over.” And I’d rather work out my own moral code, one I can live with, and not have to try and conform to one thousands of years old, self-contradictory, changing, and often just plain evil.
[/QUOTE]
With all due respect, “shit happens” isn’t an explanation for anything. Of course, the alternatives you cite–the person did something wrong, a deity playing tricks–are not explanations either.
One of the consistent themes I see in this thread is that the typical Christian response to tragedy–“God works in mysterious ways”–is ridiculous. On some level I agree, but let’s flesh out the story a bit more.
Believing the Christian idea that there is some unknowable purpose behind even the most heinous events is not as callous as it is usually presented, which is often as an ignorant moron spouting platitudes like the one above. But even laying that criticism aside, I wonder if you’d agree with the following motive: That in trying however awkwardly to offer another human being solace for some terrible loss–and at some point, when someone suffers a terrible loss, they almost inevitably ask “why?”–what they are really trying to offer is (here’s that word again) comfort.
Many may consider that comfort inadequate, and perhaps even vicious, but I also believe that the alternative non-Theist answer–“shit happens”–is even less of a comfort. I’m not saying this to belittle atheism, but merely to point out that it doesn’t do any better of a job that actions rooted in Theism do in this case, so I don’t believe it’s a valid criticism of Theism.
In fact, I’d say the “mysterious ways” answer, if couched properly, would offer at least a few people comfort in a trying time. On the other hand, I fail to see any comfort in telling someone that their life has no purpose, that there is no reason for the bad things that happen. Worse I think would be someone offering advice that says God is really just a malevolent force just waiting to screw with you. OK, it’s not a definitive proof in favor of Theism, but some measure of comfort is an advantage of adopting a Theist world view. I understand that Atheists aren’t willing to sacrifice sure knowledge of God’s non-existence for something that, in the end, amounts to a pacifier, and I’m not suggesting they do. I guess this thread started by asking how anyone could believe in God given his apparent malevolence, and I hope I’ve finally brought it back round to that.
BTW, I agree with you in working out our own moral code. I also do not believe the Bible is a rule book for morality; it is too contradictory and hodgepodge for that. But it is a source (among others) for the personal moral code that I’ve developed. I think I’ve explained my own rationale for that in previous posts.
