The 1 Million Things I Don't Understand About Religion, Part Deux
I’m wondering why god hated the 228 people on board this Air France flight: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31040692/?GT1=43001. Were they all on their way home from a gay pride parade?
I mentioned in my last post that I don’t think I’ll be bringing up anything new here when it comes to the conversation about religion. And this may be the oldest question in the book. How do the Judeo-Christian religions explain the existence of evil? Thoughtful religious people have tried to address this issue for a couple thousand years now. None has been able to adequately reconcile the contradiction between their stated beliefs and reality.
Why does an omnipotent and benevolent god either allow evil to happen or will it to be done? The usual strategy in answering this question is to blame humans and our free will. This results in the general idea that god is to be praised for all that is good in the world, and man is to be blamed for everything that is evil. Accepting this position for a moment, blaming man’s free will for acts of evil obviously does not account for “acts of god,” such as an airplane being struck by lightning. And so, religion must offer a different excuse for such an act.
You know what kind of explanation I could wrap my brain around? I could almost understand if religious people believed something like this:
Everything involved with our existence on this planet is subject to a continual, eternal struggle between good (represent by God) and evil (represented by Satan). These two forces are virtually equal in their power to effect what happens to us and to our world. When a tragedy happens (like an earthquake or a hurricane or a six-year-old developing an inoperable brain tumor) it’s an example of the devil winning one. It happens.
If our preachers proceeded from this idea, and encouraged us all to root for the good guy, if they told us that prayer (better, our collective will) increases the likelihood that the good guy will win more often . . . I could kind of buy this. It would make some sort of fantastical sense. But they believe nothing of the sort. Instead, they seem to believe that their good and loving god is responsible for ALL events, including the evil ones. And because of this, believers will often then attempt to provide a divine reason for evil. Hence, evangelicals sure as hell did blame Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans for planning a gay pride parade. The attacks of 9-11 (the type of event that would usually warrant a simple explanation of man exerting his free will to do evil) was also blamed on America’s “liberal” policies concerning gays and lesbians. And when a tragedy is so senseless (a six-year-old developing brain cancer, for example) that even the most despicable religionist can’t offer a divine motive, they will usually fall back on that old chestnut about their god moving in “mysterious ways.” These days, I find most religious people have rebranded that cliché into something more like: ‘I wouldn’t be arrogant enough to presume that I could know the motives of a supreme being.’ They’re plenty comfortable with claiming to be certain about the motives and desires of a supreme being whenever it serves them, but non-believers are the ones accused of arrogance when we ask for a simple explanation as to why their god allows millions to suffer.
The question of evil is real simple.
Either your god is all powerful or he isn’t.
If he is all powerful, and he wills evil to happen, he is evil.
If he is all powerful and he allows evil to happen, he’s possibly worse than evil and certainly doesn’t deserve to be worshipped.
If he is not all powerful, you need to rewrite your books.
I mentioned in my last post that I don’t think I’ll be bringing up anything new here when it comes to the conversation about religion. And this may be the oldest question in the book. How do the Judeo-Christian religions explain the existence of evil? Thoughtful religious people have tried to address this issue for a couple thousand years now. None has been able to adequately reconcile the contradiction between their stated beliefs and reality.
Why does an omnipotent and benevolent god either allow evil to happen or will it to be done? The usual strategy in answering this question is to blame humans and our free will. This results in the general idea that god is to be praised for all that is good in the world, and man is to be blamed for everything that is evil. Accepting this position for a moment, blaming man’s free will for acts of evil obviously does not account for “acts of god,” such as an airplane being struck by lightning. And so, religion must offer a different excuse for such an act.
You know what kind of explanation I could wrap my brain around? I could almost understand if religious people believed something like this:
Everything involved with our existence on this planet is subject to a continual, eternal struggle between good (represent by God) and evil (represented by Satan). These two forces are virtually equal in their power to effect what happens to us and to our world. When a tragedy happens (like an earthquake or a hurricane or a six-year-old developing an inoperable brain tumor) it’s an example of the devil winning one. It happens.
If our preachers proceeded from this idea, and encouraged us all to root for the good guy, if they told us that prayer (better, our collective will) increases the likelihood that the good guy will win more often . . . I could kind of buy this. It would make some sort of fantastical sense. But they believe nothing of the sort. Instead, they seem to believe that their good and loving god is responsible for ALL events, including the evil ones. And because of this, believers will often then attempt to provide a divine reason for evil. Hence, evangelicals sure as hell did blame Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans for planning a gay pride parade. The attacks of 9-11 (the type of event that would usually warrant a simple explanation of man exerting his free will to do evil) was also blamed on America’s “liberal” policies concerning gays and lesbians. And when a tragedy is so senseless (a six-year-old developing brain cancer, for example) that even the most despicable religionist can’t offer a divine motive, they will usually fall back on that old chestnut about their god moving in “mysterious ways.” These days, I find most religious people have rebranded that cliché into something more like: ‘I wouldn’t be arrogant enough to presume that I could know the motives of a supreme being.’ They’re plenty comfortable with claiming to be certain about the motives and desires of a supreme being whenever it serves them, but non-believers are the ones accused of arrogance when we ask for a simple explanation as to why their god allows millions to suffer.
The question of evil is real simple.
Either your god is all powerful or he isn’t.
If he is all powerful, and he wills evil to happen, he is evil.
If he is all powerful and he allows evil to happen, he’s possibly worse than evil and certainly doesn’t deserve to be worshipped.
If he is not all powerful, you need to rewrite your books.