Religious nihilism and compassionate atheism in the face of disaster
2 January 2005 by RonThere have been a few articles around about the “struggle” of theists to deal with the tsunami disaster (now at over 120,000 deaths, and the UN is estimating 150,000). (Just try Google News for tsunami faith god.)
Perhaps the unifying theme is that the theistic responders are all forced — one way or another — to deny or undermine the (huge and negative) moral value of what they see (although they would surely not admit to doing this). One way or another, they have to turn away from the obvious fact: That if somebody (God) was in control or could have stopped this or made things so this wouldn’t happen, but that somebody (God?) declined to do so, then that somebody (God?) is an asshole unworthy of anyone’s worship. One way or another, they turn toward some flavor of Job-style pseudo-theodicy — “sure, it seems to us like utterly senseless carnage; but we have to have faith that somehow, in spite of that seeming like the most straightforward and undeniable fact of the matter, this is somehow in keeping with the existence of a God worthy of worship”.
There’s also a lot of talk of people turning to their faith in the face of tragedy to somehow find solace and meaning. But these are circumstances under which faith in God should make make things harder in very straightforward way, and easier only in a way we should resist. It’s harder because it seems very difficult to reconcile the reality of the tragedy with the presence of a compassionate God in the world — either in its design or its ongoing activity. And it’s only “easier” by getting you to somehow deny the horror — to tell yourself that somehow, it’s part of God’s plan, and so really, it’s not so bad after all. But it is so bad; and to tell yourself otherwise is to devalue the tragic losses suffered by so many.
Contrary to popular opinion, these are the sorts of events that not only help confirm the rationality of atheism (by making powerfully vivid and concrete the reality of the traditional problem of natural evil, both in sheer scope and in its distribution on innocents); but they are also events with atheism makes sense of without undermining the horror. Atheists can see this clearly as simply the blind, senseless, awesomely powerful but amoral power of the chaotic natural world, which is indifferent to the suffering of humanity. We don’t have to implicitly deny its terrible reality as part of our human realm to fit it into our world view. Terrible shit happens to innocent people; our place is to try to make sure it isn’t by our doing, and to respond in the best, most humane and compassionate way we can to its victims.
2 January 2005, on 10:11 am
Yep, you obviously don’t KNOW God! For all of your hihg toned discourse you left out one fact. God IS in control, that means He will or will not allow certain things to happen. What have I learned from this disaster? That God gave us His son in redemption for us and that all who died in the tsunami are now in His arms & at true peace. They no longer have to live through the wretched toils & sin of this planet! God is great. God is good! May He bless you & keep you this day and forevermore.
2 January 2005, on 11:26 am
So why should we bother curing disease, try to prevent violent crime, or have ambulance and fire personnel respond to accidents and attempt to save live’s. God is in complete control so no matter what we do, anybody he wants to come into his “loving” arms are going to go no matter what we do, so why bother trying. Why should we even bother giving aid to the people in the tsunami stricken areas, God has complete control over everything that happens over there, therefore, if we withhold help from them God will take care of them, right? Theist’s are truly a sad sort of people.
2 January 2005, on 11:39 am
> you obviously don’t KNOW God!
Well, yeah. (a) He doesn’t exist, so nobody does. (b) The whole “atheist” thing should have tipped you off.
> God gave us His son in redemption for us and that all who died in
> the tsunami are now in His arms & at true peace.
Uh, you do realize the vast majority weren’t Xian, right?
> They no longer have to live through the wretched toils & sin of this
> planet!
Sorry you don’t like it here. It has its ups and downs, but the ups are worth it. But they wouldn’t be if I just viewed this life as the lousy warm-up act. I’m sorry that it seems that way to you. But then, that was kind of my point, wasn’t it? Who’s the life-affirming one here?
6 February 2005, on 6:33 pm
Why are all the Indonesians the lucky ones? Why couldn’t God deliver me from the wretched toil and sin of this planet? In fact, why didn’t he just spare us the inevitable difficulty? He preferred maybe to kill himself so that he could forgive us for having the nature he gave us?
According to traditional Christian thought, the vast majority of those who died will be burning in Hell. So what you’re telling us is that God is good for cutting violently short the lives of 150′000 people and sending them to suffer for eternity. For this, white Anglo-Saxons should praise his majesty and wisdom because we don’t have to go to our assured paradise for a few years yet? Nice try, Catherine, but your Christian apologetics are sadly lacking.