Why evil gives rise to atheism

 

Suffering

 

If an atheist rejects God for he sees suffering as useless and anything that deliberately allows it to happen like a God is worthy only of scorn and condemnation that is good.  He has the compassion to react that way.  To see suffering as something you would fight regardless of what God thought about it good or bad is even better.  To reject God as an atheist is to rise to being something better than the concept of God.

 

Suffering needs to be defined accurately. To see it as just being unpleasantness is a form of objectifying the victim for it is more than that. It is the degradation of the victim by violently objectifying them – violence acts on them like object, makes them feel like objects. Depression for example makes you the same as if you were an object. That is the secret of its destructiveness.  For that reason, rejecting God should be seen as a duty.  No good purpose can justify suffering. 

Risk

 

Risk and evil make an interesting combination.  Risk is seen as good if it can lead to something good.  Risk is seen as bad if it leads to something bad.  Whether risk is good or bad is assessed not by the motive but by the result.  So a risk by itself is merely morally neutral or nothing to do with being moral or immoral.

 

The idea that evil and sin are worth the risk of you doing good instead presumes that risk is a good thing which is nonsense.  It is about the consequences not the risk. 

 

For that reason the notion that evil fits an all-loving God is absurd.

 

Why reject belief in God?

When atheists say they disbelieve in God why would they reject belief?

Is it because they find God illogical?
 
Is it because they cannot think that a really good God can let evil happen?
 
Evil by definition is that which cannot be allowed to happen so believers water it down to fit it to the God shaped size. And natural/accidental evil makes moral evil possible and makes it a temptation. You don't get anywhere by separating them and saying that natural evil just happens so it is not an issue.
 
One reason evil cannot be allowed is that it seeks chaos and randomness. It is disorder. It is risk and risk opens the door to other risks you cannot even imagine. This is the main reason evil is so forbidden.  It makes no sense to say such disorder has a purpose.  If it is contained by God so that good replaces it it still happened and still had no purpose.
 
Religion will say we are arguing that evil is that which is incompatible with God so if there is a God there is no evil (or vice versa - evil exists so there is no God). They will say we are defining evil in such a way that it cannot fit a God. But that is a smokescreen: we are defining evil in a way that does not fit good. If God is good then it follows that evil and God cannot fit. It is not so much about God as about good.  It is good that matters not God.  If there is a choice between good and God then you will have to scrap God.

 

Irrelevant?
 
Could God want to be irrelevant? Hypothetically he would if it meant we could be better people. Christianity evilly says God wants the heart 100% but the hypothetical thing is still there. It makes it wrong to give all the heart to God for that means you will commit to him as the greatest good even if it means harm to all other people.

 

Standard?
 
Keller wrote “If you are sure that this natural world is unjust and filled with evil, you are assuming the reality of some extra-natural (or supernatural) standard by which to make your judgment” (page 26). In fact as we have seen this view is incoherent and over-simplistic. And as the natural is supposedly made of the supernatural it follows that both a believer and an unbeliever can think morality comes from the universe. They only differ on what they think the universe is.

 

More to life than morality?
 
Morality is a form of sight. Even if the image you see is misleading the image is real. You still see an image. To say there is no reason to help a baby in real danger of being torn to pieces if there is no morality ignores the fact that there is more to life than morality. It is immoral actually to disagree with that! To say you need an answer to why you must help the baby is just admitting you don't care and need to be talked into helping.

 

Purpose
 
Does God use evil to do good because we brought evil into the world or would he use it even if we did not? Is it better to do the former or the latter?
 
If God is opposed to evil why does that matter to us?
 
Good means helping. It makes no sense to say that to say there is no God is to deny that good exists. The believers are only putting you off being good by telling you stuff like that.  Real goodness does not need a God-prop.
 
The definition of good is that there must be no advantage in it for yourself and that you are doing it for it is best for another. So doing good for a good advantage for yourself is bad. But the advantage is certainly a kind of good. No doubt about that. So God has nothing to do with it. What good is is built into it and even God cannot change that. Even bad assumes that good exists. So the fear that without God we will not believe in good or be good is just scaremongering.

 

Don't assume!  It is up to the evidence and what it says
 
The Christians assume before they look at the question of God and evil being compatible or incompatible that they can be fitted. That assumption is itself evil. It is not a matter for assuming. You need evidence and logic to see if they fit. You need it to be a strong case for it is real suffering of real people we are talking about.
 
The idea that no supreme power cares fits the evidence. That cannot be dismissed. Believers have to engage in great contortions to argue that the power cares. They end up saying evil is a mystery. This contradicts sanity. It is like saying that Queen Victoria being the Ripper fits the evidence and it's a mystery how she seemed to be in the palace during one murder. You cannot argue that the non-existence of a loving God fitting the evidence is a coincidence. That is evil and irrational and cruel for it is people who suffer.

The assumption behind both is that if something ought not to happen then God if good and powerful enough cannot let it happen.

Believers agree but say that it does not follow that everything that happens should really be perfect. They say that some evils such as the pain of toothache are good when it drives you to get help. But look at what they are saying. They are admitting that there are evils that should not be allowed to happen. If these evils do not include God making innocent children immune to killer viruses then the argument is lost.

But see what the believers are doing. They are saying it is better for suffering to exist than for God to be partly bad. They are saying it is better for God not to be all-powerful. It is absurd to say that concern for believing in God’s love or power matters more than human suffering.

To look at suffering and decide that nothing proves it is incompatible with perfect love and is itself evil. It is using the suffering and degrading the person. It is not about you and here you are making yourself biased to assess it as agreeable with God.

 

Should we do good because God commands us to or invites us to even if what is good or bad has nothing to do with what God wants? Duns Scotus said yes. The correct answer is no. If something is good it does not matter if it is commanded or not. Just do it. To say there is a God just so that you can feel commanded to do good shows you care about being commanded to do good not doing good.

 

Judging

It is obvious that if seriously bad things happen human nature has the right to judge the doers as malicious or uncaring or both. This right is NOT IMPACTED by the doers being in the right. A necessary evil has to accept being judged as unnecessary and that is collateral. It has to permit that for evil is so bad that it needs a devil’s advocate even if the evil is unavoidable. That acceptance goes with something being a necessary evil. Thus a religion telling you it is a sin to condemn God and that you should not curse God when people are badly hurt is violating your dignity. The Lord’s Prayer saying to God that his will be done is an insult.

 

Never do X

The best we can do when thinking of of a moral law that cannot allow an exception under any circumstances is “Killing innocent children for fun is never in any way right or partly right.”

But what about killing innocent children with viruses is never right no matter what the justification? God cannot ask us to agree with the rule about the killing and then ask us to agree as human beings with what he does. Even if he is right that is not the point. We are human and have to look at it in a human way. The human way works when allowed to and nothing else is as good. If God made us to be human then it is evil of him to expect anything different. We have the right to fear and oppose religious believers no matter how good they act.

 

Consolation of atheism

If an atheist assumes God is impotent he is refusing to see God’s good and holy plan at work and saying suffering is useless and intolerable. The thought that suffering is useless is not a despairing or hopeless thought. Its being useless is the very reason we have to try and be stronger than it and get through it. Thus there is no justification for telling that person to believe in God and to trust in God. It is not even relevant.

 

Last word

 

The atheists would judge believers as unable to diagnose evil correctly and thus of ruining the medicine for it. The believers judge atheists as hating evil too much. I would not call atheists bad for that! It makes them the ones with the best potential for goodness. Believers in God are adopting a belief that represents and feeds bigotry.