Gregory Paul makes an interesting point — atheist perspectives are underrepresented in the media. If there’s a disaster, they immediately go to someone who will babble some reassuring pablum about God.
What we do hear about without end is the theists’ view on the dreadful deaths of children. As per Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin who said, “By the grace of God, my family was safe,” after they by pluck and luck survived the Guadalupe River catastrophe. This detached view, in which the creator — who has the power to prevent dreadful random deaths — is ardently thanked for being selective about it rather than preventing it all in the first place, is the theme repeated as a matter of course. Typically by Christians after the latest natural disaster in the form of storms, the tornadoes that afflict the Bible Belt especially, wildfires, quakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, avalanches and the like. As per the flood survivor who said, “God, I know you brought me out, he marked me” (WashPost 7/11). But not dozens of girls. To that add the professional clergy and theologians who — despite their deep bias — the media persistently turn to to opine on why the latest killer event may appear hard to explain, but insist all must understand is truly in accord with the existence of a loving and wise creator.
Have you ever heard an open and assertive atheist be asked in a mainstream venue what those who do not believe in the supernatural think about natural tragedies and that is just so left field that let’s have a good chuckle at the notion. Do you ever see us atheos have a place on a panel of pundits to provide the nontheist perspective on anything on CNN or MSNBC? Of course not. Never happens. (You can check out secularfrontier.infidels.org/2022/06/theocancel-culture-discrimination-by-neglect-the-chronic-news-and-opinion-media-bigotry-against-atheists.)
Except…I have a counter-example! About eleven years ago, a tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, destroying homes and businesses, and Wolf Blitzer was on the scene, interviewing survivors. At the end of this excerpt, Wolf tells Rebecca Vitsmun, You gotta thank the lord. Do you thank the lord?
She replies, “I’m actually an atheist.”
So it happens sometimes, by accident, and the media personalities try to wedge the atheist into a god-shaped perspective. It doesn’t work. How can you talk to a person standing in front of the wreckage of their home after a natural disaster and ask them to be thankful? If it’s worse than a demolished house — it’s dead children — how dare you draft some pious airhead to tell you on television that it was part of a divine plan?
Paul explains what we atheists think about piles of suffering and dead children.
Until humans busted their scientific butts to produce modern medicine, half the children died. To the tune of 50 billion children tortured to early deaths. Largely by a too long host of cruel diseases that squeezed the life out of them. Smallpox and malaria alone have snuffed out tens of billions of little ones. The situation could not be worse because higher youth mortality would crash the human population. Even this very day, many thousands will succumb to microbes without the intervention of the divine.
Where, we atheists must ask you theists, is the grace in this? Where was the wise creator when the little girls at the Christian summer camp – yes, we note the irony – were living out the last moments of their short lives in lethal agonizing terror? Where was the grace of God when, as Jesus who Christians claim was God, was curing a few children via miracle spectacles while half the rest of kids around the world died as per the historical norm? These are entirely legitimate questions that believers must provide solid answers to. But they cannot. There is far too much in the way of premature death to do that. Instead, we hear platitudes and clichés that come across as a knee jerk cover up. As per the little flood victims are now in the arms of the same homicidally negligent Jesus who did not see fit to keep them safe in the first place.
Christians love to talk about the angels that protect the little ones. Where were those angels on July 4th in the flood zone? Why did the good with God Christians running the Mystic camp not ensure that none of their cabins were subject to flooding? But those are human beings and we big brained apes mess up all the time, atheists included. Why did the all-capable God not inspire them to properly protect their charges? Why did the immaculate creator of the entire universe put anyone in danger in the first place? Why did it not with a lift of its little finger ensure that massive rains not drench the Texas hill country and prevent the mess from the get-go? What have required mere, caring thought on its part. Having not done that, how could it stand by and watch the children praying for help as they experienced the tormenting drowning process which often involves vomiting (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8928428) while He in his perfect wisdom prepared to welcome them to paradise without their first making a mature choice on the matter?
That is what we — appalled at the Christian wave away — atheists think. As well we should. The problem is not with us. It is with you. Do you not get why so many reject the arrogant God that would be so indifferent about the endless suffering and early death of so many? It is you who need to do a big moral rethink – as increasing numbers are.
No wonder we don’t get much airtime. We tend to place the blame on human actions or inactions, rather than putting the guilt on a ghost in the sky.
If (IF!) that Yaweh dude actually exists, he’s a murderous genocidal asshole that needs to be hunted down and scragged with extreme prejudice.
BUT, not existing, he’s safe. For now.
I don’t usually call myself an atheist — there are a lot of capital-A Atheists who I would not like to feel associated with. The way I say it, if there is a God, I don’t believe she cares one way or another about us.
And the natural world doesn’t either. Our sufferings don’t matter to it, to the extent you can imagine something “mattering” to all that natural stuff.
So if we want to care about the sufferings of children (or adults), or make things go in a kinder way, WE down here have to do it. We have a choice: we can do whatever we can (however little) to make our world a better place for all of us (and maybe for the creatures we share it with), or we can continue to live in Hell (or even do what we can to make it worse.)
God punished Wolf Blitzer the other day by making him say “pubic hair” on live TV when talking about Trump’s birthday letter to Epstein.
I recall a similar response to a reporter after a natural disaster in California. A fire had swirled through a man’s neighborhood, destroying many houses, but somehow his home had survived unscathed. The reporter was fishing for the standard answer — god or providence, or whatever, had intervened on his behalf. When asked point-blank what he thought the answer to his good fortune was, the homeowner shrugged and replied, “Physics?” Good answer, I thought at the time.
I wondered if that woman, Rebecca Vitsmun, saying she was an atheist on TV had any negative consequences for her and her family in Moore, Oklahoma. As we know, modern American Christians can be unforgiving about that sort of thing…rather un-Christian of them. So I looked her up. Indeed there was some fallout. Her mother and father were concerned about her saying it and in denial about her atheism. She says some other relatives and old friends cut off contact. Turns out she was a member of Oklahoma Atheists. The leader of that group with other atheist groups, helped raise over $100,000 for the Vitsmun family. There was a bigger consequence for Vitsmun family, apparently. They moved from Moore to Norman shortly after and once they had their affairs straightened out, they relocated to Tacoma, Washington. Tacoma is probably a safer place for an atheist than central Oklahoma.
Gee, a vilified and marginalized group is under-represented in our society?
The Devil you say!
The universe, the world, and my yard all look exactly like they would look if the gods didn’t exist.
They don’t explain anything.
They don’t do anything.
I’m in a forgiving mood about someone who barely survived a natural disaster, who has a camera shoved in their face and who was programmed at a young age to repeat something about “God saved me.”
Yet my atheist brain keeps adding in the unsaid part: “Those other victims? Fuck those losers. God has greater things in store for me, not for them.”
To anyone who says there are no atheist in fox holes. I reply: How many people died in a fox hole with a prayer on their lips.
“GOD” is the name given to the cold, dead silence that answers the prayer of a child being molested by a priest.
Great recent example: the “Trump was saved from assassination by God so he, in turn, could save America” thing. And it’s apparently believed even by the wife of the guy who actually was killed, Corey Comperatore. Did anyone think that through?
@10.michaelbarnes : Truth.
The molesting preist thatwas supposedly chosena dn given theior “vocation”by god and then goes on to be protected and supported and enabled by he Church with victims unable to speak out agaisnt the “Holy man” whose word is especially trustworthy by god and then sometimes the molester rises high into the religious hierrachy ranks e.g. that evil convicted by a jury beyoidn reasonable doubt child rapist Pell becoming the third most powerful official in the Vatican city / Catholic Church etc.. (Vomits.)
You’d think if there really was a god such people would be hit by lightning but no.
@11. John Harshman :Given all of Trump’s words and actions and allthe suffering, death and destruction he is causing if any divinity was protecting Trump its seems more like the opposition to God / Jesus than them. If there’s any actual anti-Christ (there isn’t I know) then Trump seems a good candidate. The devil of course never gets any credit and only ever gets blame.
It is staggering that someone whose every word and deed goes against the biblical portryal of the wishes of the ancient Judean they supposedly worship can be so devotedly sincerely worshpped like a God – and put above those “Christian” values they claim to believe in.
Typos fix for my previous comment :
The molesting preist that was supposedly chosen and given their “vocation” by god …
..e.g. that evil, convicted-by-a-jury-beyond-reasonable-doubt, child rapist Pell ..
@8. De facto Trump voter & enabler beholder : “Yet my atheist brain keeps adding in the unsaid part: “Those other victims? Fuck those losers. God has greater things in store for me, not for them.”
A bit like you leading up to and on the day of the last USA election where you completely ignored all the victims, indeed the horrendous implications for the rest of the planet out of your purely selfish hatred for the Democratic party and, particularly, former President Joe Biden and the Democratic candidate and only actual alternative to Trump Vice -President Kamala Harris huh?