More Evidence Christians Just Don't Think

They don't! Not most of them anyway. All they do is defend God not matter what. It's like they are defending themselves or something, and people always do that whenever threatened. We know people create their own religion, their own gospel, and their own God in their own image. We know this! Whatever they believe then God agrees with them about everything. Do you doubt it? Then read this study. So no matter what the problem is they will defend their God because they are defending themselves. Why? Because they are God. God is them. They are one with God anyway. They think the same things. They feel the same things. Argue against God and we are arguing against them. So they take it personally. And nothing we say can penetrate that 200 foot thick impenetrable castle wall around them to fend off attackers. Not even a bunker bomb. Want more proof? Here 'tis.

I had argued with regard to the Black Death plague in the 14th century that there is no good omnipotent omniscient God. At the end of that post I wrote:
So Christian apologist, I put it to you. Why didn't God do anything about the Black Death pandemic? Be reasonable here. Why? This is but one example. There were many other pandemics. I argue that Christianity is a faith that must dismiss the tragedy of death. It does not matter who dies, or how many, or what the circumstances are when people die. It could be the death of a mother whose baby depends upon her for milk. It could be a pandemic like cholera that decimated parts of the world in 1918, or the more than 23,000 children who die every single day from starvation. These deaths could be by suffocation, drowning, a drive-by shooting, or being burned to death. It doesn't matter. God is good. Death doesn't matter. People die all of the time. In order to justify God's goodness Christianity minimizes the value of human life. It is a pro-death faith, plain and simple. I argue that Christians Just Do Not Give a Damn That People Die. Or, you can prove me wrong.
Okay so far?

Joshua Matthan Brown decided to respond. He is a young pastor and student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in the area of the Philosophy of Religion.

His pat unthinking answer?
I say that God did in fact do something about the Black Death pandemic—something which science could never do. Namely, He took death upon Himself on the cross and defeated it once and for all. Rather than dismissing the tragedy of death, Christianity faces death head on. It teaches us that death is a great evil and entered the world through Original Sin which subjugated the world to corruption, dissolution, and ultimately bodily (physical) death. Furthermore, it teaches that human beings perpetuate the cycle of death and dissolution by means of their own personal sin.
Did you get this? My claim was that the pro-death aspect to the Christian faith is that Christians will dismiss the pain and death of millions in defense of their God. I argued that Christians just do not care that people die when their faith is at stake. That Brown still exonerates his God for allowing such pain and misery is a case in point. He doesn't care. It doesn't matter that people died miserable deaths. God is good. He did nothing wrong. Only in this case, Brown believes it was enough that God sent his son to die for us. [Left utterly unresolved is how the death of the innocent Jesus atones for the sins of the guilty, and how it assuages the holy wrath of the second person of the trinity.]

All he can say is that Jesus atoned for the sins of the billions of people in history who died miserable deaths. [Left unresolved is that fact that most of them, according to his faith, will also spend eternity in hell.] That’s like telling someone who’s in excruciating pain and about to suffocate in his own blood, “hey, it’ll be okay since I just bought a life insurance policy to help with your bills.” Or, "that's okay you're suffering now because you'll be in heaven" (even though only God can judge). No, it's not okay that people suffer now even if they go to heaven when God can do something about their sufferings and doesn't do it. Try that parenting skill will you? Tell your children when they're coughing in their blood that "it'll be okay, 'cause even though I could easily take you to the doctor, you'll eventually survive in a month or two and have a healthy life. You see, that does nothing for the present pain and suffering at all. What people who suffer want, what they need, is healing, or morphine, or both.

Brown even goes on to say twice that this kind of response of mine "misses the point," since,
It’s not that Christ’s death alleviates the pain of someone, rather that it gives purpose and hope to one who is in pain. What is the point of trying to stop someone’s pain if in the end there is no point to life? If there is no hope in life, then stopping someone’s pain is a mere delay in the inevitable. His full answer can be read here.
So I merely replied: "That’s it? Really, that’s all your omni-benelovent omniscient omnipotent God can do?" [There are many things I could comment about on his post, but they aren't worth my time. Can you notice other nonsequiturs, red herrings and other informal fallacies?]

In other words, without hope there is no point to help people in pain! It doesn't matter if people suffer and die, if in the end they go to hell! And conversely, if they die horrible deaths because of the inaction of God then that too doesn't matter. The thing that matters the most, by far over everything else, is that people go to heaven.

Soooooo...

He. Just. Proved. Point. My.

Again, I rest my case. It's true. Christians just don't give a damn that people die when defending their God, which is actually defending themselves. God is good. The laughable thing is that this was said in the very post where Brown is trying to deny it. He just doesn't get that he admitted what I said. He is blind by faith and can only offer pat answers to this problem. His is a non-answer. The clues stare him in the face. He just doesn't think. He can't. He's deluded. It's too bad though, because I'm sure outside his faith he's got a bright mind, and I wish him well.

If someone wonders why I'm picking on a young philosophy student, it's because he's good cannon fodder. I love it when Christians prove my points for me. But there's something else. Dr. Jeremy A. Evans teaches in the area of Philosophy at SBTS, so perhaps Brown is simply regurgitating what Evans is feeding him at SBTS. Evans has a book coming out titled, The Problem of Evil: The Challenge to Essential Christian Beliefs.I sure hope Evans doesn't make the same kinds of mistakes, but I strongly suspect he does.

So if Evans is interested he may want to consider what I've written on the problem of SUFFERING. Dr. John Beversluis, author of C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion, said my two chapters on this problem in my book, Why I Became an Atheist,"contain one of the most penetrating and no-nonsense discussions of the problem that I have ever read."

0 comments: