Repost: The Theodicy of Narnia

October 7, 2013 By 4 Comments
LamppostWinter

[Author's Note: I'm reposting some old favorites while I'm away on vacation this week. This post was originally from December 2006.] When I was a child, I read and devoured C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia books. I was too young then to understand most of the religious symbolism, and didn't realize that Lewis had intended the series as a Christian allegory until the end of the very last Narnia book, The Last Battle, which makes the comparison explicit. I will say, however, that I enjoyed … [Read more...]

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Facing Up to the Bible’s Darkness

March 20, 2013 By 25 Comments
DarkForest

Via Slacktivist, I came across an interesting essay by Greg Boyd, Getting Honest about the Dark Side of the Bible. (You might remember Boyd as one of the theologians interviewed in Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ, as well as his more recent and praiseworthy stand against the use of Christianity to support American imperial militarism.) I have to give Boyd credit for doing something I've rarely seen Christians do: facing up squarely to the dark and savage morality of the Bible. In his post, … [Read more...]

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No Greater Power

January 24, 2013 By 26 Comments
PlanetEdge

When you arise from the abyssal depths of self-chosen slavery, when you step out from the obscuring shadow of superstition, you begin to see the world as it truly is. And with the clear sight that atheism grants, the next step follows naturally. Once we know what beliefs are false, we have to begin the much harder task of discovering what's true. I'd like to offer a signpost in that quest. As human beings, we find ourselves in a world not of our own making. But although we didn't choose it, … [Read more...]

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The Delusion of a Just World

October 3, 2011 By 41 Comments

You've probably heard religious apologists assert that if God didn't exist, the world would be an unjust place where some people were never rewarded or punished as their behavior deserved. (They usually hold back from explicitly stating the conclusion, "Therefore, God must exist, because it would make us very sad if he didn't," probably out of subconscious recognition that this would make the fallacy too obvious.) As prominent a religious figure as Pope Benedict has endorsed this … [Read more...]

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They Have No Answer

July 28, 2011 By

The other day, I came across an essay titled "Staining the Silence" on Vox Nova, a Catholic group blog. The author, Mark Gordon, writes about how his son was deployed to combat in Iraq in 2007, how he feared for his safety as any parent would, and how at first he prayed every day for his son's safe return. But as time went by, he found himself unable to avoid an obvious and unpleasant realization: tens of thousands of parents, despite offering countless prayers of their own, had seen their sons … [Read more...]

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From the Mailbag: Shedding the Burden of Suffering

July 15, 2011 By 8 Comments

Earlier this week, I got a lengthy letter whose author gave me permission to share it with you: Dear Ebonmusings: I gave a glimpse to your musing about the carrot and the stick - I didn't expect it to talk about morality, mainly because I realized that the latest part of my life as a christian was about pursuing a carrot and a stick.* Allow me to share my story. Sorry if it's a bit depressing, but I can assure you that I'm much better now (and much better than before, since I embraced … [Read more...]

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Theodicy Is Useful in Everyday Life

April 1, 2011 By 32 Comments

So, I've been debating Catholic commenters on Unequally Yoked again, and I came across a comment that was so astute, so unusually perceptive, that I just had to share it. The war with the Canaanites is really just a specialization of the problem of suffering, right? Why does a good God allow suffering, which is presumably evil. The short answer (from a Catholic perspective) is that we don't know... Nonetheless, it is not the knock-down blow that atheists tend to present it as. It is at least … [Read more...]

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Weekly Link Roundup

August 27, 2010 By 10 Comments

• President Obama signs a law to fight British libel tourism by barring such judgments from being enforced in the U.S. • My esteemed guest author, Sarah Braasch, has an article in the latest issue of The Humanist on the French burqa ban. • After a scary brush with mortality, everyone's favorite squid-loving atheist professor is back in action. Visit his blog and leave some get-well-soon comments! • Did a Catholic priest carry out an IRA bombing? And if so, did the church … [Read more...]

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The Poisoned Cup of Theodicy

January 25, 2010 By 39 Comments

The world has seen and heard enough about the misery and destruction in Haiti this past week that I don't think I need to dwell on it. But I do want to take some time to address the perennial question of theodicy, which comes up in the aftermath of every disaster like this. To an atheist, for whom the Haiti quake was nothing more than the result of tectonic plates slipping - a disaster caused by impersonal natural forces and random chance - there is nothing to explain. The laws of the cosmos … [Read more...]

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A Dialogue with Quixote, Part VII

August 30, 2009 By 12 Comments

Hello Quixote, Considering your last letter to me was some time ago, I apologize for the lateness of my reply. To tell the truth, this was the hardest one for me to write. It's not that I couldn't think of anything to say. Much the opposite: If I had said everything I wanted to say, this post would have been too long! Cutting it down to a reasonable length was more of a struggle than writing it. I've endeavored to edit in a way that does justice to your points and to mine. I also want to say … [Read more...]

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