Notice something interesting about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings? Atheists are nowhere to be found. Every time there is a public gathering there is talk of God and divine mercy and spiritual healing. Even secular people like the poet Nikki Giovanni use language that is heavily drenched with religious symbolism and meaning.
The atheist writer Richard Dawkins has observed that according to the findings of modern science, the universe has all the properties of a system that is utterly devoid of meaning. The main characteristic of the universe is pitiless indifference. Dawkins further argues that we human beings are simply agglomerations of molecules, assembled into functional units over millennia of natural selection, and as for the soul--well, that's an illusion!
To no one's surprise, Dawkins has not been invited to speak to the grieving Virginia Tech community. What this tells me is that if it's difficult to know where God is when bad things happen, it is even more difficult for atheism to deal with the problem of evil. The reason is that in a purely materialist universe, immaterial things like good and evil and souls simply do not exist. For scientific atheists like Dawkins, Cho's shooting of all those people can be understood in this way--molecules acting upon molecules.
If this is the best that modern science has to offer us, I think we need something more than modern science.
Reader Comments ( Page 25 of 26)
361. Wow, just came across this. Really gives some insight as to the utter depravity of DD. Good to see most believers standing beside the non-believers here. (except for the one saying Cho must have been atheist because no christian could act that way)
a born atheist at 10:34AM on Dec 20th 2007
362. I try to respect the beliefs (or non-beliefs) of others and I'm not trying to debate this with anyone, but I'd like to share my concept of why "God isn't there" when bad things happen. It's very similar to the way we don't arrest a person because they MIGHT commit a crime. That person can't be held accountable and be punished for something they haven't done.
Denise at 12:21PM on Dec 20th 2007
363. "Evil comes from good" ST.Thomas Aquinas
KIRO at 1:37PM on Dec 21st 2007
364.
Dinesh.
You are such a dishonest idiot.
oldlawyer at 2:54AM on Dec 28th 2007
365. . your argument does not stand at all. where are the cops when the shooting first happened? where are the christians when the shooting happened? where was god when shooting happened? where the hell were you when it happened. yea thats what i thought, up here on at the computer screen writing a freaking blog. stop blaming everyone else for what has happened. you know what happened? the guy was crazy and no buddy knew, thats what happened. period. nothing else.
Well lara, I would like to state that your argument does not stand. The Xians were in their school, Xians were in the hallways, God was feeling the pain of the people dying Atheist and Xian alike. The cops were at their jobs, I was in my classroom and then I was on my knees praying. And about Kim being crazy and no one knowing, his teachers and psychiatrists made comments about his unstable mental attitude. So let me assert this, Evolution is keeping serial killers alive.
Natural selection takes a genetic fluke from a sequence and preserves it for the betterment of mankind. There have been serial killers for as long as the earth has been around,to humor you (~4.7billion years) so If i look at it from a naturalistic view I see that Natural selection has chosen the sociopathic genetic fluke and preserved it for society today. Therefore, Evolution is the Cause for mass murder. !)avid
David Miller at 9:59AM on Jan 4th 2008
366. I agree. The non-religious should have a more cohesive structure for dealing with tragedy, influencing politics, and moving society forward. Time is on our side. Religions come and go.
http://www.atheistrevolution.com
Atheist at 3:22PM on Jan 5th 2008
367. Notice something interesting about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings? God is nowhere to be found. Every time there is a public gathering there is only talk of God and divine mercy and spiritual healing, but he was not there when needed... Even Christian people like the author Dinesh D'souza are realistic enough to understand that you call the police first and pray later after their fellow humans have done everything possible to supply real support and protection.
The Christian writer Dinesh D'souza has observed that according to the findings of ancient religions, the universe has all the properties of a system designed by a supreme being that supplies all of the meaning needed for man, that he need not think for himself.. The main characteristic of the universe is complete obsession with the welfare of man. D'souza further argues that we human beings are the handiwork of an omnipotent, omnipresent, loving, caring god, and as for the soul--well, that's a given.!
To no one's surprise, Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist church has has not been invited to speak to the grieving Virginia Tech community and explain to them that this is an example of Gods' wrath because they are a bunch of Godless Perverted Sodomites. What this tells me is that if it's difficult to know where God is when bad things happen, it is even more difficult for religion to deal with the problem of evil. The reason is that in a purely materialist universe, immaterial things like good and evil and souls simply do not exist. For writers like D'souza, Cho's shooting of all those people can be understood in this way—God works in mysterious ways.
If this is the best that ancient religion has to offer us, I think Christianity needs to make up something new..
“ The Anti-theist “
Steephen at 4:10PM on Jan 8th 2008
368. well i find this very interesting dinesh brings up a good point but as a christian I have to ask myself where is God in all this. Ihope i Never stop asking that question. I feel that sometimes the answer of where was god when this happened is too easily answered by wait and see but I have to say to myself that there is reason for terrible tradgedy to happen. For me it comes down to the original sin of Adam and Eve. As i think about the views of evil that are different for athirsts as opposed to Christians I can't help but think that we have it right because I believe that under athiesm there can be no good. What appears to be good is only selfish good.
John at 12:57PM on Jan 12th 2008
369. You silly people here want to blame God every time something bad happens but otherwise you want no part of Him in your lives (nor in anyone else's).
Evil exists in the world because mankind allows it to exist by our choices. It exists because sin exists. Even if God did intervene every time some evil person decides to commit an evil act, and supernaturally intervened to stop it, you would not give Him credit for it. You'd gloss over the facts/proof that something supernatural occurred to save lives and just call it luck or chance.
This happens all the time in the secular/liberal media. Miraculous things do happen, but it's durned near impossible to find that out by searching through the secular media. It takes real journalists who are not afraid of the truth, going to the source-to those who were involved or affected by the events for one-on-one interviews. I have seen this happen over and over and over. The real story behind the story is virtually ignored by mainstream press.
Your argument that God does not exist because evil exists is tired, illogical, and stupid. Give it up.
Louise CA at 1:39PM on Mar 2nd 2008
370. the person commited the killings because somewhere along his journey to adulthood someone failed to instill in him goodness for himeself and others. the human person has to be nurtured to do good and it is the responsibility of everyone.
eugenia at 1:09PM on Mar 5th 2008
371. John 3:3 "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
Luke 6:27 "Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you."
II Timothy 4:3,4 “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”
II Timothy 3:1-5,7 "But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of god; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."
John 3:19 "And this is the condemnation, that men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."
Luke 21:28 "But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."
Gabriel at 9:39PM on Apr 3rd 2008
372. although I am a fan of Mr. D'Souza's work (I just picked up "The End of Racism" yesterday and can't put it down!), I fail to see the connection he makes here. Since I ascribe to no particular belief system (including atheism), I feel that I am in a unique position to comment about both sides. Petty outbursts like this one only fuel the atheist position; as a political analyst, Mr. D'Souza should recognize this. The problem with both athiests and believers is that they argue from a Biblical persepective (by this I include the Torah and Koran). Both believers like Dinesh and non-believers like, let's say, Christopher Hitchens, see god(s) as divine dictator(s). The smartest scientists since the Enlightenment have all been deists, which coincidentaly, makes the most sense. Atheists love to pull the "well where did god come from" card, without once considering that perhaps s/he evolved the same way consciousness evolved. For the believers, this is not a good answer because the word "evolve" comes into play. Both sides need to grow up just a wee bit and start asking the questions that actually matter: Did Jesus exist? Don't know, and either way, does it matter? Does the lack of a Christ dispell the existance of a god? Did humans evolve out of single celled organisms? Yes, but why does that negate the idea of a god? Both sides market-yes MARKET-laughable positions, which only serve further human divisivness. Now I ask you: IS this what athiests and believers want? I would suspect that atheists want camaraderie to prove that it can exist without a cosmic moral dictator; and I presume believers should want this because anything that seperates humans (and remember, according to their position "god is in all of us") cannot be good for the whole. Sorry to disturb both the believers and the non-believers, but pointing out human inconsistancy is, for some reason, what I do best.
psillytom at 11:07PM on Apr 17th 2008
373. Judging from the comments posted the reason atheists are nowhere to be found and are not invited in, in the aftermath of tragedy is because that much sanctimonious callousness and bitterness would simply not be tolerated by those who have lost loved ones.
The atheist answer would seem to be, life is hell, then you die, get over it, they were just dirt anyway.
Brass at 12:32AM on Apr 27th 2008
374. Wow. I'd like to point out that I'm an Atheist and probably the most empathetic person I know. Simply because I do not subscribe to other's beliefs about their imaginary friends does not make me heartless. I believe that not only can science provide us with evidence that there is no god, but that it can also provide us with the reasons that we humans tend to care for one another, fall in love and feel pain and outrage when something like the Virginia Tech shooting occurs. I found this article pointless, hurtful and horribly insulting. Even worse were some of the comments that were left. Sorry to sound so hateful, but I'm sick and tired of being judged for not believing in magic. I guarantee you that I know more about your own religion than you do and I can show you a million and one reasons why you look like an idiot. I have no problem with people who want to continue to have faith. But don't act like you have good evidence. Don't act like you're a good person simply because you go to church. And don't assume that I don't care when someone dies. Because I will rip you a new one. Go do some research and maybe discover for yourself why some people don't think your reasons for believing are sufficient. Shouldn't the fact that I denounce God be enough reason for you to want to know more? Or would you rather sit in your box and pretend nothing's wrong?
Sam at 1:20PM on May 5th 2008
375. You talk about how you are insulted when people assume you don't care about when a person dies or believe that you are "heartless," but you aren't being any more tolerant than they are. I am fairly certain that my religious friends would be extremely insulted, as you refer to religion as "magic" and "imaginary friends"--that people who believe in any religion are "idiots."
People who have faith do not have faith because they have evidence. The fact that there is no evidence and yet they continue to believe is what FAITH is. I'm not religious--I'm not atheist, and I try to look at things like this from both sides of the spectrum.
D'Souza wasn't saying that you have to have religion in order to have compassion and emotions. He was saying that if people believe we are just a horrible accident that just happened to end up in the universe, then why does it matter if I shoot somebody--they are just another accident, just like me. We just came out of the same slime pit at the beginning of time, so killing them isn't a crime at all. "Molecules acting on molecules." If that's how modern science is being interpreted, then something more, WITH modern science--to give life meaning--would be nice.
Rachael Todd at 5:24PM on May 21st 2008