The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.
--Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden
And boy the atheists are up in arms! They're mad as hell about my post "Where is Atheism When Bad Things Happen." Many responders informed me that tragedies are normally considered a problem for religion, not atheism. Where is God when bad things happen? Yes, people, I know this. My point was that if evil and suffering are a problem for religion--and they are--they are an even bigger problem for atheism.
The reason is suggested from the quotation given above. When there is a tragedy like the one at Virginia Tech, the ones who are suffering cannot help asking questions, "Why did this have to happen?" "Why is there so much evil in the world?" "How can I possibly go on after losing my child?" And so on.
In my post I noted that Richard Dawkins had not been invited to address the mourners at Virginia Tech. Several atheists--who haven't yet lost their fundamentalist habit of reading--took this sarcastic statement literally. "So what? The Pope hasn't been invited either!" My point was that atheism has nothing to offer in the face of tragedy except C'est la vie. Deal with it. Get over it. This is why the ceremonies were suffused with religious rhetoric. Only the language of religion seems appropriate to the magnitude of tragedy. Only God seems to have the power to heal hearts in such circumstances. If someone started to read from Dawkins on why there is no good and no evil in the universe, people would start vomiting or leaving.
One clever writer informs me that atheists don't deny meaning, they simply insist that meaning is not inherent in the universe, it is created by us. Okay, pal, here's the Virginia Tech situation. Go create some meaning and share it with the rest of us Give us that atheist sermon with you in the pulpit of the campus chapel. I'm not being facetious here. I really want to hear what the atheist would tell the grieving mothers.
Reader Comments ( Page 4 of 10)
46. Maybe being religious isn't so bad.
Cultural conservatives spend most of the week eschewing Jesus' admonitions to worry about the poor and just act as rational economic animals. Then, on the weekend, they go to a big, pointy house and sit on weird chairs and sing off-key to some invisible guy that they're sure exists, even though they'd never say they've seen him.
Secular liberals spend their time growing the government so that it can redistribute stuff to the poor, which makes everyone want to work less. But they watch "Pan's Labyrinth" on Sunday.
So at least cultural conservatives confine their irrationality to the weekend.
lil_turk at 5:27AM on Apr 20th 2007
47. If Dinesh D'Souza has any decency he'd read this and then announce his apologies and vow of silence:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,904,n,n
Hugo at 5:59AM on Apr 20th 2007
48. You sir, are a jackass.
I'm an atheist, and I live just thirty minutes down the road from Virginia Tech. I have neighbors who lost a kid. I have friends that recently graduated and lost classmates. I don't appreciate your sorry attempt at using their loss to score points.
You want to know what an atheist says to a greiving mother? Try "I'm just so sorry for your loss; is their anything at all I can do for you?"
And that's a hell of a lot more than your god is gonna do.
PS - oh and by the way... the killer came from a nice, church-going family. It looks like God missed his opportunity to prevent some of this.
ronbailey at 6:01AM on Apr 20th 2007
49. Say, D, what do they pay you to do at Stanford? Apparently it has nothing to do with thinking.
Grown up people are grieving, here, and you are spouting inanities about atheism. If you mean that "God" comforts people in tragedy with bromides of an afterlife, well, fine. Nice to believe that the murdered students and professros are not in oblivion; but don't you also believe that unless one is "saved" then they are headed to Hell? How comforting is that? And are you going to call the families of the Unsaved and tell them their children are now in eternal torment?
Mike Haubrich at 6:53AM on Apr 20th 2007
50. Dear Mr D'Souza,
I am so grateful that we are separated by the atlantic ocean. Anything less and the stench of your vile bigotry would be overwhelming.
GeneMachine at 6:55AM on Apr 20th 2007
51. If a friend or family member experienced tragedy and came to you for comfort, would you use the opportunity to try to score political points? If the answer is no (as I sincerely hope it is), then don't the grieving friends and families of those who were murdered at Virginia Tech deserve the same respect and consideration from you?
Anyone with a heart and a brain, religious or not, who has read your last two columns must be sending you the same mental message now: Please stop this inappropriate, heartless and disgusting behavior.
jud at 1:44PM on Apr 23rd 2007
52. Dinesh, you owe atheists in general and Professor Dawkins specifically a sincere apology for your words. Most of all, you should apologize to the friends and families of the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre.
You owe atheists an apology for characterizing us as uncaring wretches with no humanity. Do you think we don't know what it is like to suffer loss? Do you truly believe that we lack the capacity for pity, or a desire and ability to help others with their grief? Because this is the ugly, hateful message you are conveying.
You should apologize to Richard Dawkins for your blatantly and shamelessly misleading headline and taking statements made about "god" and "the universe" and applying them to PEOPLE.
You owe everyone who is grieving for the victims an apology for your complete lack of tact and consideration in exploiting this tragedy to spew your bigoted nonsense against atheists.
In the meantime, don't worry, I won't be holding my breath.
Robert Bell at 7:33AM on Apr 20th 2007
53. Dawkins never said 'Get over it'.
Geez... what he was saying was in a book written before this happened, and taken out of context.
And here's what he'd say:
http://edge.org/documents/adams_index.html
Which is what he said when one of his friends died.
Atheists are capable of all the feelings everyone else is. They don't need faith to tell them to be sad or how to deal with a problem. We all have our ways of dealing, be it god, a good friend, or whatever, and everyone is different.
So, I say to you, 'Get over' the atheists and stop using them as a spring board for your propaganda.
Kimberly at 8:18AM on Apr 20th 2007
54. Shortly after becoming an atheist I lost my best friend. I was angry and bitter for a while. I thought that I would go through life enduring the pain of losing those I loved over and over again until it was me who died. Was this all I had to look forward to? Slowly I began to realize that his death had taught me something. Life is only valuable if it ends. Diamonds are valuable because they are rare. Life is too. We have it for a few precious years and it is gone forever. Thinking we have eternity in a better place really does cheapen this life. It makes it virtually meaningless. But knowing this is all we have makes it infinitely more valuable. Treasure your friends and family because they will one day die, or you will die. A mass shooting is a hard thing to understand. But ask the old man whose wife dies of cancer if it is any easier for him. Ask the parents of a war hero if their childs death was easier to cope with because they died serving a purpose. Death is painful to us all, and the reason, Dinesh, is that we all know it is permanent. You are right that I have no words to offer to take away the pain of those grieving for their friends and family. But I can point to those lives and say look what we had! ...even if only for a while...and point to those remaining friends and family and say...look at all that we have left, right here, right now, love each other today because tomorrow....well, love each otther today because we don't know about tomorrow.
Wayne at 8:13AM on Apr 20th 2007
55. Sean,
Namaste means something like, "May the divine in me salute the divine in you," according to my Yoga instructor (I go for the exercise, not for the religion, which is the new fad of the post-Christians in the West).
So if you don't believe in God, what is the divine stuff you are saluting?
I can respect atheists for their honest clarity of observation that God is not readily apparent in our lives. What I don't respect is their so obvious anger at those who do believe. Believers, for the most part, are willing to sacrifice for others because of God's commands. Atheists are inconsistent in being moral (where do they get their morals except derivitively from religion?). They should only grab for the most gusto and let lesser folk fall by the wayside because they only live once.
Believers give of themselves precisely because we we know that the Christian God expects this of us and will reward us with His presence and love eternally if we live according to His precepts. It is this service above and beyond the requirements of work for personal survival that adds to the comfort and delights of this otherwise harsh world.
Atheism, as practiced by its experts, totalitarians, is what made the 20th century a horror of concentration camps and killing fields.
Margaret at 9:21AM on Apr 20th 2007
56. you should be ashamed your yourself Mr D'Souza. You are trying to suck attention from this tradgedy. You are using this aweful circumstance as a way to stroke your own ego.
Religious people say "bad things happen, but there is still comfort in the world" Atheists say " Bad things happen, but there is still comfort in the world." An atheist is just as likely to offer condolences and help where needed, than any theist is.
Your making this tradgedy into an oppertunity to spew contempt is a sin.
Denise at 9:27AM on Apr 20th 2007
57. Mr. D'Souza,
Using the fresh corpses of 30+ murder victims as a soapbox to rail against a small minority of people, completely unrelated to the tragedy at hand is ghoulish. (Ghoulish was the kindest word I could come up with. Asshattery of the highest magnitude was the runner up.) How do you sleep at night? I know the Cons pay their shills well, but how many sleeping pills can one man take?
Emma> An Ad Hominem attack is a personal attack to discredit one's position. I.E. "Darwin beat puppies, so evolution is as wrong as beating puppies." or "Copernicus molested children, so anyone who agrees with heliocentrism is a child molester." From what I have read here, the overwhelming majority of the "pro-atheist" have responded to the accusations leveled against us politely. There has been some name calling, but no Ad Hominem attacks. Some _return_ name calling. Mr. D'Souza basically called all atheists unfeeling monsters. (Which would be an Ad Hominem attack. BTW)
Roger Born> Perhaps a peek at a dictionary (under rhetorical question) might enlighten you? You are also very liberal in granting yourself the authority to determine what questions people may or may not ask. Could you make a list of other things that us mean, misguided atheists can't ask? Thanks. [/sarcasm]
The gentleman who said that atheists didn't grasp the subtle points that Mr. D'Souza was making about what atheism necessarily entails> I find your arrogance 2nd only to Mr. D'Souza's in this. I think that someone living in (very Christian) America as an atheist has a much better working grasp of what logically entails from it than someone who only has a caricature in their mind. (formed by listening to people who only know the caricature themselves.)
People,
It is the 21st Century. If you want to base your lives on Bronze Age creation myths, fine. If you want the laws of our mutual country to be based on your Bronze Age creation myth, and determine what gets taught in our schools, what research is allowed, and every other thing imaginable, we have a problem.
Through out history, people have been rightly afraid to openly declare themselves atheist. However, at least in this part of the world, the tide has turned. You are no longer allowed to burn witches, pagans, appostates, and heretics. According to the last survey I read, almost 15% of the country was atheist. We're out of the closet, and we're not going to be quiet anymore.
I hope that someday, as a species, we can get over our "Invisible Man in the Sky" fixation. We are just not important enough, in the cosmic scheme of things, to warrant considering ourselves the center of everything. We are basically smart(ish) primates, who just a few thousand years ago figured out that rocks with metal in them melt and metal can be useful in making tools. 400 years ago, we were figuring out that the Earth revolves around the sun. People were made to recant on pain of torture. In the 200 years or so that we have had the Scientific Method our progress has been swift and steadily increasing. In the 2000 years of Christianity, we see nothing to equal it. Only when our minds are free to ask questions are we free to find answers.
In short: We're not inhuman monsters, just people. Sometimes we get a little snippy when we are called names by a for-hire hack. Many of us refuse to be silent anymore regarding our demonization. Religion is not a magic potion for pain. Rational thought has contributed more to the world and the betterment of it's people in 200 years than all the world religions have in the last 10,000.
Thank you for the chance to vent.
BE
BEpps at 9:27AM on Apr 20th 2007
58. Poor Margaret,
You seem to be blinded by faith. Atheists give of themselves because its the human thing to do, its the moral thing to do, its the right thing to do. Atheists do not give of themselves, unlike "Believers", because they expect a reward at a later time. To do right simply because a reward MIGHT be forthcoming doesn't sound very moral or humane.
Further, lets not try to drag around "Atheism as practiced by its experts..." unless you are willing to dive into more than 4,000 years of world history where the various religious sects have killed one another in the name of the favored god at that time: Crusades, Inquisition, Dark Ages, slavery as justified by the many religions throughout history... we could go on and on.
Scott at 9:57AM on Apr 20th 2007
59. To Margaret
"Atheists are inconsistent in being moral (where do they get their morals except derivitively from religion?)."
What????? Give us a break!
Go to the Library and read "How the mind works" by Steven Pinker!!!
Juliana at 9:57AM on Apr 20th 2007
60. Well, I can tell you where the atheists aren't-
They aren't ghoulishly co-opting this tragedy in order to spread lies and straw-man arguments that paint an entire class of people as nihilistic, emotionally dead shoulder-shruggers based on nothing more than a theological preference.
I'm curious, does it occur to you that it is very likely that any number of those grieving family members you are so callously turning into fodder for this little screed may well be these terrible unbelivers you hold in such disdain? That it is even possible that some of the victims of this madman- you you may remember him, the _actual_ bad guy in all this- that some of those self-same victims might in fact be atheists themselves?
And what do you, the oh-so-concerned spokesperson for all that is right, offer them? Besides taking all their very real pain, wadding it up, and discarding it as an irrelevant, impossible sham- because they don't believe in your god.
All under a headline that is nothing more than slander dressed up as cleverness.
But I will admit, you have shown us something important here- how some people can take any situation, no matter how awful, and twist it to serve whatever political purpose he wants, all through the mechanisims of willful ignorance and intellectual dishonesty.
Thankfully, I'm a big enough person to realize that these traits aren't necessarily characteristics shared by all those on your side of the theological divide. Just the failings of one very intolerant, smarmy little man.
TJ at 10:07AM on Apr 20th 2007