Perplextus
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Why I Became an Atheist pt. 2: Failed Theodicies
« on: 2007-01-12 13:50:23 » |
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Continued from part one, divided to make debate simpler (if anyone wishes to debate me, that is)
Back to the question of "Why did Mommy die?" A question that, in similar form, has come back to me lately when discovering that one of my friends is HIV-positive, and two others, a family friend (the mother of the first friend I ever made in life) and an old school chum, both have terminal cancer. The question isn't why do they have to die, but "Why NOW?" Why are their lives cut so short and visited with so much suffering? What answer can an Atheist give to take the place of "because it is God's will, which we must learn to accept and understand"? There is no direct equivalent. The answer given is not given to provide an "easy way out", nor to give a metaphysical focus for one's grief. One cannot ask "Why does this person have to die NOW?" and expect a meaningful answer that will help them with their grief, that will give some kind of moral justification to that person's death.
Theodicies typically serve to tell people that "death is okay, because there is a good reason for it: God's reason." Theodicies enable people to look at the deaths of loved ones as a transaction between themselves and God; God took this person from me, so that I could (learn this lesson, be punished for something I did, enter into these circumstances which enabled me to do this particular good action, etc. etc.). The death is balanced out on some sort of scale, so far as the believer is concerned. This lessens their grief, because "it had to be this way"--it was a necessary cost.
An Atheist cannot tell bereaved people what specific meaning the death of their loved ones had. However, what they can say is actually not very different from a traditional theodicy: "you must find meaning YOURSELF in this death, so that it can strengthen your life and your will to live. Only if you find meaning in so-and-so's death will their death have been for something." In either case (Theist or Atheist), it is up to the person who suffered the loss to discover what the loss was for (God certainly never comes to a believer and tells them, though many interpret their own process of rationality as the voice of God). The only difference is that in one case, GOD made this turn of events come about, whereas in the other, it just happened.
In other words, saying that the Universe doesn't have a "lesson plan" doesn't mean learning is impossible. It's just that we have to teach ourselves, use our innate cognitive powers to give meaning and order to the events of our lives and those of the lives that surround us. It doesn't matter if there is no God to give reason to the obstacles in our path: we can give reason to them ourselves! Indeed, if there WAS a God, couldn't we question His reasons for forcing us to undergo these transactions? Suppose we'd prefer the life of a loved one to whatever was gained by their death? How selfish would that God be to deny and ignore our desires for His own ends? As it did in my case, these theodicies can easily result in feelings of antipathy for the "Creator and Ruler" of the Universe, making one into a hostile and angry person who refuses to accept any gains and meaning from a loved one's death. In discovering that it was my own choice and responsibility to find meaning in the death of my loved ones, and that the point of that meaning must always be to strengthen my love of life--of this short, frail, physical existence--I realized that God is irrelevant. Well, it took a little help from Nietzsche and Sartre to put those pieces together...those two authors did more to help me cope with my grief than the bible ever did.
That is why I find Atheism superior in dealing with grief. Kenneth, I hope I have shown you conclusively that Atheism provides the most effective tools for dealing with grief and loss (one of the fields you considered religion to be inarguably superior in).
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