The wrong answers...

Unsurprisingly, when people ask the wrong question, they will get the wrong answer.

After my last post, the responses were variations on the usual theme of "People suffer because we live in a fallen sinful world, and this is a necessary condition for free will".


So, first of all: When that's your response to hearing about the suffering and deaths of innocent people who have never done anything sinful - people who not only have never chosen to harm a fellow being but PHYSICALLY LACK THE CAPACITY to make choices or cause harm - what you're really saying is that the innocent suffer because of the crimes of the guilty.

That's not untrue, mind you - the innocent DO suffer for the crimes of the guilty. Happens all the time. But that's not an argument FOR the existence of a just and merciful god; it's an argument AGAINST such a being existing. 


Second: Jesus himself refutes the argument that suffering is the result of sin. A man born blind is brought to him, and his disciples ask whether the man or his parents sinned to cause this. Jesus responds that neither the man nor his parents sinned, but it happened so that God could be glorified in his healing. In other words: "No, he didn't suffer because he did something wrong. He suffered so I could impress you all with my cool magic trick when I finally got around to relieving his suffering".

That... is so much WORSE. A god who let people suffer because of evil deeds might possibly make sense; much less so if it wasn't their OWN evil deeds; but this is a god who actually causes the suffering for the purpose of getting beings inferior to himself to stroke his ego and tell him how cool he is for making the suffering stop.

That is a level of depravity so absolute that I can't even come up with an English word to describe it. The Christian god is somehow even MORE evil than the Christian devil. The stories talk about how Satan will steal, kill, and destroy... but even Satan doesn't expect his victims to be grateful when he takes a break from doing those things to them. The Christian God apparently DOES. 

How did billions of people end up with an imaginary friend who is even more horrifying than their imaginary enemy?


But while it's worth pointing out the logical inconsistencies between the Bible and reality, and between both of those things and the idea of a loving and just god... those aren't even the main point where the people who responded to my post got the wrong answer.


There is only one possible right answer when someone tells you "I'm angry about the shittiness of a world in which innocent people I care about are dying for no good reason, shit like this is why I can't believe in the existence of a good god". The correct answer is "You're right, that is shitty. I'm so sorry you're dealing with that." The correct answer is not to defend your invisible friend (who in theory is all-powerful and can defend himself if he feels like it). The correct answer is to offer empathy. 

Moreover, the people who got it wrong here KNOW that ordinarily. I've seen them being empathetic to others, even at times when they were themselves deeply suffering. These are seriously good people, and if asked they would give their religion credit for that fact. But as soon as their religious beliefs got involved, this religion that supposedly is about compassion actually made them respond with LESS compassion than they normally would. 


Because asking the wrong question will always lead you to the wrong answer.



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