Steve Hays responds to Peter Enn’s shallow theodicy:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/01/in-moments-like-these.html
Hays’ third point is especially poignant:
iii) More to the point, suppose a believer fail the test of faith in the face of Sandy Hook? What’s the significance of dead children from a godless perspective?
Kids are merely biological replacement units. Had they lived, they would have procreated their own replacement units, and so it goes–like a vending machine that keeps dispensing chilled soda pop after everyone was incinerated by a thermonuclear device.
Natural selection has brainwashed us into valuing kids because that delusive, reflexive, instinctive sentiment confers a survival value on the species. But our tender feelings are the result of psychological manipulation by a mindless, pitiless, uncaring process.
From a secular standpoint, we’re like ants whose anthill was overtaken by wildfire. The anthill is littered with dead ants. Fried by the wildfire. The surviving ants are in disarray. Above it all and through it all, the universe remains supremely indifferent.
If atheism is true, then when we die, it’s like putting a match to a strip of paper. The flame works itself up from one end to the other, reducing all our memories to ashes.
So, no, moments like these don’t test my faith. Not in the slightest.
Apostates are a living contradiction. Their scruples lead them out of Christianity. And so they take their precious scruples with them. They transplant their scruples to the dry, rocky, barren ground of atheism. But their scruples have no air, water, sunshine or nutrients to survive in a godless environment. That’s just a hangover from their abandoned faith.
