In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, JMike, The Godless Engineer, and Kelley Laughlin take on a variety of challenging and fun calls.
Tommi in Portugal wants to talk about the problem of evil and considers it to be the greatest challenge to the Christian faith. Does god desire to have evil in this world? Is it possible for an agent to always make a good choice? Why did god fail in substantiating a world where all the agents always do good? Why is there unnecessary suffering in this world that an omni god created? Is it justice for god to cast a magical incantation on all of humanity just because he got man at someone for eating something? Why does god just not pick the file where everyone makes the right choice?
GB in CA has a question about what effect the White House Faith Office will have on the country. It is a direct violation of the First Amendment and irresponsible to have an office of faith where faith leaders can have influence on our policies. This will result in policies being made that are in alignment with the Bible. How would you feel if decisions were being made based on other faiths like Islam? What if a member of the atheist community influenced the government to allocate religious communities less funding than others? Or make it unlawful to go to church? What parallels can be drawn between the current subject and The Handmaid’s Tale?
Yoshi in TX who is sometimes an atheist and sometimes a theist depending on the definition of god. Being an atheist in respect to a specific god is fine but saying that god is everything is a way to change the subject. Why do we have to rename something god that is already labeled? Defining god in a way that we can neither prove or disprove turns into a semantic game.
Hannah in MS wants to provide a moral argument for the Jewish religion as a foundation for an ethical society. Doesn’t this depend on how much god is worshiped by the society? How can this be explained without using continental philosophy? What context is it okay for an all powerful deity to do what he commanded in Numbers 31:17-18? There is no context where genocide is okay. When everything happens for a reason, things like the Holocaust happen because they ought to happen.
Kelley Laughlin, our backup host, relieves JMike before taking our next caller, Blaine, an atheist in Ca. He asks about people using religion as a cover for bad behavior by cherry picking. This all depends on how they are using their religion. If the religion is used to judge other people or shield bad actions, then it can be problematic as opposed to when people keep it private. When do you think humanity will get to a point where we don’t need magical thinking?
Cade in TX asks for advice on how to deal with the recent loss of his father and dealing with the comments of theists. Kelley shares a personal experience with similar challenges and offers support with empathy. People are just trying to deal with it the best they can and tell you what worked for them to try and provide comfort. Maybe just thanking them for their kind thoughts is all that is needed. Thank you for tuning in this week! Prompt of the week is: If god is so smart, then why is it____?Become a supporter of this podcast:
https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-atheist-experience--3254896/support.
