One of the most significant theological problems for most traditional monotheistic religions is the experience of suffering: if there is a god which is perfectly good and all-powerful, why is there so much human suffering? Even if it could be argued that suffering is unavoidable, it's harder to argue that the amount of suffering that does exist is unavoidable. Is it really not possible for there to be less?

Crispin Sartwell writes in The Philadelphia Inquirer

Perhaps the most famous theological attempt to deal with the problem of suffering is the doctrine of original sin associated with St. Augustine, among others. Cutting to the chase, the idea is that we are all born already deserving to suffer and die, so when a baby gets crushed, she's getting just what she deserves.

In that case, what is puzzling is that some people get better than they deserve, and indeed, the problem of pleasure is the obverse of the problem of suffering: It often appears that the evil prosper. But, in any case, I would like you to try to entertain in all seriousness the idea that babies deserve slow, agonizing death. If you get that far, try to convince yourself that a universe in which this is so is the best possible universe: that is, a universe created by a perfectly good and all-powerful being.

If you merely tell me that despite everything 2005 threw at you, you have faith, and that you cannot really explain in what or why, there is nothing I can say to stop you. There is something touching in the sheer perversity of your position.

I'm rather surprised the Sartwell's article was published — we don't normally see such forcefully expressed criticism of religion generally and faith in particular in the mainstream press. It's far more common to read platitudes about the value of faith and the importance of having faith in some sort of supernatural order to the universe — any sort of faith, just so long as you aren't a materialist, a skeptic, and an atheist.

I wonder how many angry letters The Philadelphia Inquirer received from people upset that their faith is ultimately an exercise in moral and epistemological perversity?

 

Read More:

• Critical Thinking
• Religion 101
• Theism 101
• Does God Exist?