This picture made its way onto a few blogs a little while back:
I've read several comments about this picture, including a few protests that this is an "appeal to emotion" rather than logic.
Of course there is an appeal to your emotions here. Too many times I see Christians put on their philosopher's hats and argue about how "evil is god's way of testing us" or "suffering is the result of sin," but they've never really experienced this suffering they claim to know so much about. This isn't about feelings overriding thinking, but being able to think accurately about this issue. Most people who have the luxury of waxing philosophical about suffering and evil have never experienced it "in the flesh." If the problem of evil doesn't make a theist lose a little sleep at night, then that person needs to get out of the comfortable little bubble in which he lives and see what's going on in the world.
Along those lines, I have to ask: Who is making the appeal here? I don't know who created this picture. It could have easily come from a Christian who's fed up with seeing his brothers and sisters in Christ acting so egocentric that they actually think god is more concerned about finding their car keys than he is about dealing with poverty and famine.
This image isn't just about the so-called "problem of evil." This picture is a commentary on how most people pray. They thank god when their sports team wins, or when the weather is nice on the day of their church picnic, or when they find a parking space close to the grocery store, as though god is concerned enough about these trivial details to make an already secure person's life just a little more secure while other people who aren't quite so secure are suffering and dying from disease, famine, war, abuse. Is god too busy helping Agnes find a nice parking spot to trouble himself with all that?
I've heard Christians argue: "You're just a human. God is above you. You can't understand the ways of God. Who are you to question god?" My only response to that is: "You're just a human too! You can't understand god, but you'll accept that somehow all the suffering in the world is a part of this 'mysterious' plan of god, and you never question it? If I can't question god's motives concerning suffering and evil because 'god is beyond human understanding,' then you can't condemn me to hell or try to tell me what the will or decree of this god is, because you're just as human as I am, and the will of this god is just as much beyond your understanding as it is mine."
Hell, one look at the starving, dying child in this picture should be enough to make any human revoke her church membership and confess agnosticism openly. Seriously, look at that child again. How the hell can you explain this? You can't. God certainly is mysterious. He's so mysterious that he might as well not exist at all.
Everyone is agnostic. Some just don't want to admit it.
Dead-Logic.com
