Hello MM and Big Moose;
Getting back to the verb of this topic, after reading your posts it made me think more. It says to me Atheists are contradicting themselves. They actually name themselves Atheist church in parts of California, Washington, Texas and elsewhere with chapters and visions.
God bless you, brothers.
Bob
Yes, they absolutely are dabbling in the absurd; one reason being that the Greek root word for "church" is ekklesia, which means, "Called out ones." They claim that there is no Deity to "call" anyone out, so why are they using the term "church" if there is no Deity to call them out? Some might admit the drive toward antagonism, but what this does is betray their wickedism dare we put a finger on the -ism at play among them.
Just like much of modern culture, hypocrisy is the main characterization of their values, or lack thereof.
The one thing that actually does underlie much of their reasons for disbelief in God is that they literally hate God. Most will never admit it, just as that professor in God's not Dead II. Many have suffered pain and loss and subsequently falling victim to the irrational question of, "If God is so powerful and good, then why does He allow such suffering." Others are nothing more than rebellious bandwagoneers.
I heard William Lane Craig in a video the other day grappling with the "problem of harm" question that so many ask, and he claimed that there are not "simple" answers, and therefore this being a complex topic. Well, within the framework of trying to pacify as many people's feelings, he launched into a massive dissertation in an attempt to hit as many "targets" as possible in his lengthy answer, which I found highly dissatisfying and crass because of it hitting every margin of the target paper outside of the bullseye.
One need only consider the alternative to God allowing suffering and evil. Were evil not present, then what better alternative could there be to test people for their chosen character. The outflow of each one's character determines the choices they would make. That is how people are tested, very similar to the parable of the wheat and tares. Jesus spoke of the landowner instructing the harvesters to allow the growth of all the crop so that THEN the good wheat would not be uprooted with the tares until the harvest time where they would THEN be separated and the tares thrown into the fire. Tried and true. Also, the Lord withholding an ability to choose evil would be a level of control over freedom that none would ever want to live under.
The bottom line is that the Lord gave to mankind the guidebook that outlines the only ways to minimize suffering, and yet mankind chooses the path of inflicting evil and suffering upon others. Living under slavery is not what the Lord chose for mankind. Relationship demands freedom, because love offered under the power of force is not love at all. God is of a Character that He desires a level of purity in love that can only arise from freedom. What's unfortunate is that in the midst of suffering and evil, most people can't see the love behind the allowance for such.
Granted...someone suffering greatly may become more "disenchanted" about pursuing God, and thus become more distant from a potential love for God if given that answer, but what they fail to realize is that when they allow the hurt to define for them their own reaction to the stimuli of evil and suffering, they have given themselves over to the very force they loathe. This is one reason Jesus said that we MUST be born again. Suffering and evil are the acid testes for what people are made of, and if the settled upon inner stuff of a man or woman be inferior, then it is like the sacrificial animals for the nation's sins, which had to be without blemish as a closer representation of Christ. The blemish of compromises is not the kinds of people He wants in His Kingdom. No king wants a servant in his palace who might put a knife in his back, or poison in his food and drink. All must be tried and true, and this world of evil and suffering is the perfect means by which that testing is achieved. Nothing else would work.
MM