Is evil a problem for atheists?

You can win any argument if you get to dictate the terms. Indeed, if you also get to tell someone what they are arguing, victory becomes even easier.  A recent article on a prominent online Christian news site purported to show how the problem of evil is more of a difficulty for atheists than for Christians. The author's argument relied upon insisting that atheists are self-contradictory because they decry God's apparent lack of ability to deal with evil while insisting that evil does not exist. In the end, he claims that the atheist motto is "there is no God and I hate him." If atheists said the words this author puts in their mouths, I would be inclined to agree, but his claims fall apart under scrutiny.

Many outspoken atheists talk about the problem of evil as an insuperable one for religion. The philosopher David Hume summed it up thus: "Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?" The force of the argument is not that evil disproves the existence of any god, but one that is both omnipotent and benevolent: the type of god worshiped by a great portion of believers around the world. There are those who believe that their god is either limited in power or unwilling to override human decisions, but neither of those types of god are worth worshiping. Such gods may still exist, but the rational response to such a claim is to withhold acceptance until evidence is brought forward.

The author claims that atheists contradict themselves because that he concludes that they can't make value judgments about the world, lacking a divinely imposed purpose or an "ultimate" universally objective morality. The truth is that we don't need the universe to "care" about us in order to realize that compassion, evidence, and reason are the best tools for making our species (among others) flourish. We don't need a god to hand down stone tablets to tell us that murder is wrong. We don't need a god to tell us what to do with our lives. More to the point, the morality we obtained from biological and cultural evolution is more than sufficient to tell us that throwing acid in the faces of schoolgirls or murdering abortion-providing doctors is evil. Any moral person with the ability to stop or interfere with such acts would not hesitate to do so, yet billions believe in a god who does not rise to that level of compassion or power.

The common response is that said god had a good reason for abstaining; building someone's character, respecting someone's free will, or when such explanations are blatantly false, "God works in mysterious ways." Very often, plausible ways are easy to imagine for a reasonably powerful god to prevent evil without compromising the human benefits of hardship, so such rationalisation still fails Hume's challenge. The mysterious ways response is a rationalization without any explanatory power: the only grounds for that conclusion is that one's belief in their god's power and goodness must be maintained despite the evidence to the contrary. The disturbing effect is that tragedies and atrocities of all kinds have been excused this way throughout the ages. Furthermore, giving themselves a minimally satisfying answer to assuage their own feelings of anger and injustice, people are far less likely to undertake the actions necessary to prevent future occurrences, sometimes even seeing proactive change as an affront to "God's will."

The variety of moral codes accepted by Christians throughout the world and history should put the lie to the claim that they enjoy any special hotline to the moral lawgiver. The fact that humanists (among many other atheists) accept that morality is in some way contingent and changeable should be no surprise, given that there are religious people casting themselves on every side of various moral and ethical issues. That fluidity has a limit: in something like female genital mutilation, the pain, violation and medical consequences experienced by girls does not disappear simply because their culture deems FGM moral. Evil may not be a supernatural force, but making negative value judgments is both necessary and justified, with or without religion.

The author claims that atheism is far too simple. I agree that after twisting and selectively ignoring the arguments of atheists, he has created an easy opponent to defeat. His intended audience may rejoice that their faith and misconceptions have been reinforced, but therein lies the problem. Instead of causing people to thoughtfully examine their beliefs and moral attitudes, he stroked their religious egos and reinforced damaging stereotypes. Such a stance is unlikely to make the world any better; indeed, people with such attitudes have often mounted the greatest obstacles to those making the world a better place.