The problem of pain vs. atheists?

This guy was my first ever troll. He's a crazy man who believes crazy things. On October 30th, he posted an article about his take of the problem of evil - and from his point of view the problem is with atheists. I'd give a direct link, but his blog is about as user-friendly as a whip-sword.

See, for him, the problem is pain. And it's a problem, and we atheists can't solve it. I used to consider myself a philosopher - I certainly studied it long enough - and I'd never heard of it as a serious refutation of the problem of evil. I mean, as atheists, we believe that "shit happens". Not to mention from a biological perspective, pain serves all kinds of useful functions (like us knowing when we're being injured). That it occasionally incapacitates the subject is one of those things that just happens to be the case - like bad backs and acne. Much of our biology is pretty slap-dash, as befits something that arose out of negentropic stochastic chemical processes.

The Problem of Pain is the name of a book by C.S. Lewis. But it was him trying to answer the normal problem of evil. Or, in other words, why does his god - whom he claims is all-loving and all-powerful - allow suffering to exist.

So, y'know, I wasn't aware pain was a problem for atheists. But this guy apparently thinks it is. Allow me to quote: "See: if something painful happens, and the person it happens to can't fix it except by causing more pain -- in fact, more pain than they are experiencing in the first place -- they don't have a way to choose their actions."

Well, of course, that's nonsense. If I get cancer and the only way to cure it is chemotherapy which will, in the short run, will be far worse than the cancer, I'll still choose to get the chemo. Duh. Because, as a human, I can understand the options - comfort in the short term and a lingering death later on, or suffering in the short term and a an overall greatly improved.

He goes on to say: "You know: as if somehow some suffering ultimately has a therapeutic or, if we dare say it, redemptive purpose." His argument seems to be - albeit stated in an awkward way - that because atheists have a the faculty commonly described as "will" and they can accept pain for a greater purpose (such as willing to accept chemo to overcome cancer), that atheists themselves have answered the question of evil because, wait for it, we accept that sometimes pain is necessary to be better people.

The problem he has with the problem of pain, however, is that atheists aren't either all-benevolent or all-powerful. With our limited powers, yeah, we'll accept chemo to get rid of cancer. But none of us are invested with omnipotence. An atheist can't just will cancer away with no pain or suffering, not for themselves or others. Many of us would, if we could, because the pain of chemotheraphy does not make cancer patients better human beings, except insofar as it prolongs their lives. They don't come out the other side with more character. They're just alive.

The common Christian conception of god, however, is all-powerful, however. Instead of making cancer patients go through chemo, their god could just decide that there was no such thing as cancer. Furthermore, this being could decide that there is no reason for redemption, either. That redemption just didn't mean anything in this universe, or any other universe, because - out of his infinite kindness and compassion - their god wouldn't want us to suffer.

The funny thing is, he even knows this. He says, "[John Loftus' view] is that God ought to be good enough and powerful enough and intelligent enough to create a world where these crappy choices ought not to have to be made." But then he goes on to say, "It's an interesting redirection of the question, but it is where we turn the bend from exposing the atheist short-comings to actually advancing the Christian faith -- and I'll get you back with that another day."

So while he admits the argument needs to be addressed, he doesn't actually address it. I don't much read the guy's blog - it's . . . not my cup of tea, shall we say - but I'm almost curious to see if he does try to follow this up. Because I just don't see pain as being a problem for atheists. It exists along with a lot of other crappy things like earthquakes that level cities and pop music. Pain exists because it exists, and because it serves a useful biological function (one that far outstrips its occasional down sides). I just don't see how that's a problem for atheists in the first place.

Still, a pretty bizarre argument. But to try to argue the problem of evil while maintaining your belief in an all-loving, all-forgiving, all-powerful god requires a lot of bizarre thinking.