Religious delusions no longer serve the needs of humanity
In my article here last week, I described three brick walls that Christian theology collides with, and which, in fact, demonstrate that it faces insurmountable problems: 1. Horrendous suffering, 2. Catastrophic superstition, and 3. The vicious god depicted in the Bible. Devout believers fail to detect the superstitions because these bizarre beliefs were imbedded in their brains at a very early age. When I was a kid, attending a Methodist church in rural Indiana, every quarter we had communion Sunday: we pretended to eat the body of Jesus (little chunks of Wonderbread) and drink his blood (thimble-sized cups of grape juice). Nobody was there to tell me, “That’s pretty gross, you know.” On the other side of town, Catholics did this every Sunday and truly believed that, by the miracle of the mass, they were eating and drinking the real Jesus. This is what I mean by catastrophic superstition. In no way does this improve our understanding of reality.
And because the clergy commonly quote feel-good Bible verses from the pulpit—and the laity don’t make a habit of careful Bible study—the vicious god we find in the Christian scriptures is not noticed. We might as well say that the folks in the pews enjoy being in denial.
Horrendous suffering, however, is harder to deny, to pretend it’s not as bad as it really is. It hits us every day in the news, and it is oh-so-obvious to anyone who studies history. But the study of history is not a common habit, any more than careful Bible study is. As a species we tend to prefer entertainment to education, and studies have shown that citizens of the modern world don’t study/read all that much. Television provides massive levels of entertainment.
Moreover, theologians and clergy provide trite arguments to deflect attention from the severe implications of horrendous suffering: our god works in mysterious ways; he/she/it has plans that we don’t know about and can’t possibly understand; our god knows all of our thoughts and deeds, and is looking out for us. All of these excuses disintegrate when people bother to study what humans have had to endure for millennia.
Perhaps the most stunning example of horrendous suffering occurred in the 14th century: the Black Plague, which killed perhaps one-quarter to one-third of humans between India and England. It was a hideous, painful way to die. And the church worked hard to convince people that the plague was god’s way of punishing sin—which is, more or less, embracing a vicious god. But how many devout people today are even aware of the horrors of the Black Plague?
Yet the horrors that humanity endured during the 20th century were even worse. Between 1914 and 1945 there were two world wars that killed—by some estimates—80 to 90 million people. And World War I helped to fuel the Spanish Flu, that killed many millions of people worldwide. Religion took a big hit because of these realities, especially Christianity. In western Europe, there has been a dramatic decline in religious attachment.
For basic, critical analysis of suffering in a theological context, John Loftus’ anthology, God and Horrendous Suffering, 2nd Edition is now available, in both Kindle and paperback. This work is an important portal into just how devastating human and animal suffering is for theology.
One of the standout brutalities of the Second World War was the Holocaust, one of the most thoroughly documented crimes in human history. The literature on this event is vast, which includes many memoirs of survivors, and careful reconstructions of events by historians.
Here I’m going to focus on just two.
· Elie Wiesel’s book Night, which The New York Times called “A slim volume of terrifying power.”
Wiesel describes the disintegration of his life and well-being in agonizing detail. He lived in Sighet, which was part of Hungary, 1940-1944. There were rumors that Germany was being defeated in its war against Russia, but that did not mean they would escape Hitler’s virulent anti-Semitism. Wiesel mentions the order that came for all Jews to wear the yellow star. There were two ghettos set up in Sighet, and his family was moved from one to another. And then the day came when all the Jews were herded in transport trains—destination unknown. “The doors clanked shut. We had fallen into the trap, up to our necks. The doors were nailed, the way back irrevocably cut off. The world had become a hermetically sealed cattle car.” (p. 24)
When the train stopped at its destination, Birkenau, a soldier was shouting, “Men to the left! Women to the right!” Wiesel didn’t realize the seriousness of this moment until later: “And I walked on with my father, with the men. I didn’t know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora [his sister] forever. I kept walking, my father holding my hand.” (p. 29)
The first night in one the barracks was terrifying: “This is what the antechamber of hell must look like. So many crazed men, so much shouting, so much brutality.” (p. 34)
“Never shall I forget that night…Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever…Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.” (p. 34)
“Our senses were numbed, everything was fading into a fog. We no longer clung to anything. The instincts of self-preservation, of self-defense, of pride, had all deserted us. In one terrifying moment of lucidity, I thought of us as damned souls wandering through the void, souls condemned to wander through space until the end of time, seeking redemption, seeking oblivion, without any hope of finding either.” (p. 36)
· Helene Munson’s 2021 book, Hitler’s Boy Soldiers: How My Father’s Generation Was Trained to Kill and Sent to Die for Germany.
This is truly a frightening read, but it is an important book for understanding the horrendous suffering that World War II brought to humanity.
“From the beginning of his rule in 1933, Hitler had advocated a special, separate National Socialist-controlled education system for particularly promising youngsters. This had led to the formation of a hierarchy of elite schools. They had the task of supplying the future Nazi state with reliable and brainwashed party leaders, administrators, law-enforcement, and military officers… As with everything else in Germany, the Nazis inherited a well-functioning school system that was easily adapted to their own goals.” (p. 54)
“… the education focused on awakening each boy’s lust for power. A former student reported that he saw the school as a miniature Führer state, constantly building him and his classmates into the future rulers of the master race… compassion was bread out of them.” (p. 59)
In the introduction to a 1938 book, Thomas Mann “…warned the world about the impending disaster that was to befall Germany if it continued to educate its children in such a cruel, mindless way. He presaged that the consequences would be dire. It was a timely and urgent warning, but one that went unheard.” (p. 91)
“In the world they were growing up in, most boys had only one concern. They worried that the war would be over too soon, before they were old enough to join, deprived of the chance to become heroes. What they wanted most was to prove to the Führer that they were worthy of him.” (p. 103)
“The boys were too caught up in Nazi ideology to even consider running away. Of those soldiers who did, more than thirty-five thousand were convicted by German military courts in the last months of the war. Some twenty-three we’re sentenced to death, and at least fifteen thousand were actually executed…” (p. 148)
Both the Wiesel and Munson books are highly readable—as well as very troubling. But they are worthy examples of the vast literature that awaits those who want to be informed about horrendous suffering—who are no longer satisfied with shallow theological excuses.
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes:
· Guessing About God (2023),
· Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available.
· Everything You Need to Know About Prayer But May Not Want to Admit (2025)
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.
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