Horrendous suffering can never be ignored in guessing about god(s)
Please be aware that a primary role of the clergy is always to promote their own cherished version of the faith, despite the fact that there are thousands of competing denominations, brands, sects, divisions into which Christianity has shattered. Promoting their versions of faith commonly means discouraging curiosity. An elderly Catholic woman once told me that the priests warned children not to think about what they’d learned in catechism. Which is a way of claiming that the priests alone possess Christian truth—in other words, they are paid propagandists for their brand.
It would be so refreshing if devout folks could grasp this reality.
And in that capacity, the clergy are in the business of building impenetrable walls around their precious doctrines: don’t let any information from the outside jeopardize what you believe. Hence the recommendation not to think. Especially about the implications of suffering, although this reality—at one time or another—touches all of the folks who fill the pews. People die in car crashes, children die of cancer, an elderly parent fades away because of advancing diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, mothers and fathers can be abusive, storms and other natural disasters ruin lives. The clergy have come up with excuses for god that may sound soothing, e.g., god works in mysterious ways, god has a larger, grander plan that we’re not aware of.
Hymns can also deflect attention from bad theology: e.g., He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, How Great Thou Art. Some people may be comforted by these kinds of theobabble, but others may abandon faith because they are not convinced.
But it would be remarkable indeed if clergy—from the pulpit—challenged their parishioners to explain why god allows episodes of massive suffering. For example, in my article posted here on 13 February 2026, I described the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto. More than 400,000 Jews were killed. Adolph Hitler had two major goals to achieve in the war he launched: to acquire more land east of Germany for the superior German race to thrive, and the extermination of the Jews.
Clergy could remind the devout that, according to the New Testament, god knows when a sparrow falls to earth. In the Old Testament, Uzzah was accompanying the Ark of the Covenant (2 Samuel 6) on its journey to Jerusalem. He placed his hand on it when he saw it wobbling; this was forbidden, and god killed him on the spot. In Genesis 38, we read that Onan refused to get his dead brother’s wife pregnant, as the law required. Instead, “…he spilled his semen on the ground…” So god killed him too.
The Bible insists that god is paying very close attention to human actions and thoughts. Horrendous suffering is inexplicable if this is true. Hence no one can offer any convincing explanations as to why people suffered so much in the Warsaw Ghetto—if truly there is a good, caring, powerful god watching over human affairs.
There are so many episodes of massive suffering in human history, and god-is-good theology takes a beating—is thoroughly defeated—when we consider them one by one. The Nazis were to blame for so many of them. Let’s consider a couple of their other disasters.
Babi Yar “is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and a site of massacres carried out by Nazi Germany’s forces during its campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II. The first and best documented of the massacres took place on 29-30 September 1941, in which some 33,771 Jews were murdered. Other victims of massacres at the site included Soviet prisoners of war, communists, and Romanies. It is estimated that a total of between 100,000 and 150,000 people were murdered at Babi Yar during the German occupation.” (Wikipedia)
Later in the Wikipedia article, we read about one of the rare survivors, Dina Pronicheva, an actress at the Kyiv Puppet Theatre:
“She was one of those ordered to march to the ravine, to be forced to undress and then be shot. Jumping before being shot and falling on other bodies, she played dead in a pile of corpses. She held perfectly still while the Nazis continued to shoot the wounded or gasping victims. Although the SS had covered the mass grave with earth, she eventually climbed though the soil and escaped. Since it was dark, she had to avoid the torches of the Nazis finishing off the remaining victims still alive, wounded, and gasping in the grave. She was one of the very few survivors of the massacre…”
Another massacre should never be lost from sight. On 10 June 1944, just a few days after the Normandy invasion, German soldiers surrounded a small French village, Oradour-sur-Glane. The men of the village were herded into barns, which were set on fire. Women and children—445 of them—were forced into the church, and then were murdered by machine gun and firebombs. In the church. If only devout believers could be made aware of this tragedy—and never forget it. How do they work it into a theology that claims their god has the whole world in his hands? For the full story, see Sarah Farmer’s 1999 book,
The implications of such suffering for god-is-good theology have been debated for a long time. For a comprehensive discussion of this issue, see John Loftus’ 2nd edition of God and Horrendous Suffering, available as Kindle, paperback, and hardcover.
Earlier I mentioned that information from the outside is dangerous, but clergy understand all too well that inside information can also be risky—that is, so many of the details in the gospels are distressing, alarming. Thus clergy are not likely to give gospel-reading assignments from the pulpit:
“Let’s make next month a time for intensive gospel study. Week one: please read the gospel of Mark, carefully, thoroughly, and be sure to make a list of all the events and Jesus-script that you find bizarre, farfetched, alarming—that seems to derive from ancient superstitions and magical thinking. Then the following weeks, do the same thing with Matthew, Luke, John. Pay very close attention: also make a list of the many flaws and contradictions these four gospels present. Then let’s have a discussion about their different perspectives on Jesus, and whether the gospels can be trusted.”
The Christian faith is so very vulnerable when either outside or inside information is carefully, thoughtfully evaluated. The paid propagandists prefer to divert attention from these major sources of doubt and disbelief.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment