By ROSS DOUTHAT - THE NEW YORK TIMES
Added: Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 UTC

Thanks to mirandaceleste for the link.
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/fundamentalists-and-the-atheists-who-love-them/

As a general rule, I try to avoid writing about both Pat Robertson and Richard Dawkins. (The attention only encourages them). But Dawkins’ “defense” of Robertson, against the “milquetoast” Christians who rushed to disavow the televangelist’s suggestion that the Haitian earthquake victims were being singled out for divine punishment, offers an interesting illustration of militant atheism’s symbiotic relationship with religious fundamentalism. Here’s the new atheist:

Loathsome as Robertson’s views undoubtedly are, he is the Christian who stands squarely in the Christian tradition. The agonized theodiceans who see suffering as an intractable “mystery”, or who “see God” in the help, money and goodwill that is now flooding into Haiti, or (most nauseating of all) who claim to see God “suffering on the cross” in the ruins of Port-au-Prince, those faux-anguished hypocrites are denying the centrepiece of their own theology. It is the obnoxious Pat Robertson who is the true Christian here.

Where was God in Noah’s flood? He was systematically drowning the entire world, animal as well as human, as punishment for “sin.” Where was God when Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed with fire and brimstone? He was deliberately barbecuing the citizenry, lock stock and barrel, as punishment for “sin”. Dear modern, enlightened, theologically sophisticated Christian, your entire religion is founded on an obsession with “sin”, with punishment and with atonement. Where do you find the effrontery to condemn Pat Robertson, you who have signed up to the obnoxious doctrine that the central purpose of Jesus’ incarnation was to have himself tortured as a scapegoat for the “sins” of all mankind, past, present and future …

The piece continues in this vein for some time. Dawkins is quite right, of course, that Christianity lays a heavy emphasis on sin, atonement, and (yes) the possibility of damnation. But whether this means that Christians are obliged to interpret the disasters that befall human beings in this life as God’s punishment for specific sins is another question entirely. Let’s consult one of Christianity’s leading authorities on the matter (the emphases are mine):
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http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/fundamentalists-and-the-atheists-who-love-them/

TAGGED: COMMENTARY, HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS, RELIGION

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