The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliche. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis. In thought reform, for instance, the phrase "bourgeois mentality" is used to encompass and critically dismiss ordinarily troublesome concerns like the quest for individual expression, the exploration of alternative ideas, and the search of perspective and balance ... (loaded language is) the "language of non-thought."
-- Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, by Robert Jay Lifton
This is so absolutely true. Orwell's 1984 dramatizes this issue very, very well. It got me thinking. Once I was talking to a theist friend and I mentioned to her that I was reading up on some theodicy issues and had found of of Bert Ehrman's books about the variety of ways that the bible attempts to explain suffering. After a brief discussion of the problem (e.g. Why is there evil? If God can stop it but won't then he is evil. If he would but can't then he is not worth worshiping.) After my 3 minute description of the PROBLEM of theodicy, he reply was "Original sin. Duh!"
Bam. Like that a 3,000 year old philisophical dillema is solved. I was truly amazed at the ability of such a short, pat answer to shut down my firend's critical thinking. (Note that when you tease out the logic of original sin, it doesn't even answer the question posed!)
How many of these simple phrase responses does the Christian faith use to continue the "language of non-thought" as Lifton puts it?
Here is a sock-puppet conversation I wrote to show what I mean. (T = Theist and A = Atheist).
T: I claim that there is an all loving and all knowing and all powerful God and he created the universe and designed it for his wonderful creation, humans.
A: If God loves humans so much why do all these bad things happen?
T: Free will.
A: Huh?
T: To make humans perfect, God had to give them free will. Otherwise they would just be robots. Since people have free will, they can choose to do evil.
A: So God is all powerful? He can do the impossible?
T: Yup!
A: Then why couldn't he create a universe and a set of logical rules so that people had free will but evil things couldn't or just didn't happen?
T: That's impossible. If humans have free will, then they can choose to do evil.
A: But you said god is all powerful. If he invented logic, couldn't he change logic so that free will and evil-free behavior was not impossible?
T: Uh.... He *could* do that since he can do anything, but he *chose* to give humans free will because free will is such a good thing.
A: So he could have given us BOTH free will and NO evil, but he chose to give us free will AND evil because that is better?
T: Uhm.... yeah.
A: How is that better?
T: ....
T: God works in mysterious ways.
A: Another question. Does God know what will happen in the future?
T: Yes, God is infinite. He knows everything that will ever happen. Ever. He is outside of time. Isn't that awesome?
A: So when he snapped his figurative fingers and made the universe, he knew EVERYTHING that would happen? He knows when everyone would be born, what they would do, and when and how they would die?
T: Yup. God has a plan for us all! Doesn't that make you feel all warm, safe, and snugly.
A: Maybe. Let me ask you this... If God knows everything I am going to do, doesn't that mean I *don't* have free will?
T: No. You have free will.
A: But if God knows what I am going to do, that means that when I come up to a decision point and I could do one out of a million things, God knows I will pick choice number 673, right?
T: Yup.
A: And there is no way I could do anything else other than pick choice 673, right? Because God is perfect and if he knew I would pick 673, then I can't NOT pick it, right?
T: Yeah.
A: So I do not have the free will to pick anything other than 673. That choice has already been made by future me. It is not something waiting to be done. Present me and pre-choice me has no free will.
T: No no no. You have free will. You can choose anything you want. God just knows what you will choose.
A: Well, seems logically unsound, but let's move on. Another question. We already said that God knew everything that was going to happen in all of time before he created the universe, right?
T: Yeah.
A: So when he created me, he knew that I would be atheistic. He knew I would use the senses he gave me and the rational mind he gave me and require the appropriate level of evidence before I would choose to believe certain claims. That was his plan for me.
T: Yup.
A: And yet he refuses to show me the evidence I require.
T: God can't reveal himself, because...
A: Yeah yeah. But this means that I won't accept Jesus as my personal savior and, as a result, I will go to hell for all eternity.
T: That's what I am trying to warn you about. I don't want you to go to hell!
A: So God KNEW that I would go to hell when he created me and he created me none the less? In fact, it was his "plan" that I should go to hell. He made billions of people knowing that he was dooming them to an eternity of suffering. How is that good and not utterly evil?
T: No, you have free will. You can choose to accept Jesus any time. You will go to hell because of YOUR choice, not because God choses to send you there.
A: But God knew I would go to hell even before he made me. He could have 1) chose not to make me, or 2) to make me in a way so that I wouldn't go to hell. But instead, he made me this way and I have no way to escape hell because he already knows that I am going there. I have no free will to do otherwise.
T: Uhm... God works in mysterious ways?
A: One final question. When I first asked about the existence of evil in the world, you responded "free will."
T: Yup. People must be allowed to choose to evil things to other people if they are to have free will.
A: Well, as I said, God could have made it not work that way, but we already went over that. What I want to know is: What about natural disasters?
T: What about them?
A: What about situations where the bad actor is not a person but a force of nature? For example, in 2004 a Tsunami in Southeast Asia killed 225,000 people. There was no free will involved with the Tsunami. The Tsunami didn't choose anything. Why did God let the tectonic plates shift and create an undersea quake that resulted in a wave that killed 225,000 people. And don't try and say that all of those people deserved to drown horrible deaths because they all had sinned because they all had the free will to choose to sin. Even if I were to agree with such a concept, tens of thousands of newly born infants drowned or slowly died of exposure or disease as a reusult of the devastation. Those newborns couldn't have had committed any sin yet! Why do those evil things happen? And you can't say free will!
T: ....
T: Original sin?
A: Sigh.
T: God is love?
A: Goodbye.
UPDATE: After a technical issue and an absence, I have had to re-post all of my old posts. As a result there will be many posts listed as published today, Dec 3, 2009, that were posted sometime earlier in the year, but I do not know the exact date. this post is one of them.
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