Pixel42: On the whole I do not agree with your views on this issue, and I will try to answer all your points.
The original article asked religious believers how they reconciled their belief in an all powerful and benevolent God with a natural disaster such as the tsunami.
Leaving aside fundamentalists (who are not at all likely to be reading the Guardian), I do not think that the majority of religious people in the UK claim to believe in an 'all powerful', 'interventionist' God. From a lifetime of discussions with people of various religions I know that many feel this to be a logical impossibility. So what is the point of attacking this straw man? Do you believe that Martin Kettle was engaging in honest debate?
This was a perfectly valid question,
1) It would most certainly be valid as a genuine question to someone who professes such beliefs, but it is not valid as a rhetorical question designed to smear all non-atheists.
2) It is also not valid to use the tragedy as an opportunity to bash religion. Kettle's article and Dawkins' letter would have been much more excusable if they had been written in response to believers who were gratuitously dragging religion into the situation. But it was Kettle's article that did this.
and the religious apologists' responses were exceedingly lame.
1) Why is a religious person a 'religious apologist'? Are you an 'atheist apologist'? Does the phrase have any point when applied to all religious people, or does it become a meaningless term of abuse?
2) I would agree that not one of them satisfactorily answered the question 'Why is there evil and suffering?'. I do not believe, though, that the answer is self-evidently 'there is no answer' (though it may turn out to be so).
3) I think that some of the responses to the original article (which contained a fair amount of pointless religion bashing) contained thoughts that were more to the point than anything in either the article or Dawkins' letter:
'to theorise about suffering is to degrade those who suffer'
'Now is not the time to rehearse intellectual arguments on the subject.'
'Kettle raises sound questions - just because they have no answers, it does not mean we can or should avoid struggling with them. But be wary of anyone, religious or secular, who says they know all the answers.'
Dawkins first letter, from which Randi quoted, was clearly written in anger and with his usual lack of tact,
1) But what, actually, is he angry about? You would do yourself a favour by taking a few minutes to consider this question. How on earth do any of us deal with the pain of what has happened and is happening? To be honest, my main response (other than financial) has been to increase my work output and my alcohol input. Others have feelings of targetless anger, and very much wish to find something or someone to blame. As one of the correspondents said (talking about militant atheists): 'faced with this tragedy, all they can do is to project their anger and sense of hopelessness by attacking someone else's faith system'. I have often observed that this kind of anger is used as a protection against grief, despair, anxiety and other painful feelings, but it can be very destructive. Much better to accept that there is really no-one to blame, however difficult this is for angry people.
2) As you suggest, this was not an isolated lapse. Dawkins has a reputation as a formidable intellectual who is sharp-witted and original, but arrogant, intolerant, and aggressive. This is extremely unfortunate as he is one of the most prominent defenders of science in this country.
but he made several good points.
Well, some of them could have been good points, but only in reply to a completely different set of letters. The correspondents might have suggested that the tsunami was divine retribution for {any of the favourites: promiscuity, homosexuality, equal treatment of women, materialism etc.}; they might have sneered at science for being unable to prevent or predict the disaster. But nobody said any of these things.
The reference to churches' tax breaks was a minor point and perhaps should have been left out as it detracted from the main argument and enabled the discussion to focus on this comment
1) Ask yourself: why doesn't he have the common sense and self control to leave out these irrelevant attacks, especially when they alienate some of his potential audience? Obsessed? Bigoted? But no, how could that be possible? He's on the right side.
2) I don't think it's at all obvious what organisations should have the charitable status that entitles them to tax exemptions, and whether or not religious ones should be included. I don't think we would find much consensus on this, and Dawkins should not assume (as he frequently does) that all (or most) non-religious people would share his opinion.
instead of the main question which was, and remains, how such disasters can be explained by people who maintain belief in an interventionist God.
If you will examine this for a moment you will see that you are trying to make other people, whose beliefs you despise, responsible for 'the main question'. If the tragedy raises questions for you then you must decide for yourself which are the important ones.
This has turned out a lot longer than I intended, and I doubt you will feel like replying to the whole thing. But I would be interested in your response to any of my points.
