A tale of two Atheists: The Moral objections of Hitchens and Fry

Atheism often rests on or makes moral claims.  I shall tell you of two and analyze their cases.

Christopher Hitchens before he died spoke about his trip to North Korea about Kim jung il, in which he compared the Abrahamic God to the egomaniacal dictator.  He reported that while in Sunday school he was told that the God of Christianity would be worshipped for eternity in heaven. Hitchens then proceeded to declare heaven on Earth to be the state of North Korea. Indeed in Revelation there is worship.  But that is not eternity.  In eternity to come we worship God in the New Heavens and the new earth.  Aside from mistaking the manner as do most Christians his argument misses more central things.

There are several key failures to his argument.  First and foremost is the nature of God.  God who created all things is worthy and deserving of all praise.   Furthermore we are created to praise God, not a human dictator which is why such regimes are naturally evil and corrupt.  When praising God we live out our purpose, and that is why it would be heaven to worship him forever.When we fail to worship God we make other things God.  We hunger for that connection like we hunger for food or thirst for water.  Hitchens in this sense may as well be saying he won't submit to the tyranny of food or water, for he was made with a need for those too.
  When you see God you can do nothing else but worship him as it is part of his nature.  Hitchens fails to understand the basic nature of God and heaven.  When man worships God, God is not being an egomaniac.  He is simply demanding the attention he deserves.   I read Brad Pitt make a similar claim.  Having grown up Christian he complained “it all seemed like it was about him”.  If I told Brad Pitt I did a great job in a role he played he would demand I not take such praise. Yet he cannot give God the true credit that is due him.  

He similarly oversimplifies the history of religion, overlooking how atheistic regimes have slaughtered millions upon millions.  He does show intelligence in recognizing interfaith distinctions are of incredible importance.  The cause of war is not religion though it like all possible points of conflict can bring out the evil of man.

 Christopher would be right about worship, save that worship actually belongs to God.  Worship derives itself from “worthship” to declare to someone what they are worth. A false God (which is what the Kims always set themselves up as) and which we all often are steal glory for themselves. The Kim family is not worthy of the worship they demand.  Kim Jung Il did not form mankind, he does not hold together the universe neither has any autocrat in history. Wrong worship is sin and Idolatry and that was what Hitchens saw.  It is not to be an egomaniac when one is accurately demanding credit and glory where they are due.  

It’s even less so when you hold the people together whom you created and extend your benevolence.  Kim absorbed and drained others, God gives himself and does so to a hating and undeserving creation. Kim would never die for his people, but our God did die for us.  The Kims are Creatures, God is creator.  A creature does not deserve the worship the Kim’s received.  God is Holy and other, and should be respected as such. 

North Korea was in name an atheistic state as Hitchens points out that still deified someone.  Hitchens however overlooks the obvious.  There is no religionless state for mankind since we are made to worship.  The question is not will we, but what will any of us worship and ultimately who and what that should be.

Onto number 2, Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry recently in an interview said that if he met God he would do something rather uncouth.  He would angrily tell God “what about the children with bone cancer?” and “righteously” shake his fist.  His argument too was based on morality. The logic goes  "If God existed, he wouldn’t let evil or pain or anything as such exist".  Worse yet and more brazenly he is stating essentially that even if such a God that would allow that did exist, Stephen Fry would make a more righteous and better God. 

Stephen misses some important things.  What about all the children without bone cancer?  Sure there are poor but how many people have their needs met?  Sure there are wicked people but what about all those who do meet justice?  The personal vendetta seems in many ways quite clear.  God gets all the blame for the bad, but can’t get any of the credit for the good.  The objector has to be put in a moral high ground yet to be moral we deal in absolutes that require God.

Most telling is how he declares God punishes us with what is truly corruption of God's design, and that he would prefer God be like the pagan God's.  For him any good God would have to live up to his standards.  His stipulation that God is somehow the creator of evil and inflicts innocent man with pestilence and illness is quite mistaken.
This is not scriptural

Romans 5:12
Therefore, just as sin came into the wold through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men because all sinned.

It is our doing, we have done this to ourselves.  Adam and Eve were cursed in Genesis 3 and we live the repercussions of our introducing sin into the world.  Death is not God's doing and it's existence does not prove his horridness but our continued common Grace and salvation proves his goodness to a rebellious people.

Further suffering does not make a person innocent and owed heaven.  All are born sinful and all sin which to a Holy God requires the punishment of Hell.  We can count it a blessing he sacrificed his own son (God himself) to take the wrath meant for us.

I do give him respect for being honest, atheism is indeed not about there not being a God but that if there is one, he must be stupid.

            Hitchens and Fry had to borrow from the Christian God to slap him in the face.  As atheists Hitchens and Fry believe in nontheistic evolution.  As such both must say that morality evolved locally.  In this view whether a group of people came together to make it up (and therefore did so by their chemical makeup) or not he simply can’t say his morality is any better.  All he can say at best  is that it is different, but not really since it's a value claim needing an absolute. 

Even this for him though relies on a chemically wired brain.  Who knows if he has it backward, after all it had no designer.  Since it all evolved by chance, morality and logic are relative.  There is no true epistemology at all, truth is unknown yet both claimed to know it.  In their system of belief the people they know have value, simply can’t.  Rather those children with cancer or those suffering in Korea are no more valuable than a turnip since the only difference is in the arrangement and composition of their atoms.  Such is inevitable without a source of absolute moral truth found in God. 

Yet they know those people have dignity and value.  Atheism is inconsistent with how atheists live. Most atheists are moral people but buy into the non sequitur “evil exists, no God would allow evil because no good can come from pain and suffering”.  Why does God get all the blame for any evil and not the credit for all the good in the world?  

What will you tell the person who is starving or the children Steven mentions?  Cheer up; you’re going to die anyway? Suffering becomes pointless, suicide a logical ends to a meaningless life. One cannot even say evil will be overcome, or that it definitively exists since there is no absolute standard.  Law demands a law giver, since it is asked by or about a person.  Without this ultimate stopping point truly, there is no truth at all.

God is the only necessary being, man is contingent.  For man to exist God had to first.  God is the office of creator, and with it judge due to God's role in originating and sustaining creation. The judgment that no God would allow a world with suffering is actually a usurping claim to be God in the sense of rendering judgment. It also supposes self-ownership, but we belong to God. It presupposes the person making the judgment has the knowledge and the place to judge good from Evil in this way.

What the person really is saying is that IF I WERE GOD, I COULD DO BETTER.  Moreover I am a God.  Sound familiar?  Genesis 3 details this same sin that is the root of all sin.  Desiring to be and living as one is a God.  Hitchens says as much when he calls religion slavery.  God for him is the tyrant and he wished to be his own God.  Sadly Hitchens did not realize man was made for God.  He chose to stay covered up and out of Eden rather than return on God's terms.

Tellingly Christopher says "I don't want that heaven, it would be hell for me".  And indeed it would be, because he would have to honor God and have to face the reality of who God is.  He sadly has now, but not in righteousness.  He bought a preferable lie.

 He bought into the lie that man can be his own master.  However such is never the case.  Either you live with Christ as King or a slave to sin and death (John 8:34, Romans 6:18-20).  God has dominion, whether we like it or not.  And it's for our good and blessing, whether we like it or not.

Man is not God nor is he all-knowing and powerful, So how can he say this with righteous and true judgment?  He cannot, but he does due to his broken relationship with God.  Man is made for communion with God, but due to the fall he has lost that close intimacy which is regained through the cross.  This is why man is so self-centered and oriented.

Such claims about suffering ultimately fall back personally on being a good person which cannot be absolutely defined.  Being a “good person” by human standards is works righteousness.   Man even starts off in the hole and has fallen short (Romans3:20-23).Even our thoughts are evil (Genesis 6:5).  Nobody is naturally or otherwise innocent like Mr. Fry and Hitchens assert.  

The only time a bad thing happened to anybody who was good, was on the cross.  And after that Jesus got the reward he deserved for his self-sacrifice.  
Fair gets us hell.  I wouldn’t ask for fair.  The question isn’t why does God not do what we call good, the question is why did a Holy God let me wake up this morning knowing what I thought not just what I did.  His goodness is inspite of ourselves not because of it.  But if we make little of God and much of ourselves we will put ourselves above him.

The same person going by works righteousness if in the seat of a judge wouldn't acquit or forgive the person being judged if they knew all about the person.  Nobody ever mends a relationship by saying “Look at how many times I didn't lie/cheat/steal or hurt you?  I can make it up.” You know better than to let such a thing slide, how much more does a Holy God? 
 No judge lets a criminal loose based on the fact that he’s “ a good guy” for doing a few good things when the evil he did demands justice, a price we could never pay ourselves.  Furthermore, if this is why you do the good things you do, then they aren't good at all.  They are done with you at the center and not done because of a need in the greater good, nor would they outweigh your sins even if they were.

In closing I’ll posit a few thoughts.  God is not like humanity, creation is a broken mirror.
I don’t believe in the God they don’t believe in either.  But that God isn’t the God of the bible.  Humanity may reflect God’s image, but it is horribly broken and corrupt.  Such is the case with Kim Jung Il, Christopher, Stephen and yes even myself.  We will never know ultimately why so many bad things happen.  God does demonstrate our need for him, and the existence of evil does that.  
Evil itself is privation and could be argued to exist as an idea, and a negation to the good.  The absence of something demonstrates the need for its presence.  Green seems more like Green when you've seen red, and black more black when you've seen white.  Evil is the absence of God, its existence shows our need for God, and the redemption in Christ would not be possible in a “perfect world”, for it would not be needed and we would not have that great unmatchable demonstration of love. Without suffering, without the fall we would not have the display of love and righteousness that God gives in the work of the Cross.

The state of the world is not because of God’s wicked hand (though he is sovereign over evil).  God does not originate evil but he has permitted it for his purpose.  I cannot claim to have such hidden knowledge as to why in all circumstances.

Evil is the break in Shalom, peace.  It is a greater peace than lack of conflict but the presence of good and blessing in all creation where the world is set right.  We broke that shalom first.  This is our doing and without the God of the Cross, there is no victory over it.  I have the certainty we will have shalom again. One day all tears will be wiped away and every knee shall bow.  Each knee will bow, but whether it is in loving fealty or begrudging anger depends on the person.  I mourn Christopher and pray for Stephen's sake, it is the former.

Philipians 2:8

8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.


EDIT: It does occur to me that Steven Fry's admission that he'd be fine with a God more akin to the Roman Pagan Pantheon shows a key assumption.  He's more fine with a God that is more human, since such a God can make mistakes and be cruel.  This is a very personal slight at God.  If God is all knowing and omniscient then he cannot possibly allow any suffering (something Steven Fry wouldn't allow), unless he is also cruel and sick.  God therefore must admit he is such or stop dissapointing, or otherwise he simply is just like us (an admission by Mr.Fry about human nature).  In essence God is just an omniscient, omnipotent pagan God who just claims to be morally superior.
Though if he makes the point that "no good comes from evil/suffering" his argument poses a conundrum.  To truly hold to it the objector must affirm that his objection and atheism is not a good thing otherwise his conversion and objection can be counted as good that came from these things.  Even an Atheist believes Suffering and Evil serve a purpose and that purpose can be good, so why can't an all knowing God of the universe work these things towards a good? One beyond what we can fathom? For Mr.Fry  God can't be mystery or other and Fry is guilty of reading into God what he assumes a God of Love and all the omni's should be.  It's placing one self over God plain and simple.